El poder del público. Revisión crítica de las escuelas de efectos mediáticos

Abstract

Two classic paradigms of power pervade audience studies. Elitism presupposes passive, defenceless audiences while for pluralism audiences are consumers or interpreters with sovereignty over media content. Logically, the first paradigm postulates that the media has strong effects and the second, very limited effects or none at all. Here I shall sketch out a third paradigm, which I call institutional elitism, for which the audience would be conditioned - not determined - by its social structures and by three institutional traits of the media: subordination to other institutions (above all, the state and the market), the relationship with the audience and the format of its contents. Thus, those audiences with more economic resources would have greater autonomy, audiences which are catered to by the media for their purchasing power or social influence and which, therefore, find contents reflecting their own values and points of view. Because this is a social minority, we use the term institutional elitism.