Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 1, January 1993 | Page 20

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by the dominant classes (Becker 69). This argument presents such
control as not entirely a conscious conspiracy of one class over another
but partly as a predisposition for the majority of individuals within
a society to be socialized to think alike.
The media critic Stuart Hall (1982) argued that such control
within the news media exists as a subtle process "by means of which
certain events get recurrently signified in particular ways" (The
Rediscovery of 'Ideology' 69). By historical and cultural tradition,
similar events are told and retold by journalists and others in similar
ways until only certain interpretations are valid for certain events.
This creates a circular process which affects the individual
journalist. Because the news media have always portrayed events in
particular ways, the journalists themselves see the world partly in
the way they have learned to see it through the news media.
Hall also argued that the concept of objectivity has itself become
a kind of ideology to which journalists subscribe, an ideology that
expects those journalists to translate events into reports using methods
that would guarantee that their reports are democratic and nonideological. Ironically, these beliefs have the op|X)site effect—they
result in a confirmation of the control of society by the dominant
social and economic classes (Media Power 21).
This confirmation results from the journalists’ belief that in order
to communicate the facts properly, they must impartially present the
views of all important sides of an event or issue. Although such a
belief may seem innocent enough on the surface, in practice it results in
a situation in which the dominant forces in society, such as the
representatives of the major political parties, will routinely be heard
on almost every issue. Such leaders become incorporated into a closed
system composed of an elite list of opposing forces that journalists
must routinely consult to ensure objectivity. Indeed, in a study that
supports Hall's argument, one team of communications researchers
concluded after surveying the literature that the concept of
objectivity has worked most of all to convince news workers to ignore
other characteristics of their sources as long as they are official
(Taylor and Condit 293).
However, the ability to reach the public frequently is not the
only advantage that society's elite enjoys. Because of the belief in
impartiality among journalists, the elite are also ensured that their
views will automatically be considered important, whether those