Paradigms of Media Power

Media power is a crucial, although often taken-for-granted concept. Does it express the economic impact of the industry, the political influence of particular “media moguls,” or the media's capacity to modify attitudes and beliefs? Does it refer to the ability of media to provide state or corporate actors with a valuable tool to assert their own dominance or to the diffusion of symbolic resources? Are we to believe that the media are increasingly the locus of power or that they constitute the space where power is decided? In order to address this dilemma, this article identifies 4 paradigms—consensus, chaos, control, and contradiction—that best express established ways of conceptualizing the flows and relationships related to media power.