ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies core ideas and key terms around the relationship of power and media. It identifies sources of power in contemporary society and evaluates the role of media for each one. Power is the ability to determine the actions of others, as well as our ability to determine our own actions. Individuals or groups who hold and exercise power are termed ‘dominant individuals or groups’. Those over whom power is exercised are termed ‘subordinate individuals or groups’. The source of the ‘power’ of media is often portrayed as intrinsic to the processes of communication – something in the technology or particularity of media texts and technologies. Such power is seen as operating at an emotional, psychological and physiological level, affecting behaviour in some manner. Marx’s innovation was to argue that the way a society was organised – its material basis – would determine ideas and the way that people thought about the world.
