CRITICAL

MEDIA
THEORY
Critical Theories
Especially concerned with inequality and oppression
Most of them are concerned with the conflict of interests
in society and the ways communication perpetuates
domination of one group over another
Many of these theories are somewhat structural in
orientation, because they are looking for underlying
social structures that affect class and gender relations in
society
 Philosophical Issue

Axiology, or questions of value

Can theory be value free?
To what extent does the practice of inquiry
influence that which is studied?
Should scholarship be designed to achieve
change or to reveal knowledge without
intervention?
To what extent should scholarship attempt
to achieve social change?

Two axiological positions:

Value-conscious
Value-neutral
Critical Theories
Critical social scientists believe that it is necessary to understand
the lived experience of real people in context. Critical Theory
shares the ideas and the methodologies of some interpretive
theories.
What makes critical scholarship different from interpretive
scholarship is that it interprets the acts and the symbols of
society in order to understand the ways in which various social
groups are oppressed.
Critical approaches examine social conditions in order to
uncover hidden structures.
Critical theory teaches that knowledge is power. This means that
understanding the ways one is oppressed enables one to take
action to change oppressive forces.
Critical social science makes a conscious attempt to fuse theory
and action. Critical theories serve to bring about change in the
conditions that affect our lives.
Branches of Critical Media Theory
according to Denis McQuail

Classical Marxism
Hegemonic Theory
Political-economic Media
Theory
Frankfurt School
Cultural Studies
Marxism

Based on the writings of a 19th century philosopher KARL MARX.

His writings were a response to the extremes of poverty and exploitation he
witnessed in the years after the British Industrial Revolution.
He argued that there were divisions and tensions between two classes.
The PROLETARIAT workers who have to sell their labour to survive.
The BOURGEOISIE own a range of different types of capital (wealth,
factories, shares or property)
Marxism in media
Marxs ideas have been applied to media in
contemporary society to suggest that the view of the
world constructed in most mainstream media
contributes to persuading the proletariat to accept
capitalism as natural and inevitable, whilst
simultaneously distracting them from complaining
about exploitation.
 on Communication

Communication plays a key role in the

production & regulation of social wealth. 2 broad
processes in this respect are commodification &
sense-making
Commodification:
The production of communicative commodities
Requirements to pay to participate in communicative
behaviors (reading, watching, listening). Pay for the
pleasure, information, & entertainment
Or exposing audience to advertising, the premier
genre of capitalist communication. The surplus labor
when people consuming media products is sold to the
advertisers (transformed into surplus labor time for
capitalism)
 on Communication

Sense-making: the role different ways

of communicating promote capitalist
social relationships
The coordination of mass production &
mass consumption requires the
communicative practices of marketing &
advertising
Communication as a tool of sense making
process The important arena of the class
struggle is the battle over the meaning of
words, especially the meaning of such key
words as dignity, beauty, and freedom.
Everyday behaviours that keep corporations in
power

- People wearing designer clothing

- People shopping at chains instead of local
stores
- Schools serving fast food in cafeterias
- Women displaying huge diamond engagement
rings.
- People celebrating days that have been
manufactured by Hallmark, like Grandparent's
Day
 Marxist Theory
A conceptual tools for understanding & explaining
how humans produce & consume social wealth
As a critical approach to communication it
participates in a political struggle against
capitalism
It investigates myriad ways capitalism mobilizes
communication through political, cultural, &
economic institutions for the purpose of social
control
Therefore, it attempts to provide an alternative
way of knowing, acting, & living in the world
beyond the command of capitalism
 Essential Concepts
Attending social relationships embedded
within economic arrangements:
The extraction & control of surplus labor
from those working longer & faster in the
factory (the difference between the labor time it would take
for the worker to earn the wages to pay for his/her daily needs & the
amount of time the laborer spent producing the commodity for the
owners of the factory)

Marxist standpoint: The ethical & political

problem of capitalism is that the bourgeoisie
enriches itself at the expense of the
proletariat
 Essential Concepts
Capitalism transforms labor into a commodity:
thinking of labor as an abstract capacity (labor
power)
The capacities capitalism may need from labor
are infinite, including physical capacities (body),
intellectual (reasoning), cultural (ways of living),
& social capacities (communication)
It ends up with a social relationship structured by
exploitation
Globalization: labor & resources of one part of
the world were extracted to promote the social
wealth of another part of the world
Marxist theory: the goal of capitalism is to
transform every social relationship into one that
promotes the needs of capitalism