Media systems are powerful enough that the state cannot fully dictate their day-to-day output.

Evidence

Modern systems of broadcasting, as Hans Magnus Enzensberger has recently argued, are of necessity “leaky systems.” (See “Constituents of a Theory of the Media,” New Left Review I/64, 1977.) They are subject to the overall determinations of power, but their day-to-day operations cannot be fully prescribed. For one thing, the broadcasting institutions are both too powerful and too complex to be marshaled in this way. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 861

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Enzensberger’s ‘leaky systems’ concept for how media mediation always leaves gaps in hegemonic control.