What is the role of the news media 1: Industry Narratives of News

Note Taking

The main focus of chapter three is power and media production. It focuses on how groups become hegemonic, the institutions that maintain hegemony and the roles of professional communicators in making and maintaining hegemony (Carah & Louw, 2015). This attributes to the objective of the book that lay emphasis on meaning, power and participation according to Carah, and Louw (2015)’s introductory note.

Meaning and Power: The meaning of power is generally derived from the entire power relationships in the society. Carah and Louw (2015) argued that meaning is always embedded in power relationships while power in itself refers to the ability of having an individual’s interest to prevail over others. Power is assumed to be a derivative of access to economic and cultural resources, as well as social position and linguistic factors. Notably, power does not prevail naturally or automatically but through labor and struggle. Under media and cultural production, there should be inquiries about issues such as nature and context of communication, the groups that are socially or politically dominant and how such groups got and stay dominant and powerful, as well as how they manage their discourse within the society and groups that resist such discourses.

Becoming Hegemonic: It refers to becoming dominant or alliance to group leading the society. The process entails becoming the ruling group. The groups must be able to set overarching intellectual agenda and manipulate the dominant discourse in the society. The concept of becoming hegemonic include building and maintaining a working set of political alliances, successfully generating consent from the ruled and building coercive capacity to attain authority via judicial system, as well as military.

How do groups become hegemonic: Groups can become hegemonic by becoming political elites, as well as through trade organizations or some sort of powerful institutions that control the wider interest of the elite groups. This starts by becoming political elite. Political elites coordinate the interest of wider ruling elites in the society through the process of negotiation and bargaining either through political class, institutions like parliament or professionals Hegemony through World Trade Organizations that promote capacity to alternate between consensus and conflict-driven communication, alliance construction and direction of discourses that hold teams together and remain focused on the vision of governance and collaboration.

Feudalism and early capitalism: The process of becoming hegemonic has evolved over time. During feudalism, power was generally hereditary within families who were not to become dominant because they born dominant. After feudalism, the bourgeoisie that became powerful had to find a way of creating, organizing and controlling their differences and their decision-making, thus leading to the creation of bourgeois public forums like parliament. Post-bourgeois led to widening of parliament to accommodate middle class with hegemonic art and managerialism whereby parliaments was the true seat of power decline.

Managerial to global network capitalism: Parliament have become less important regarding negotiations, thereby leading to labor parties and conservative parties becoming narrowed down to an extent that elections only produce intra-elite rotation instead of crucial changes. All parliaments relied on bureaucratic managers for decision-making and policies while the managerial elites depended on pseudo-choices. Liberal democracies led to decline in managerialist rulers and subsequent vote turnover. Attaining hegemony therefore required innately directed discourses to unified hegemonic teams together and externally direct the team to be attractive to the public. Development of conservative-populism within societies later became the managerial solution for solving social problems.

Hegemony and the Art of Managing Discourses: Hegemonic groups maintain their hegemony through: Producing discourses that can advance their interests. Attempting to create discursive closure that can influence people and favor their perspectives. Regulate their discursive twists to their advantage.

Managing the structures of meaning making: Dominant groups employ communication strategists or professionals to make meaning. The use of institutions such as universities to develop communication structures and influential discourses. Controlling the structures of meaning making by manipulating the flow of resources into such structures. Funding institutions that aid the creation of hegemonic and regulatory decisions, as well as the use of non-opaque interventions.

Managing the meaning makers: Communication professionals pay attention to personnel involved in meaning making and develop structures that create fulcrums for discourse creators. Attracting the right personnel to manage discourse. Designing ideological positions that make meaning to the public. Setting of salary levels for managing recruitment process. Promoting appropriate people to manage discourse.

Regulating meaning-making practices: This done through the use of various methods that improves skills and knowledge of professionals hired to regulate and manage meaning making such as: Education and training programs and on-the- job socialization programs.

Adapting and repurposing meanings: Professionals can adapt and repurpose meaning by focusing on appropriating, recycling and reworking on the discourses. Being sensitive to contextual roots of hegemonic, discursive intervention and manipulation of the discourse.

Monitoring and responding to shifting meanings: This can be done by professionals who monitor the actual flow of meaning. Professionals should focus on how the meaning flows into the social network. Developing communication interventions that regulate information exchange and power relationships.

Discursive Resistance and Weakening Hegemonies: This focuses on securing dominance. Oppositions find communicative gaps and spaces in feudal elites to resist hegemonies. Increased expectations from the citizens that lead to collapse consent of the public. Wind-back reforms strategies and intra-elite conflict that emerged between managers led to increased resistance.

Reference

Carah, N., & Louw, E. (2015). Media and society: Production, content and participation. Sage.