Between philosophy and action: the story of the Media Reform Coalition Dr Benedetta Brevini, University of Sydney
Between Philosophy And Action: The Story Of The Media Reform
May 09, 2015
Britain’s phone hacking scandal and the consequent launch of an unprecedented wide ranging inquiry into regulation of the media has created a new space for public debate on media reforms and, in particular, how to restructure media systems that serve the interests of citizens above those of media owners. This paper will reflect on the experience of the Media Reform Coalition - formerly known as the Co-ordinating Committee for Media Reform - a network established at Goldsmiths University to “co-ordinate the most effective contribution by NGOs, academics and media campaigners to the Leveson Inquiry and the Communications Review” (Media Reform, 2011). Drawing on this UK-based case study, the paper aims to unveil the principles and paradigms that underpinned the Coalition’s campaign and to elucidate the key challenges it has confronted. There is a pressing need to re-articulate media reform as a movement for social justice aligned with other more recognisable groups engaged in resistance to glob- al capitalism. In conjunction with this, there is a need to think laterally about how to campaign effectively with minimal resources; to set up and maintain strategic alliances with civil society groups both within and beyond media activist circles; to focus conceptually on media owners as the primary targets of resistance; and to reach out to both professional and citizen journalists.
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Between philosophy and action: the story of the Media Reform Coalition
Dr Benedetta Brevini, University of Sydney
Aims of the presentationbrief history of the MRC’s formation, actions
and challenges
theoretically problematize and define the domain of media policy making in which the MRC had to operate
conceptualize the struggle of the MRC beyond traditional framings of media reforms (Napoli 2007) by linking them to wider battles for social justice and social inclusion
Aims of the presentation
Finally, we argue that strategies of engagement and resistance should not be seen as mutually exclusive in media reform movements
that there is a particular need to reclaim the notion of 'resistance' in the context of concentrated media power from
that critical media scholars, journalists and activists have an integral role to play in documenting media failure and imbalances in the coverage of social justice issues at large, as a vehicle for wider social movement integration
Background
The MRC was founded by media academics at Goldsmiths, University of London during the summer of 2011. Organisational goals were fixed around the concept of a "coordinating committee"
focus was on policy engagement and coordinating civil society responses
Exploit the “critical Juncture” offered by the Leveson Inquiry
Coalition for media reform UK
JOHN PILGER
LEVESON INQUIRY:“A show trial ultimately directed towards the preservation of the system”
Necessary tensionspolicy deliberation
campaign strategies
internal governance
Understanding media policy making as order of discourse
policy making = “what governments do, why they do it, and what difference it makes” (Dye 1976: 1).
“interest group approach to policy” relevant to study media reformsmedia policy making as order of discourse
Foucault's study on the production of discourse
Foucault's study on the production of discourse is also particularly useful in that it problematizes the practices of government and how public policy is developed, shaped and changed
Foucault's’ Order of Discourse
• Relations of Power “permeate, characterise and constitute the social body, and these relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of a discourse” (Foucault 1980: 93).
Norman Fairclough
“Since discourse is the favoured vehicle of ideology, and therefore of control by consent, it may be that we should expect a quantitative change in the role of
discourse in achieving social control (Fairclough 1989: 37)”
MCR’s challenges
the order of discourse that the coalition had to challenge becomes apparent: on the one hand the hegemonic mantra of market liberalism, on the other hand the cultural background of an established commercial media system
Conceptualizing media reform groups
media reforms as actions of an emerging social movement (Atton 2003, Calabrese 2004, Hackett & Carroll 2006a).
media reforms as “a first issue that can draw new people into public life, citizen activism, and wider struggles for social justice” (Jensen 2011: 7).
Lesson from MCR UK• the organisation was s constrained by
a degree of unavoidable short-termism in its approach
• Maintaining proximity to the heart of the policymaking community also limited the MRC’s capacity to reach out to groups that were not already engaged in media policy debates
• one resource in plentiful supply was its capacity to present new evidence of media failure through critical scholarship, new studies and new data
Solutions?The key challenge is how to link media
reform movements to the broader agenda of social justice or climate change activism, with a view to making fair, accountable and accurate coverage a key concern of campaigning groups, and in turn drawing meaningful support from such groups for media reform campaigns
There should be a stronger discursive focus on resistance
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