5SSPP236 New Political Economy of the Media – Notes Moore

The New Political Economy of the Media 2019-20

Class 1 Introduction – Notes

Summary
This class introduces students to the module ‘The New Political Economy of the Media’, providing an
overview of the key topics, an introductory discussion of the significance of the changes in media and
technology, and a description of some of the themes that will be explored in depth during the course.
In the seminar that follows we will discuss our increasing reliance on the main technology platforms
for our media and communications, and the significance of the communications revolution for
politics.

Administration
Lecture times: Monday, 1-2pm, Strand Building S-3.20
Seminar times:
1. Monday 2-3pm, Somerset House -2.07 (Room 2)
2. Monday 3-4pm, Somerset House -2.07 (Room 2)
3. Monday 4-5pm, Somerset House -2.07 (Room 2)
4. Tuesday 9-10am, Bush House (SE) 1.08
5. Tuesday 10-11am, Bush House (SE) 2.11
6. Tuesday 11-12pm, Bush House (NE) 1.03
KEATS – access to notes, slides and readings (notes and slides uploaded after each class)
Assessment
The module will be assessed by:
1. Attendance (10%)
2. Coursework (40%) - a 1,000 word essay
3. Exam (50%)

What issues does this module explore?

This module will introduce students to the core concepts, theories and evidence that describe how the
structures that underpin traditional models of news and information are changing globally in a digital
age, and the implications these changes have for political communication, the spread of information,
and the role of news media in democratic society. It will provide students with a framework for
analysing the evolution of political communication in the 21st century.

Module Overview
1. Introduction (13-1-20) - How significant is the current period of change in media and
communications that we are going through? What challenges does the period of change raise for
politics and political communication?
2. Purpose - What role should the media play within society? Is the news/media/information
industry equivalent to other industries? To what extent does the media perform the role expected
of it? – should it benefit from certain privileges – taxation etc? , is Donald trump right to call the
NY times ‘fake news’?
3. Power - What power does the media have? How easy is it to harness that power to your own
ends? How is that power shifting in the digital era?
4. Money - How does the media make money? How is this changing? What implications does this
have for political communication?
5. Gatekeeping - What makes news news? How are the ways in which we consume news and media
changing? What implications does this have for what determines what news and information we
are exposed to?
READING WEEK
6. Elections - What role does media and communication play within election campaigns, and how is
this changing? What media methods and communications techniques do politicians and parties
adopt in order to win power?

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7. Public Policy - How does the media influence public policy?

8. Monopoly - Why does media gravitate towards monopoly, and how is this accentuated in a digital
environment? – Rupert Murdoch etc.
9. Citizens - What role do citizens play in the new political economy of the media, and how is their
role evolving? – producing media and how we are driving the media force – are we being
democratised or digitally enslaved?
10. Future (23-3-20) - How is the new political economy of the media likely to change over the next
decade? What are the dangers of global information disorder? – a living, current module – a lot of
these questions are currently evolving – encourage reading and much more aware about the
current discussions.

What is the political economy of the media?

Nuts and bolts – how it functions and why it works as it does? – what implications does the
functioning have over politics and society – economics/politics/ institutions that underpin it.
Chesney – studying the media law and political economy of the media – normative perspective.
Differentiates the two. Is the media functioning that is promoting constructive and fair political
systems.
We have much greater freedom to be critical about the media rather than studying another aspect of it
– understanding the hardcore policy aspects helps you understand the communication perspectives.
 How the media works - in relation to the functioning of democratic politics
 The institutions, business models, advertising, subsidies and support structures that define media
and communications systems
 The legal, regulatory, public policy and constitutional context of media
 How these structures influence the production, distribution and consumption of media
New side: Media and communications are going through a gradual change – revolution. Been going
on for the last two decades – revolutionary in a literal sense
Political Economy sense: the way in which news information is collected – is changing rapidly. Not
just about a change in terms of the type of organisations/models – but it is a shift of changing scarcity.
A shift from what we know to how we value one another in society.

How significant is this period of change?

