Reithian
more subtle negative attitudes. For example,
Simon Cottle in Ethnic Minorities and the
Media (Oxford University Press, 2000), edited
by Cottle, concludes from his study of regional
TV news programmes in the UK that despite
attempts to present a multiculturalist perspec-
tive, ‘such “multiculturalist” representations ...
may actually serve to reinforce culturally sedi-
mented views of ethnic miniorities as “Other”
and simultaneously appear to give the lie to
ideas of structural disadvantage and continuing
inequality’.
Another area of concern is that celebrity
culture may endorse or reinforce certain values
at the expense of others: the importance of
appearance, charisma, fame, wealth, glamorous
lifestyles, and self-promotion as opposed to
modesty, loyalty, charity and thrift, for example.
Celebrity culture permeates and is arguably
driven by the media. Celebrities can serve as
role models. According to Hamish Pringle in
Celebrity Sells (John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2004),
‘Very large numbers of people use stars as role
models and nowhere is this more evident than
in the area of personal appearance.’ It is not
then surprising that they are frequently used to
reinforce messages promoting products used in
self-presentation, like cosmetics and clothes. See
audience: active audience; effects of the
mass media; politics of accommodation
(in the media); resonance; role models.
▶P. David Marshall, ed., Celebrity Culture Reader
(Routledge, 2006).
Reithian Attitudes to broadcasting as typi-
fi ed by the fi rst Director General of the BBC,
Sir John Reith (1889–1971), who dominated the
rise of broadcasting in the UK like a colossus.
Dour, high-principled, autocratic, paternalist
and a Scottish Presbyterian to boot, Reith was
appointed General Manager of the newly formed
British Broadcasting Company in December- His philosophy was that broadcasting
was a heaven-sent opportunity to educate and
enlighten the people in the ways of quality, and
that ‘giving the people what they wanted’ was the
way to perdition.
Th is ‘Tsar of Savoy Hill’, as the press called him,
believed, in the words of the New Statesman on
Armistice Day 1933, ‘in the medicinal effects
of education – a cultural dictatorship’. Th ough
George Lansbury MP said of Reith, ‘I have
always felt that Sir John Reith would have made
a very excellent Hitler for this country’, Clement
Attlee saw advantages: ‘He puts up a splendid
resistance to vested interests of all kinds.’
Elitist, imperious and sabbatarian, Reith
over the role of the mass media in reinforcing,
in underpinning, certain social and political
values and structures. Considerable atten-
tion has been given to two areas: the media’s
portrayal of violence, and the role of the mass
media in political communications.
Th ere are those who claim that the frequent
incidence of violence in the media has contrib-
uted to an increase in acts of violence in society.
Research evidence, however, gives few clear
pointers as to the nature or extent of any media
influence. One school of thought rejects the
notion that the media directly encourage violent
behaviour in all viewers, but argues that the
media violence may reinforce already existing
tendencies to violence in some viewers.
Th is position is open to question. As Sonia
Livingstone comments in an article, ‘On the
continuing problem of media eff ects’, published
in Mass Media and Society (Arnold, 1996),
edited by James Curran and Michael Gurevitch,
‘It is diffi cult to know what beliefs people might
have espoused but for the media’s construction
of a normative reality, and diffi cult to know what
role the media plays in the construction of those
needs and desires which in turn motivate view-
ers to engage with the media as they are rather
than as they might be.’
Paul H. Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and
Hazel Gaudet in a classic study of the eff ects of
political communication by the mass media on
voting behaviour, Th e People’s Choice (Columbia
University Press, 1948), were of the opinion that
the media’s main eff ect is to reinforce existing
political preferences. The notions of selective
perception, selective exposure and selective
recall are used to explain how the same output
can reinforce the diverse views, values and
beliefs of a mass audience. It is suggested that the
audiences, rather than being passive receptacles
for media output, select from the output those
messages which are in accordance with their
own prior dispositions, and give attention to
these – a point confirmed by Garth J. Jowett
and Victoria O’Donnell reviewing research into
the effects of persuasion and propaganda in
their work, Propaganda and Persuasion (Sage,
1999). Th ey state: ‘Selectivity in the perception
of messages is generally guided by preexisting
interests and behaviour patterns of the receivers
... mass communication eff ects tend to take the
form of reinforcement rather than change.’
Whilst in recent years there has been a
tendency to adopt a more multiculturalist
perspective in many areas of broadcasting, this
may result in the inadvertent reinforcement of