Henry Mayer Lecture 2012: The Market Populism of Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is the most powerful media organisation in the world. Murdoch's commercial success is obvious, but less well understood is his successful pursuit of political goals, using his news media. Murdoch himself is probably the most influential Australian of all time. He says the recent News of the World hacking scandal went ‘went against everything [he stands] for’. But how true is this? He sees himself as an anti-establishment rebel, yet his influence in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States makes him part of a global elite. He has become one of the key promoters of neo-liberal ideology of small government and deregulation over the past 30 years. The basis of his philosophy was expressed by one of his former editors, David Montgomery, who said ‘Rupert has contempt for the rules. Contempt even for governments.’ Murdoch is also a devotee of the neo-conservative wing of the US Republican Party. The possibility of exercising power through ownership of the news media has been little studied in recent years, but Murdoch's role in English-speaking countries over the last 30 years shows that perhaps we need to look again at such media theories.