 The ‘fourth great communication transformation in human history?’ (McChesney, 2013)
o ‘the mother of all critical junctures’ – three elements (a) Revolutionary new technology (b)
Existing media system perceived as illegitimate (c) Major political crisis
 ‘Our news ecosystem has changed more dramatically in the past five years, than perhaps at any
time in the last five hundred’ (Bell, 2016) – setting it in the context of scale of change. – John
Snow – he compared their situation to Man on wire – Cable between twin towers and walked
across – he thinks that the news situation is similar – moving to a world familiar with to an
entirely different world they are unfamiliar with.
 Vs. ‘all this digital chaos will be a nuisance to democratic societies’ (Schmidt and Cohen, 2014)

What is ‘media’? What is ‘news’?

How this period of change requires us to question many of our assumptions about media and
communications – including basic definitional questions.
- Facets of this period of change - much more difficult to define what is and what is not.
- Before it was quite easy – which organisations could produce it – restrictions etc on printing.
And it was high set up fees – limited number in each country.
- If we compare this since the arrival of the internet and the Web in 1991 – the constraints have
been reduced enormously – it is difficult to define where the lines of media begin or end.
- We have to be more self-conscious what we are talking about (Bell) – are we including digital
native etc. – do Instagram feeds count as media? Does tick tok count as media?
- If we define news as ‘process of new information’ then why isn’t someone announcing stuff
on Twitter news? / Waitrose on Veganuary
- Is it just news if it only passes the hurdle that it constitutes news?

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Illustrating the change (UK

c1985
News collection: cadre of professional news gatherers – official sources – both commissioned and
edited by humans. Not just a single editor but by different editors within a news organisations and
sub-editors. – A physical product would be produced – material output
News editing and packaging: editors and sub-editors, within a bundle (ie newspaper, channel)
News production: hot metal printers; video tape (no satellite links), unions
News publishing: daily and weekly – fixed deadline driven
News distribution: Four UK TV channels (linear); 9 national print newspapers (approximately 1500-
2000 local papers); BBC and commercial national and local radio (linear) no internet, no mobile
phones

c2000 – most part edited by human editors but you are seeing the emergence of a DIY approach to see
which organisations you would get your news from. Google news 2002 – aggregate some of the news
we were seeing. First news website began around 1997 -typically separate not coordinated.
News collection: cadre of professional news gatherers – access to wider range of sources and source
material, early blogging
News editing and packaging: editors and sub-editors, within a bundle (ie newspaper, channel) –
some disaggregation. Online news aggregators – Google news 2002
News production: digital printing; satellite links
News publishing: daily and weekly – fixed deadline driven
News distribution: Four UK TV channels (linear); satellite news channels; 10 national print
newspapers (approximately 1500-2000 local papers); BBC and commercial national and local radio
(linear); news websites

c2015 – simply unrecognisable.

News collection: professional, amateur/accidental/volunteer (‘citizen journalists’), social
intelligence/news agencies (e.g. Storyful)
News editing and packaging: editors (human), filters (algorithmic), network (your
friends/connections), disaggregated news content, feeds/streaming
News production: digital printing; social media platforms, live mobile video (e.g. Facebook Live,
Periscope)
News publishing: continuous
News distribution: >100 digital television channels; 10 national print newspapers (approximately
1200 local papers); digital radio, podcasts, news websites, Snapchat Discover/Facebook Instant
Articles/Twitter Moments/Apple News
Social media – impact of news through feeds – Facebook etc. It was very rare after 2015 to have print
first – it was normally digital first on a social media platform.
Beware technological determinism
 Many technologies have not been adopted at the same rate or scale as the internet and social
media – be careful not to assume that technology is not driving this process.
 The invention and mass adoption of the app-driven smartphone was not predicted – Steve Jobs
launched original I phone 2007,
 The dominance of Facebook and Google was not pre-determined: MySpace: 2006 – biggest
website of the world (Rupert Murdoch) but faded away.

