Tag: neo-marxism

  • The British Media: a very upper middle class institution

    Michael Buerk recently lamented the retirement of John Humphrys from Radio Four’s today programme – because his departure means one less working class voice on the BBC: once Humphrys goes all of the remaining Today presenters will have been privately educated. In fact Buerk suggests that Humphrys further represents an older generation of media presenters:…

  • The Neo-Marxist Perspective on The Media

    Neo Marxists argue that cultural hegemony explains why we have a limited media agenda. Journalists have more freedom than traditional Marxists suggest, and the media agenda is not directly controlled by owners. However, journalists share the world view of the owners and use gatekeeping and agenda setting to keep items which are harmful to elites…

  • Religion and Social Change

    Religion and Social Change

    Functionalists and Marxists argue religion prevents change, Max Weber and others disagree!

  • The Neo-Marxist Perspective on Religion

    In contrast to Marx’s view that religion was a conservative force, neo-marxists recognize the role that religion can play in bringing about radical social change. One of the earliest Marxists to recognize this was Engels, who saw similarities between some of the early Christian sects that resisted Roman rule and late 19th century communist and…

  • Ethnicity and Crime: Neo-Marxist Approaches

    Neo-Marxism draws on aspects of Marxist and Interactionist theory in order to explain the criminalisation of ethnic minorities by the media and the state. The classic study from this perspective is Stuart Hall’s Policing the Crisis (1979) in which he examined the moral panic that developed over the crime of mugging in the 1970s. Despite…