Ideology and the mass media : a 'Structuralist-Marxist' approach to broadcasting

Abstract

This thesis attempts to prepare the ground an begin the construction of a new, and hopefully more systemtic and coherent, approach to the sociological study of the mass media and, in particular, television. In so doing little in the way of completely new empirical material is presented, indeed no research project of the types common in sociology (such as survey research, observation, interviewing etc.) was carried out. Rather what is attempted is a re-ordering and re-evaluation of existing material, of works by sociologists, historians, economists and so on, in an enterprise which is accurately described as 'library research', since that is where most of the 'data' contained here was obtained. This is not to say, however, that no new knowledge may result from this enterprise since it is my contention that by making the connection between previously discrete areas of enquiry, and by re-orderinq our existing knowledge, something new and qualitatively different may be obtained.