Positve/Utopian vs Critical/Dystopian Perspectives

- A whole chunk of literature is very positive – there was an assumptions of how power was
being fused to people and there was greater distribution of wealth and power.
- 2016 – Dystopian perspective – not just academics but others point to negative changes on
society of the media.
- ‘Free’ Business model of the web – based on surveillance capitalism – Zuboff

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- Current prevailing consensus that transformation of political economy of the media and
communications has had negative effects.
- Role we have = critique both and look at both to question and understand if they are
supported by evidence.

What has this period of change already been credited with?

 ‘Here Comes Everybody’ (Shirky, 2008) - democratisation of tools of media production
 ‘A new golden age of journalism’ Jon Snow – Hugh Cudlipp lecture 2012
 Diffusion of power to the people (Naim, 2013)
 ‘Networked power’ (Castells, 2009)
 End of the oligopoly of news production
o A bazaar rather than a theatre
 Greater accountability of authorities (Schmidt and Cohen, 2014)
 Ushering in democratic change? ‘Arab spring’ – ‘Thank you Facebook’

What has this communications transition already been blamed for?

 Collapse of funding model for professional news production
 New tools for authoritarian regimes (Morozov, 2011)
 Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2015 and 2019)
 Filter bubbles (Pariser, 2011)
 Echo chambers (Sunstein, 2001 et al)
 Shallow thinking (Carr, 2010)
 New age of feudalism (Lanier, 2013)
 Virtual competition (Ezrachi and Stucke, 2016)
 ‘Fake news’ (disinformation, misinformation and mal-information)
 Foreign election interference and propaganda

Six primary concerns regarding the political economy of the media (from Van Aelst et al, 2017)
(1) declining supply of political information
(2) declining quality of news
(3) increasing media concentration and declining diversity of news
(4) increasing fragmentation and polarization
(5) increasing relativism
(6) increasing inequality in political knowledge

Common terms and theories

 Platforms
 Multi-sided markets
 Network effects
 Gatekeeping
 Public sphere

For discussion
A. How do you get your news?
B. How reliant are you on the services of the tech giants?
GAFAM – Google Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft

C. Which of these 6 concerns represents the greatest threat to the political system your are most
familiar with?
(1) declining supply of political information
(2) declining quality of news

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(3) increasing media concentration and declining diversity of news

(4) increasing fragmentation and polarization
(5) increasing relativism
(6) increasing inequality in political knowledge

Class 1 Readings:
Van Aelst, P., Strömbäck, J., Aalberg, T., Esser, F., de Vreese, C., Matthes, J., ... Papathanassopoulos,
S. (2017). Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?
Annals of the International Communication Association, 41(1), 3–27,
DOI: 10.1080/23808985.2017.1288551
Bell, Emily (2016) ‘The end of the news as we know it’, University of Cambridge Lecture, March 7
2016, https://medium.com/tow-center/the-end-of-the-news-as-we-know-it-how-facebook-swallowed-
journalism-60344fa50962#.pqtvqzrfi
Bennett, W.L. and Barbara Pfetsch, Rethinking Political Communication in a Time of Disrupted
Public Spheres, Journal of Communication, Volume 68, Issue 2, April 2018, Pages 243–
253, https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqx017
McChesney, Robert W. (2013) Digital Disconnect: How capitalism is turning the internet against
democracy, New York: The New Press. Chapter 3 ‘How can the Political Economy of
Communication Help Us Understand the Internet?’

