Journalism and neoliberalism

As David mentioned, today, we will talk about the relationship

between journalism and neoliberalism. And I will try find out what
kind of impacts on journalism that are caused by neoliberalism.
Here is the two important parts I will talk about. First is about what
is neoliberalism, particularly about the economic neoliberalism. Also,
there is a case study of News Corporation. It follows some ideas in
this weeks readings.
Neoliberalism emerged in 1930s as an economic philosophy, that is
an outcome of the politics, economics and social contradictions in
particular times. The characteristics of neoliberalism can be pointed
out as
privatization deregulation market-oriented. The
government hoped to use it to promote market economy.
The aim of its appearance is to take place of the classical liberalism
that has been practiced to be a failure. The development of
neoliberalism after the end of Second World War is not in a fast
paced until this term is reintroduced in the 1980s. As be mentioned
by Hallin in the reading, Augusto Pinochets economic reform in
Chile is an example to mark the rise of neoliberalism in Latin
America.
Here is a photo of General Pinochet with Margaret Thatcher in 1999.
I will discuss about what kind of role that Margaret Thatcher played
in neoliberalism in the following parts.
Actually, economic neoliberalism is a significant form of
neoliberalism; it is also the most common one. The main points of
this concept is to minimal the control from the state and set the
market free. For instance, during the administration of Margaret
Thatcher from 1979 to 1990, she adopted a series of neoliberal
strategies, such as trade liberalization and privatized public services
and goods like electricity. In consideration of the situation that
British, as a welfare state, was dealing with a crisis in 1970s,
Margaret Thatcher encouraged the privatization among all
industries, including the British Press.
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan are two strong-willed leaders
and both gave neo-liberalism a big boost in the 1980s.
During the administration of Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1990,
to deal with the problems such as unemployment, low productivity
at that time, she adopted a series of neoliberal strategies, such as
trade liberalization and privatized public services and goods.
Margaret Thatcher encouraged the privatization among all
industries, including the British Press. As her slogan said: There is no
alternative.

The initial goal of this philosophy is to promote the development of

market economy and ease social contradictions. It also had
influence on the aspect of the public. At the level of individual, the
heart of neoliberalism can be simply recognized as individualism
that means everything can be driven by self-interest. People also
realized the freedom in ideology. As a part of the public sphere and
a form of social ideology, journalism has become a member of those
industries that involved in the promotion of free market and perused
the economic interests. No doubt, all these factors will bring
changes to the journalism, and the whole media.
Since the main objective of market-based economy is to make profit,
the most appropriate way to achieve the end is convergence and
consolidation. Nowadays, owing to the globalization around the
world, the global media market are dominated by seven
transnational corporations Sony, Viacom, Vivendi, Disney, AOLTime Warner, Bertelsmann and News Corporation. These seven
super majors do not exist fifteen years ago. This could be one of the
answers in the lecture: how the journalism itself has been
neoliberalised?
Here is a graph of total global spending on different types of media,
we can find the total spend keeps increasing. This shows the
objective, which is to make profit have been proved by this
approach.
I will use News Corporation to follow some ideas in the second
reading. Well, there is a first question for us: who is Rupert
Murdoch?
News Corporation is an American multinational mass media.
It owns 20th Century Fox film company, British Sky Broadcasting
and many other medias.Core business covers film business,
production and distribution of television programs, radio
broadcasting and cable television,
One subsidiary of its newspaper I wanna to talk about is the Sun. It
is a daily tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and
Ireland. The sun achieved a huge commercial success. However, at
the same time,it is also very controversial.
Here are two front pages of the sun. this kind of news have arouse
peoples discussion not only about the content but also about the
journalism itself.
This is the website of the sun, what we can find is the titles of news
seem to be vulgar style and flubdub.
As discussion about the Tabloidisation in the reading, while relying
on the new technology, like the online website, it seems to be more
and more entertaining and Secularization. This can also be
recognized as the change to the journalism, at the level of content

due to the neoliberalism.

This is front page of the sun. we can see are photo that Ed Miliband
is eating a bacon sandwich. As always, this report has aroused
peoples debates. Here are several discussion about this news in
twitter.