The Power Elite and Rupert Murdoch

 

Pictured above is Rupert Murdoch, the founder of Fox News. In the second photo he is seen with President Donald Trump. 

Mills described the Power Elite as people at the top of the economic, political and military sphere. He claims that the people in these domains have a "similar social type and leading to the fact of their easy intermingling" (Mills 19). Based on Mills claims saying “members of a top social stratum, as a set of groups whose members know one another socially and at business, and so, in making decisions, take one another into account” (Mills, 11),  there's no doubt that a media tycoon such as Rupert Murdoch himself could be seen talking with President Trump. Mills highlights how people from different sectors socialise with one another. Further, he talks about how people in the Power Elite have quite a lot of power in society.

There seems to be an anomaly of celebrities entering into the status and power elite. Mills predicted how celebrities maintain the status elite. In this case, it is interesting to see how Trump, despite always being on the outskirts of the New York elite, became "in" once becoming president.  "Although both men parlayed their inheritances into global power, they have stubbornly viewed themselves as outsiders at odds with the establishment"  (Chozick 2017).  It seems that becoming president has become a big achievement which allowed him to enter into the power elite of New York.  

 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/23/business/media/murdoch-trump-relationship.html

Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. Oxford University Press, 1956.

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