References and Additional Reading

Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts (2018) Network Propaganda: Manipulation,
Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics, New York: Oxford University Press
Carr, Nicholas (2010) The Shallows, London: W. W. Norton & Company
Castells, Manuel (2009) Communication Power, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Ezrachi, Ariel and Maurice Stucke (2016) Virtual Competition, Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Foer, Franklin (2017) World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, London: Jonathan
Cape
Habermas, Jurgen (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: Inquiry into a
Category of Bourgeois Society, Cambridge: Polity Press
Lanier, Jaron (2013) Who Owns the Future, London: Allen Lane
Miller, Carl (2018) The Death of the Gods: the New Global Power Grab, London: William
Heinemann
Moore, Martin and Damian Tambini (2018) Digital Dominance: the Power of Google, Apple,
Facebook and Amazon, New York: Oxford University Press
Morozov, Evgeny (2011) The Net Delusion: the Dark Side of the Internet, New York: Public Affairs
Morozov, Evgeny (2013) To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to
Fix Problems that Don’t Exist, New York: Public Affairs
Naim, Moses (2013) The End of Power, New York: Basic Books
Pariser, Eli (2011) The Filter Bubble, London: Penguin Press
Shirky, Clay (2009) Here Comes Everybody!, London: Penguin
Taplin, Jonathan (2017) Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Have
Cornered Culture and What It Means For All Of Us, London: MacMillan
Wu, Timothy (2011) The Master Switch: the Rise and Fall of Information Empires, London: Atlantic
Books
Zuboff, Shoshana (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the
New Frontier of Power, London: Profile Books

Lecture 1 Readings

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Van Aelst Et al: Political Communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for
democracy?

- For a democracy to be well functioning, citizens need information about politics.

- Only when people have knowledge about the actors, the state of various societal affairs, and
the rules of the political game can they hold informed opinions and act meaningfully as
citizens
- there is little doubt that well-informed citizens are better able to link their interest with their
attitudes, choose political representatives who are consistent with their own attitudes, and
participate in politics
- Until quite recently, the mass media were considered as the key actor in providing ‘the kind
of information people need to be free and self-governing
- the same time, across Western democracies news consumption patterns are shifting and
traditional news media – not least newspapers – are losing ground. The world of politics and
communication has never been very stable, as noted by Blumler and Kavanagh (1999), but
the rise of Internet and social media have accelerated and exacerbated many developments.
- Several studies suggest that the political information environment has a significant impact on
people’s media use and knowledge of politics and current affairs
- In sum, there seems to be broad consensus that the supply side of political information
environments matters. The underlying mechanism is that the more political information that is
widely available, the higher the likelihood that people will be exposed to, and subsequently
learn from, political information.
- The political information environment is thus shaped by the behaviour of political actors as
well as media actors and ordinary citizens, with reciprocal influences on all sets of actors.

Concern 1: Declining amount of political news

- It may seem odd in a time where there is political news everywhere however there is still a
concern as more political news in the overall media does not equal more political news in the
most widely used media sources such as TV or Websites
- There has been an increase in the absolute amount of political news that does not equal an
increase in the relative amount of political news as a share of the overall media supply.
- There is a concern that people’s motivations to consume political news is declining.
- Another significant trend is that virtually all newspapers in established democracies today are
online, and that in many countries, new web-only news providers have established
themselves. While the content of online versions of print media in the early phase of the
Internet often was described as ‘shovel ware’, since then online news have developed and
major news websites now offer a rich spectrum of political and current events reporting.
- citizens are no longer restricted to newspapers in the area in which they live, but can access
online news from virtually everywhere, virtually anytime, and through their preferred media
platform
- Second, an increase in the absolute amount of political news does not equal an increase in the
relative amount of political news. Even if there is more political information out there than
ever, most evidence suggests that the major increase in the total media supply is related to
non-political content such as sports or entertainment, and that news and other political
information constitute a small and declining share of the total media supply (cf. Hindman,
2009; Prior, 2007)
- The general pattern is decreasing use of most kind of traditional news media such as
television news and, in particular, newspapers. To take one example, according to the 2016
Reuters Institute Digital News Report, among people younger than 44 years old, online media
are now considered the most important source of news. The report covers 26 countries from
around the world and in 24 of them digital news consumption has become more important
than traditional news use (Newman et al., 2016, p. 53).
- Does the increasing use of digital and social media compensate for the trend towards
decreasing consumption of traditional news sources? To some extent the answer is yes, but
instructive is Hindman’s study (2009) using traffic data from 2007 showing that most web

