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10 tweets,
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I don’t think it’s useful for us, as socialists, to see the mainstream media as some kind of conspiracy (e.g in league with the Government or directly “doing their bidding”). Ironically, I think it underestimates the problem. I want to explain why. [thread] (1/10)
In fact, it’s more serious & entrenched than this. It’s partly about class & partly about a centrist, unquestioning culture that has developed, within institutions like the BBC (but also other big media institutions) - over decades & under successive Governments. (2/10)
The class dimension has been well documented, but bears restating: the mainstream media overwhelmingly recruits from privileged group - whether they be middle or upper class - mainly, but not exclusively Oxbridge. Naturally their politics will be right of centre/centrist. (3/10)
What that recruitment (& the cultures it reproduces) excludes are radical, working class voices. Certainly very few left wing socialists will be in a position to take jobs within those media hierarchies, even if they wanted to, because the structures are deeply entrenched. (4/10)
That dictates a culture & ideology within these media institutions. Naturally, those who share the ideology are rewarded, those who don’t are not. We don’t need to be conspiracy theorists to understand this: it’s the way most big institutions work. Media is no different. (5/10)
What this has done, over decades now, is to entrench a centrist ideology (either of the centre right or centre left) at the heart of our media institutions. Apart from the odd token exception, this has become the entitled & intolerant modus operandi, seemingly unshakeable. (6/10)
What Corbyn’s election & the rise of socialism has done however, is to (a) introduce a lot of ideas which this centrism doesn’t recognise & (b) project individuals into the political “mainstream” that the media establishment thought they’d long since dispatched & isolated. (7/10)
This annoys them & you can see the overt manifestations of this annoyance in the way presenters talk to the likes of @OwenJones84, @HackneyAbbott or even @jeremycorbyn. This is not necessarily a conscious thing, but works at deeper level, running through the organisation (8/10)
So, in many ways the BBC (and Sky, Channel 4 etc) can be said to be institutionally centrist. It isn’t a conspiracy, in the sense of a deliberate strategy, but an evolving culture. This is important because it dictates the way we, as leftists, understand & deal with it. (9/10)
To change this is generational thing more important than exposing a “conspiracy”. It’s about democratising media, challenging entrenched values, empowering working class voices & changing cultures which exclude them. And building alternatives where this can’t be achieved. (10/10)
