RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

limitations within present media politics . For example , in the British đebate over the f uture of radio broađcasting, there is a lot of rhetoric concerning 'freedom' and 'choice'. Often this propaganda is a way of covering up very different visions of the future of radio broadcasting . A political economic analysis not only debunks the hype produced by many politicans , but also shows how difficult will be the implementation of these diff erent strategies . It counters the claims of those on both the Rjght and the Left who think that the future of radio rests solely on the will of the government. (Turner 1988; o'Haley 1988) A media political есопоту shows that reality is not so simple and can turn out in ways which our leaders dislike . The starting-point of a materialist analysis is that the media is a typical product of societies based on the accumulation of capital. It is only one part of a wide variety of production processes carried out through a complex social division of labor. These various sectors and sites of production are coordinated and regulated through the different methođs and mođes of accumulation . Within industrial societies , this means that the working class as a whole is systematically denied апу access or control over the means of production, including the međia . Media workers are only united with their means of production through the wage-relation . The audience is limited by the division of labor to being the consumers of other people's labor . A money-commodity есопоту ensures that the use value of апу prođuction process is the creation of exchange value . 'The reciprocal anđ all-sided dependence of individuals who are indifferent to one another forms their social connection . This bond is expressed in exchange value , by means of which alone each individuaTs own activity or his product becomes an activity and a product for him; he must produce a general prođuct-exchange value, or, the latter isolated for itself and individualized, топеу.' (Магх 1973:156-7) If the mtroduction of newspapers and books characterizes the earliest stages of mdustrialization , the emergence of radio anđ television is evidence of the intensification of accumulation throughout the twentieth century . The electronic media must be seen as products of Fordism. The consumption of programs by these media is dependent on buying a receiver . The almost universal ownership of radio and television sets within advanced mdustrial societies couid ohly be created by their mass production through assembly line methods . In turn , these new media technologies themselves were depenđent on the orgamzation of scientific labor . Fordism was not simply a matter of new commodities , production techmgues and labor

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