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traffic goes to adult websites, followed by web-mail services and search engines. Less than
3% of all web traffic goes to news and media sites, while the share of web traffic going to
political web sites is below 1%
- Summing up, there is convincing evidence that the absolute amount of political information
has increased, but also that the relative amount of political news has declined and that public
demand for political news is limited. It is less clear how the demand for political news has
changed, but increasing media choice has made individuals’ preferences more important
- Therefore, our overall conclusion is that there are reasons to be concerned about the relative
amount of political news and what this means for the opportunity structures for accessing
political news in contrast to other forms of media content. How this will influence the demand
for political news both on the aggregate level and among those more and less politically
interested users, is one of the most burning questions for future political communication
research
Concern 2: Towards declining quality of news
- There is no compelling evidence of a universal downward trend towards declining quality in
terms of softer/game framed news.
- There is a variation across times and countries and media types within countries instead.
- There can be exceptions and a lack of longitudinal and cross-national comparative studies,
most major news media still seems to seek to provide a mixture of hard political information
and more entertaining soft news coverage
- At the same time, media organizations are increasingly monitoring what people click on and
share. Together with further newsroom-cuts and competition for audiences, there might be
stronger incentives ahead for news media to cut corners in terms of journalistic quality and
focus on audience-appealing content at the expense of more substantial reporting. How strong
such incentives are will vary across types of media
- more reason to be concerned about decreasing resources for journalism and increasing quality
differences between media, and more reason to be concerned about the actual demand for
high-quality news. There is also more reason to be concerned about how this will influence
gaps in political knowledge between those who consume low- and high-quality journalism
respectively

Concern 3: Towards increasing power concentration and decreasing diversity

- There are reasons to be concerned that media has a negative influence on outlet and content
diversity, empirical evidence is mixed.
- The overall political information environment does not seem to have been impoverished by
media concentration
- However, markets like local political news might be more vulnerable than others and certain
countries.
- In Central and East European countries – successful local businessmen are buying media
companies to advance both their business and political interests.
- Research shows that increasing media choice might lead to less rather than more diversity –
both with respect to outlet and content diversity suggesting that demand for more diverse
content = limited.
- It is equally important to be concerned by increased media concentration and decreasing
diversity from below shaped by audience demand – shaped by the economics of media
industries or the grand plans of media moguls

Concern 4: Towards increasing polarisation and fragmentation

- Whilst there are strong theoretical arguments for the concern that changes in political
information environments = increasing fragmentation and polarisation with respect to both
supply and demand for politically biased information, the empirical evidence does not support
more far reaching claims about a balkanization of the public sphere or more people living in
their own filter bubbles.

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- Although the supply of biased information has increased – particularly online – there is an
ambition to cover politics in a neutral manor whilst putting forward the main source of
political information for most people.
- There are reasons to be concerned about increasing fragmentation and polarisation but this
concern needs to be tempered by empirical findings which shows that supply or demand for
biased information is as widespread as claimed.

Concern 5: Towards increasing relativism

- Although there is a lack of longitudinal and comparative research, there does tend to be an
increase in the supply of misinformation circulating political environments.
- Many studies also show that people have a tendency to dismiss facts that challenge their
already held beliefs.
- Based on the demand for polarized news, it also appears as if public demand for ‘facts’ that
align with their political beliefs either is increasing or that it has become easier for people to
match their demand with the supply of biased information.
- Our overall conclusion therefore is that there are strong reasons to be concerned about
increasing relativism of facts and how that might influence public discourse and jeopardize
building consensus in ideologically polarized environments.

Concern 6: Towards increasing Inequalities

- There is compelling evidence of increasing gaps in news media – both online and offline
between different groups with personal preferences.
- Put differently, the increasing supply has made for a better match with the demand for
political information among the most politically interested and the demand for non-political
information among those not interested in politics. Several studies convincingly suggest that
this might lead to increasing knowledge gaps, although the lack of longitudinal studies
prohibits firm conclusions.
- Research is also not conclusive with respect to learning effects from following different
media types, or the likelihood for accidental learning while using digital and social media. As
media use increasingly moves online, and as studies suggest that motivation is more decisive
for learning from online compared to offline media, there is a risk that growing differences in
media use will lead to wider knowledge gaps.
- there are strong reasons to be concerned about increasing inequalities in media use and
knowledge about politics and public affairs.

Seminar:

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