Agroindustria azucarera en Veracruz: Indicadores de eficiencia (2008-2015)

Another area of concern for the critical political economy is that “ownership and control by wealthy and powerful ultimately lead to the circulation of texts that serve the interest of the wealthy and powerful owners” (Hesmondhalgh, 2007:34). Marxist perspective can best explain the extent to which economic ownership serves the interest of the elite at the expense of the poor. The Marxist approach has influenced several social thinkers in the 19th century. The following statement can be applied in the ownership and control of digital media:

“The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production... Insofar as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, they do this in its whole range, hence among other (they) also regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch” (Marx and Engels in Murdock 1995: 126).

The Marxist perspective which is open to more than one interpretation is also applicable to South African context whereby the cultural industry is controlled by the few elite individuals. Straughbar et al. (2009:42) argue that the dominant group in a society dictates on what the public should view, read or hear in the media as these groups own large corporations. In this view, the dominant group creates the ideas favouring their continued domination – this includes the consensus that it is normal to have inequalities (Straughbar et al. 2009:42).

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The Marxism approach views the media as one ideological arena in which the capitalist society exercises its dominance in the classless society (Curran, 2002:108). Furthermore, the media is also responsible for relaying the ideas which are consonant with the interest of the dominant class in which opposition ideas are side-lined (ibid). Marx also predicted that “the owners of the news communications companies were members of the general capitalist class and they used their control over cultural production to ensure that the dominant image and representations supported the existing social arrangements” (Murdock, 1995: 126).

3.3.1 Liberal pluralism

However, the Marxist ideology was challenged by liberal pluralism for not taking into account the human agency. The liberal pluralism views society as a complex of competing groups and interests (Gurevitch et al. 1982). This view sees the media organisations as institutions that are autonomous from the state, political parties and media owners. The relationship between media institution and their audience is seen as voluntarily on equal terms. The audience is also seen as responsible for manipulating the media product since they have a right to ‘conform, accommodate, challenge or reject’ (Gurevitch et al. 1982: 1). This theory is very essential in analysing the role of society in a digital converged environment where the audience is no longer just the receivers but the contributors in the making of messages.

3.3.2 Economic determinism

On the other side, economism sees the economic base of society as determining everything in the superstructure (Chandler, 2000). According to economism view, 'the contents of the media and the meanings carried by their messages are... primarily determined by the economic base of the organizations in which they are produced' (Curran et al. 1982: 18). This is to say, the commercial media organisations are determined by the demand and supply when producing content for mass consumption. Contrary to this view, Curran (2000: 129) argues that “consumers are reactive rather than proactive” in the sense that they are bound to

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view or read what is offered to them without choice. Consumer influence in the media has been constrained by media oligopoly.

As the Marxist perspective puts it, “the desire of the capitalist class is to take-over and controls as much industries as possible” (Murdock, 1995: 127). The tendency by the capitalist owners to make profit has led to the process of media oligopoly or concentrated media ownership. Concentration, according to Picard (1998:61), refers to “the degree of market control enjoyed by the largest firms in an industry.” Albaran et al. (2003:41) argues that “mergers, take-overs, acquisitions and alliances that make strong media groups even more powerful to continue to dominate the activities of the media companies.” The strong argument in favour of concentration according to McChesney (2003:30) is that “firms must become larger and diversified in order to reduce risk and enhance profit making abilities and they must never allow to be outlawed by competitors.” Contrary to the view of economism, there will be lack of choices if the market is dominated by the few individuals.

While concentration is good for foreign investment, its presence will have a strong impact on diversity and pluralism. According to Bilir (2005:11-12), the “concentrated media gives the media owner a potential power to influence public opinion in his favour and preventing counter view from reaching the public”. Furthermore, concentration of media ownership will result in a lack of differing voices in the media and also lack of separate and autonomous suppliers of the communication product in the media market (Doyle, 2002:11). Doyle (2003:13) maintains that “in whatever form they take, media concentration implies that the supply of media is dominated by few rather than many independent owners.” Therefore, the threat of media market concentration is that higher level of market domination creates a barrier for new players to enter the market.