The Media

In sociology the many different perspectives all have different views on our media and the ownership of it, the effects it has on us, how it represents us and its various forms. Post modernists believe that we live in a media saturated society, everywhere we turn there is information and images. We can all be sat with our family in a room and all be using different types of media. No longer do we have the cosy image of a family sat together around a wireless or a TV. Various tablets, phones and other screens provide us with instant access to media. Social media takes up hours of our time now. The printed media is in decline but the titles of newspapers flourish online either free or hidden behind a paywall. There used to be a live saturday evening TV program called Noel's House Party where there would be a device hidden in the TV of a largely unsuspecting family (at least one member would be in on it to give access), at some point during the show they would jump to the family watching them watch Noel's House Party. The fun would be in seeing the family react, usually a dad laid on a sofa shouts out in alarm and recognition. people might flee a room, the audience would howl.  this couldn't really work now as the family may be in the same room but they will be looking at different screens. And do people watch live TV as much?

Post Modernist Baudrillard saw this media saturation as dangerous as it provided clean, often untrue, messages as people clung onto what made sense to them. For example during the first Gulf war in 1990, people believed that this was a clean war as they accepted certain images but rejected others. Baudrillard called this hyperreality. This has grown since 1990.

Pluralist sociologists believe that the media gives audiences what they want, it provides information and entertainment. If an audience wanes the media looks to give another message which they may like. This usually means that the media looks for stories which will catch the interest of as large an audience as they can. So since the virus and the partial lock down the media has reported what they feel people want to hear. No one really wants to hear about illness and death on large scale so the media creates problems and heroes. These may well be justified in the case of not enough testing (problem) and NHS workers. The media encouraged us to clap and cheer on Thursday nights at 8pm. This gives an image of the brave Tommy fighting an enemy. In this case the Tommy is not in military garb but in NHS ware - using safety pins to attach ill fitting masks. On Twitter a friend who is a nurse posted a picture of her colleagues waiting outside their chemo wards, socially distanced apart clutching water bottles and lunchboxes. I cried like a child. Their smiles hiding a bravery I'm not sure I have. When the Prime Minister was hospitalised and then admitted to intensive care, the Sun newspaper asked (or told) its readers to clap and pray for his recovery. This only happened in some areas and was not as popular as the NHS tributes on Thursday nights, silence on our road compared to cheers and horns and fireworks this evening (Thursday). This is perhaps because the newspaper's cynicism about politicians and its shifting political support means the readers are jaded towards a politician and their sympathies lie with the NHS. In some cases because that's what the media has highlighted that they should do.

Another function of the media according to pluralists is to inform us. The traditional media is carrying this out in various ways, from sensationalism in the popular newspapers to factual analysis from the BBC. We are told what is happening, given quantitative data and analysis from experts and commentators. My favourite information point is BBC Radio 4's PM program hosted by Evan Dando. We get the government's briefing then a Q&A followed by Evan speaking to experts and giving the audience the key points. This is done calmly and factually. The program ends with a Covid Diary, a listener sharing their experiences and then a fitting piece of music nominated by a listener. I cried as I listened to this this week, a mother describing how she is bonding with her three sons followed by the theme tune to BBC sitcom The Detectorists. It's been a tearful week for me. The media also is supposed to keep governments in check. To question their actions and criticise. The traditional  media has been doing this as well, especially on the subject of mass testing. Wondering why the government has been so slow in reacting, unlike Germany. 

As I've mentioned elsewhere access to the media is widespread, I mention newspapers and Radio 4. For some people this is analogue, old fashioned. Others find their media on Apps and social media and YouTube. this means that regulation is less tight. People post without consulting lawyers and sometimes not looking for factual evidence. David Icke appeared on a regional BBC news program and made statements about 5G transmitters and called a mandatory vaccine 'fascist'. There are other conspiracy theories out there. Before this interview some 5G transmitters were set alight. Ofcom who regulate the media are investigating Icke's interview and YouTube are removing videos. But it is difficult to regulate something as widespread as new media. It has many nooks and cranies to hide in. It is also becoming the mainstream as this is how people receive their information.

Marxists believe the media maintains and reproduces capitalism and is uncritical of it. Althusser called it an ideological state apparatus. If we look at the media and the virus from a Marxist perspective we can find evidence of this. The economy is mentioned as often as lives. The virus is often cited as a great leveler, something that we all can get. The Prime Minister is ill from it as was the Prince of Wales. However if we look at reports we see that the poorer you are the more you suffer from the actions of the government and the virus. People without gardens, living in urban areas haven't the space which is needed in a partial lockdown, they are more likely to be in poor mental and physical health. It also crosses ethnic boundaries. In New York black Americans are disproportionately dying. Poverty is killing people. Marxists would point this out. Yet everything I've just said I know from mainstream media, in particular the BBC. BBC's Newsnight Presenter Emily Maitlis went viral last night as her introduction to the program said all this.

However, there is one statistic that was pointed out to me by an old school friend on Facebook, malaria kills 1-3 million people (mostly children) every year. These children are not from European countries. The Marxists would nod towards this. Is this widely reported? If it is, why don't we care?

Classic sociological studies of the media look to folk devils and moral panics. When I was still teaching students face to face in a classroom they asked me if This was a moral panic, something the media becomes obsessed with, then influencing government, causing a widespread panic and changes in the law. The numbers suggest that this isn't a moral panic. But with moral panics came folk devils, people to blame. Do we have these? The media has pounced on people flouting the government restrictions on social gatherings, printing pictures of crowded parks. Some websites blame capitalism, 5G, the Chinese. But at the moment there isn't a single group to blame. This is healthy as blame will lead to true panic.

Hyperreality is present in this. Baudrillard stated that we create simulcra (signs, simple explanations) to understand the confusion of so much media - what do we believe? We all find our own truth through media. That might be blaming something sinister, clapping for the NHS, volunteering to help in some capacity. Writing blogs. All these things are people finding a way to understand This. This has happened in a media saturated society so it is difficult to regulate behaviour. The only way to do so would be a media clampdown such as we see in China. This would be seen as dangerous by functionalists and pluralists. This is not giving the audience what they want. This is not informing them. Who would keep them in check? The reliance here is on a common good. To get out of This. To return to normality. But what if  people have different ideas of what normality is?