This document discusses political economy and its application to media. Political economy examines how ownership of economic resources affects society. It looks at how centralized economic ownership has political consequences and how media ownership is more influential than media content. The key points are: 1) News and entertainment media are largely centrally controlled through consolidated ownership. 2) This centralized ownership limits choice and reinforces itself through consumer purchases. 3) While political economy highlights economic oppression, it sometimes ignores other forms of oppression like sexism and racism.

1. S U B M I T T E D B Y :
POLITICAL ECONOMY
ANMOL GUPTA

2. Political Economy
- ‘how the economy is political.’
- ‘how does ownership of things have an effect on
the daily life of a society?’
- ‘how does the allocation of economic resources and
surplus capital influence the aggregate economic
activity of a society?’
- For us: ‘how do channels of ownership affect the
media?’

3. A short history of a complex concept :
 Aristotle:
the family as the first economy. Relations of power, If we understand the house
as the first economy, then the relationships of power that exist in this space are
fairly visible, such as the gendered division of labour and the fact that the
wealthy older members of the family often have more ability to do things than
the children. These relationships are somewhat illustrative of the conditions of
the economy on a global level – maybe think about the economic relationships
in the living arrangements of you or your friends? Who controls the finances,
who organizes the work, and is it a fair situation?
 Adam Smith
First attempts to understand the economy of the nation. Economy was ‘too
complex’ before then. This lead to the idea that the economy was a neutral
space, where ‘an invisible hand’ managed all the economic relationships in
society – instead the case became that where the rich were able to organize
the economy in their own interests – buying up other corporations, and
running competitors out of business.

4. Continue...
 Marx: two ideas:
The first political economy has normally stated the fact of the relationship
between society and economy, but not explained it.
The second, the exploitation of the worker – the commodity hides the fact that
workers produce more than they are paid for.

5. Three Important things For Political economy
1. Economic ownership is centralized, and this has
political consequences.
2. Media content is less significant than media ownership
– economics is more important than ideology.
3. The working class always loses.

6. What Critical ‘POEC’ tells us
1. That news and entertainment media is largely
centrally controlled.
2. That we have very little choice in our sources of
information.
3. That every purchase we make reinforces this situation.

7. Political economy and media part.1
 Questions of ownership:
- Who owns the content we see and the communication
networks that we use?
- Who is profiting from the sale of media texts?
- Who is selling us as an audience?

8. Political economy and media part.2
 Media commodities:
- If you can’t tell what the commodity is, it’s probably you.
 Michael Moore, (Bowling for Columbine, Sicko):
- “The rich man will sell you the rope to hang him with.” (Interview in
The Corporation, 2003)

9. How Political Economy criticizes other theories :
- The public sphere is impossible because most media texts come
from people with vested economic interests – and there is no
neutral space for discussion.
- Media effects may be real, but the most significant effects of
oppression come from the economy.
- It is irrelevant whether a medium allows for a great degree of
interactivity or communication: you don’t own it, so you don’t
control it. Any control you have you have to pay for somehow.

10. But…
- Control of content is not the same as control of
interpretation.
- Political economic theories generally ignore non-
economic forms of oppression, such as sexism or
racism.
- Generally ignores the real differences between
different media forms in favour of a broad overview.
- Assumes that there is very little space for things to be
otherwise. How can you resist?