This article deals with two related issues. The first is theoretical and concerns the widespread (but often unacknowledged) tendency to functional analysis in cultural science. Functional explanations are discussed and defended along the lines drawn by the analytic philosopher, Cohen. The second issue concerns prospects for constructing a research project aimed at testing the hypothesis that the content of political ideas in the daily press can be explained by their function of stabilizing economic power relations in society. Within this functionally explanatory frame-work a theory is presented which shows how press dependence on advertising finance can give rise to the `causal mechanisms' at work.
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