Media Elites Research Articles

Neopopulism in Contemporary Ecuador: The Case of Bucaram's Use of the Mass Media

Social and political scientists charge that television endangers democracy. Pierre Bourdieu, for instance, provocatively asserted that television is "a threat to political life and to democracy itself." Giovanni Sartori forcefully argued that television is transforming the meanings of politics and democracy because it personalizes politics, presents politics as a spectacle, and is based on emotional rather than rational appeals. Pierre-Andre Taguieff contends that populism has become telepopulism, a form of "video demagogy: the demagogue acts on his audience by letting himself be seen more than understood." As a result, "citizens are reduced to ... mere consumers of spectacles." In sum, the argument is, that images are replacing open deliberations and the logic of arguments that have characterized traditional forms of politics based on language. The electoral successes of Latin American political mavericks such as Collor in Brazil, Fujimori in Peru, Menem in Argentina, and Bucaram in Ecuador seem to confirm these pessimistic assessments. Fernando Collor's election in 1989 was influenced by the power of the media empire Globo to manufacture his candidacy. Carlos Menem and Abdala Bucaram have used television to broadcast their personal successes in nonpolitical spaces such as sports and mass entertainment as a substitute for debates on their policies. These antipolitical-establishment leaders won elections in the context of economic, political, and ideological crises. This new conjuncture is characterized by the crises of import substitution industrialization, the end of nationalist and distributive state policies, increasing levels of poverty and informal subemployment, distrust of traditional mechanisms of political representation, and by the quandaries of class-based politics and ideologies. Scholars have argued that in this context of rapid transformations control of the mass media and manipulation of the masses by media elites are the

Rating the Polls: The Views of Media Elites and the General Public

To measure the credibility of the polls in 1984, Gallup conducted two surveys, one of the press and one of the general public. Results of the press survey indicated a favorable reaction to the accuracy of the preelection polling in 1984, although there was a division of opinion about whether the polls were better at explaining the vote than predicting it, and whether the polls enhanced or interfered with the electoral process. The public's perception of the polls was a generally positive one both as to their accuracy and their overall effect.

Personality, Ideology and World View: A Comparison of Media and Business Elites

For some time we have been engaged in a large scale study of various leadership strata in the United States. Our goal is to clarify similarities and differences in background, ideology and personality among members of such strata. We are also interested in the relationship between these variables and the manner in which members of different leadership groups perceive ‘reality’. This article reports preliminary findings on two groups – leading business executives and top level journalists. Our work has been partly informed by hypotheses developed by social scientists as diverse as Max Weber, Harold Lasswell, Joseph Schumpeter, S. M. Lipset, Alvin Gouldner, Jurgen Habermas, Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell and others.

The Mass Media and the Corporate Elite: A Re-Analysis of the Overlap between the Media and Economic Elites

The Mass Media and the Corporate Elite: A Re-Analysis of the Overlap between the Media and Economic Elites

Overlap of the Media and Economic Elites

Overlap of the Media and Economic Elites