Pluralists or Marxists?

The hegemonic model developed by Gramsci suggests the audience is passive and controlled by the dominant ideologies fed to them by the ruling class, who own mass media i.e. Rupert Murdock. Marxist theorists such as Marcuse suggest the audience is in a “false consciousness”, meaning we the audience believe were making our own choices, but in actual fact we’re conforming to expectations of what the ruling class wants us to be like. The Marxist theory was developed around the 1920’s which is clearly seen by it’s old fashioned views, although it does relate to contemporary media, it doesn’t take into account how much the media and it’s audience has developed.

Furthermore there is a much wider range in what we want to view, and the Pluralist model acknowledges the audience as active. There are theories to back this up such as Kat and Blumer’s Uses & Gratification theory, which suggests the audience, uses the media, moreover the Reception theory states the audience have different readings of the media. This theory argues the media reflects the societies shared beliefs and ideologies, and if it doesn’t, because the media has become polyvalent the audience will choose a different text to watch.