Courses — BNDS A-Level Programme

Power and the Media

This is one of the three A Level Media debates topics (Syllabus 2027 pp.9, 18), and one of the two studied at BNDS alongside Postmodern Media.

Syllabus framing: “Power and the media considers issues surrounding access to the media, identity, representation, ideology and democracy” (p.18).

The core question: who gets to speak, who gets spoken for, and whose version of the world wins?

What you must study (Syllabus 2027 p.18)

  • the relationships between media texts, their producers, distributors and audiences
  • the mediation of national, regional, individual and group identities
  • the dynamic nature of power relationships within and between audiences and the media
  • the power of rhetoric in the media
  • the construction and reception of campaigning and marketing messages
  • the way access to the media may be limited or controlled, including the democratic distribution of voices

Unlike the other two debates, this topic has no “arguments for and against.” It is framed as interrogation rather than adjudication: you analyse how power operates, rather than argue whether it should.

Three kinds of power

“This could be the power to represent, to speak for a particular group, or the power to acquire independent companies in order to benefit from their brand and market share. It could also be the growing power of individuals to produce and distribute their own material, to create their own brands and to make an impact on political discourse via social media.” (SoW p.24)

Representational power · corporate power · distributed individual power. Strong essays set at least two of these against each other.

Dominant ideology

“although there may now be an enormous quantity of voices in the public sphere, there is still a sense that some voices are more powerful than others, some representations are more potent than others, and that when media messages are aligned with dominant ideologies they are particularly powerful.” (SoW p.25)

This connects straight back to Representation: the systematic reinforcement of values across many texts is the mechanism by which representation becomes power.

The named thinker

Slavoj Žižek is the only theorist Cambridge names here (SoW p.25):

“Media ownership will be one factor to consider, and there are examples of media outlets being directly influenced, or self-censoring, because of their owners, but more significant will be what Slavoj Žižek calls the media’s ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ – its reproduction of ideological ‘truths’ about which voices count for more than others, its reduction of complex conflicts to spectacle, and the general reinforcing of ‘common sense’.”

Also worth considering: “In the years since the publication of this article, it is now also worth considering how much has changed in terms of increased representation of different ethnicities in media productions - and also analyse how and why degrees of change have occurred.”

Counter-power

“Learners might also consider, however, how media messages may be rejected or subverted, perhaps using strategies of détournement, producing their own texts, or mounting social media campaigns.” (SoW p.25)

Cambridge’s example is a Guardian piece on young Brixton activists recreating film posters with Black leads. You can connect détournement to Guy Debord and the Situationists.

Activities

One activity per syllabus bullet:

  • media power flow analysis (producers → distributors → platforms → audiences; gatekeeping, concentration)
  • mediation of national/regional/group/individual identity
  • audience power dynamics (activism, backlash, fan campaigns; “whether participatory culture increases or commodifies audience power”)
  • rhetorical strategy analysis (framing, emotive language, binary oppositions)
  • campaign analysis (mode of address, ideological positioning, oppositional readings)
  • access mapping (ownership concentration, economic barriers, platform algorithms, cultural gatekeeping)
  • a synoptic debate on the motion “Media power remains concentrated in the hands of institutions rather than audiences.”

Two further exercises:

  1. “Find two or three news stories about refugees/asylum seekers. How are they represented? What rhetoric is used? How is the reader positioned in relation to the refugees?”
  2. “What kinds of representations of women can you find in advertising? How ‘powerful’ are they?”

Resource sources: Media Reform Coalition, Ofcom media-ownership rules, Pew, Reuters Institute Digital News Report.