1. Introduction:
One area in which public concern about the social impact of the mass media often reaches an emotional pitch of anxiety is the issue of media ownership. Just the mention of the name Rupert Murdoch is enough to strike fear in the hearts of public minded citizens. Well, maybe not quite, but the debate over the implications of his global media holdings has made his name synonymous with notions--often irrational--of media hegemony and ideological control.
The Rupert Murdoch phenomenon, while not exactly a rags-to-riches story but certainly one of the great entrepreneurial sagas of modern times, is often interpreted as a threat to democratic society rather than as a model of personal success in the arena of free enterprise. Murdoch is loathed much more than he is admired. His achievements on the way to building the biggest media empire ever--and one of the biggest corporate empires of any kind--are seen more as infringements of society's rights than as victories on the field of capitalism.
A. Summary of paper
Murdoch regards himself as a person of great psychological insights who is able to read the pulse of public taste. He moulds his products according to those perceptions. He would never admit to creating or influencing new trends in public tastes. Yet his tabloid style, with its thrusting mammaries and salacious rendering of the bizarre, is now the norm for the majority of the British press-reading public.
He calls his detractors snobs, accusing them of trying to impose their pretentious high culture values on a public that wants something more interesting on its breakfast tables. In fact Murdoch's defence of his tabloid titles sounds much like the old debate between high culture and popular culture which first arose in response to the mass media's rise to prominence. The high culture advocates said taste was something that must be guided by those with the knowledge and education to keep it on a lofty plane.
b. Argument to be addressed
The press magnates who came to prominence after 1945 tended to involve themselves less in party politics than their pre-war equivalents. Commercial success, rather than political
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