1.Compare and contrast two perspectives on the idea that commercial Assignment

1.Compare and contrast two perspectives on the idea that commercial mass media provide a marketplace of ideas - Assignment Example rence is that, in a neoliberal society, in addition to the dominant elite controlling the message, there is also a message to the mass audience that the neoliberal tenants – that deregulation, private enterprise and low taxes are all good, as are income and wealth disparities – are the tenants that should be present in society. In contrast, the opposite views, the progressive views, that higher taxes should be pursued, government should be expanded, wealth should be more evenly distributed, and businesses should be firmly regulated, are all beliefs which would presumably harm the free market system and the corporations that make up the free market system, therefore these are the tenants which are disparaged in a neoliberal society. At any rate, under either of these ideas, there is not a free exchange of ideas, because the messages are so controlled by dominant forces. This essay will examine the two schools of thought – political economists and neoliberals †“ and show how each of these schools of thought leads to a mass media that does not disseminate ideas so much as it creates propaganda for the ruling elite. Political economists, according to Brenkman (1979) are in line with Karl Marx, as his critique of the bourgeois economy was known as political economy. The basis for Marxism, at least in the classical sense, is that the economic base determines everything else that occurs in the superstructure of the social, political and intellectual consciousness of a given society. Thus, the culture industries, including commercial media, would be examined in this light, in terms of the economic determinations. This would mean that the media and the messages that are disseminated throughout a society are determined by the economic base of the organization that produces them (Chandler). The political economist looks at large economic structural forces, and how the mass media is associated with this (Havens et al., 2009). Thus, for example, in a very crass way, Fox