Mass Communications in Modern Society Spring 2009Exam 1 Study Guide

LECTURE 2 - MEDIA IN CONTEXT

Media is derived from the Latin word for medium. Communication comes from the Latin word for common. Gemeinschaft; traditional community and Gesellschaft; modern urban

community Berger and Luckman’s Social construction of reality illustrated how reality

exists but we must negotiate the meaning of each reality and the line between media and reality often blurred. It requires an active role of a receiver in interpreting a message, media is a socially constructed institution.

Interpersonal communication consists of one to one parties, have a select audience, can know the audience, messages are sent and received by both; examples would be emails and phone. Mass communication involves one to many parties, no control over audience, it is separated, there is no immediate feedback, examples consist of internet, books, film and newspapers.

Network media is different from mass and interpersonal communication because it connects many to many and includes more interaction. In network media you can contact more then one sender, examples are conference calls, internet, emails.

Media provides an even larger part of the imagery and soundtrack of people’s memories because people tend to remember things when seeing a picture or some type of media representation rather then experiencing it directly. (9/11 is an example)

Media in context: impossible to isolate media from parts of our lives, active relationship, need to study media in context of economic, political, historical and cultural relationships

Criticisms of the new culture often turn into criticism of the media that carry them because people resist change. We do not live in world the television shows us but our world is full of content from our television. People blame the television for the stuff the television shows, it’s like shooting the messenger because you don’t like the news he brings. Many individuals believe their culture is being demeaned by the media therefore they sway away from the things in the media. Some feel the new forms of media are inferior to the old.

When Grossberg says, “We live in a world of media, but not a media world” he means that the media surrounds our community greatly but there is still the real world or reality outside the media. Sometimes the line becomes blurry but the reality is we don’t live the way the media shows us living.

Communication is often seen as the magical solution for the world’s problems because it shows an ideal world, giving people hope that it can

be achieved. People believe communication can solve all the problems. People believe that undesirable situations can be improved by effective communication but it is still not enough. This assumption is often wrong because people don’t see how many problems communication creates.

The transmission model carries a message from one person to another (source message receiver); it has information sent from the source to the media then to the audience. It allows the study of the impact of media on individuals of society and the psychology of media impact. While the cultural models give us a way to understand events, it acts as recognizing the enormous power to language, culture, and rituals as it focuses its attention on the way in which the media shows the meaning and values of a culture. Cultural models show the close connection between processes of social communication and production of common culture, processes performed routinely. Through the cultural model, individuals attempt to give meaning to their experiences. It shows culture as communication, in a process of producing new shared meaning out of interaction of historically given shared meanings and individually created meanings (construction of shared space or map of meaning, gives audience ways to understand events). Researchers do not use the cultural model to describe the impact of a media product or message.

The transmission model (source message receiver) assumes that all mass messages are like interpersonal messages and easy to transmit and relatively direct. It also assumes that the receiver will get the meaning that the sender meant it to be. The weaknesses lie in the fact that the model doesn’t include outside factors such as time delay and by the time it is received it can mean something else. The transmission model cannot deal with the huge amount of misinformation and redundancy or with the relationship between the news and media.

Berlo’s Model: source message channel receiver Lasswell’s Model: sourcemessage channel receiver effects It is important to recognize the context of the media in respect to its power

because it has the ability to engage and entertain, create and destroy and to open and close spaces. Their power depends on other practices and institutions in which they share their power with. Power has an effect as it has the ability to produce effects to make a difference in the world. It can have power over people and resources.

Dewey’s consensus model said that communication is the process through which different groups in the society come to understand and accept each other despite differences. In his day, early 1900s, he felt that mass media was not creating a common language for people. He said, “Of all things, communication is he most wonderful.”

Conflict theories view the role of mass communications as being a controlling factor because it is under the control of people who have power all ready. Resources are unequally distributed in society and the media has the power to what questions to ask. They have the power to define what others do as important. The theories emphasize the conflicts and

inequalities within social life and the difficulties different groups have living together. It says that various resources of society are not distributed equally because of social difference. Resources such as money, political positions and emotions can be valued differently in each society.

Cultural model: draws a very close connection between the processes of social communication and the production a common culture

o Processes of performed all the time; language, meaning production, sense making

o Individuals try to give their meaning by their experiences by communicating

o Is process of making a new shared meaning out of interaction historically given shared meanings and individual made meanings

o Gives way for audience to understand viewso Examples include answering the phone, saying grace before dinner

LECTURE 3 - NARRATIVES OF MEDIA HISTORY

History of communication has taken us from oral to electronic, going from face to face situation to communication transcending time and space without actually moving an object from place to place. This has creating much less social interactions and at the same time media being delivered to any place within an instance. The spreading of a message and the ability for all to voice their opinions and belief on topics is now available.

The four communication narratives are oral, writing, print, and electronic. The impacts of different media; Oral: limited impact in time and space

Writing: create individual separate from community Print: instrumental in developing secular society and democracy Electronic: ongoing

The pace of communication narratives is changing rapidly, with faster internet, and television broadcast that that can reach society on all ends of the world. Culture is being spread and it is believed that the use of these technologies is allowing for the dispersal of information and power, rather than being controlled by one specific source. However, the true impact of these technologies is not at all completely clear because we are simply to close to the historical emergence of these technologies.

Grossberg’s “technological determinism” says that technology is not the principle or only cause of change in society, and that media’s place and power in society has and is constantly changing over time. Grossberg warns that people fail to adequately consider the ways in which people make history. When talking about the contexts of media power, one needs to recognize that the context is not stable and fixed; it is in fact constantly changing over and through time.

Habermas refers to the realm of social life where information exchanged and questions of common concern are debated as the Public Sphere. Mass media plays a role in that sphere because it designates a lot of the information people receive. Public becomes fragmented and loses social coherence from the Public Sphere.

The “debates about power of media are debates about the future” that Grossberg speaks of is that when talking about the power of media, one must take into account that both, media and themselves change throughout history and in the sense that the media’s place and power in society are constantly changing. He implies that the media continues to play a larger role as we move toward the future.

Space Time Truth/Trust Social Relations

Power Cultures Opposed

Oral Must be there

History only in present time, no records

Not verifiable, personal trust

Policed face/face no written rules

Performance, important, hierarchal

Homogenous, publicly shared, no privacy

Writing

Print Transportable, more available, more private

Durable, faster Accuracy, verify, copyright laws

Literate clic, spread literacy, deviance, privacy

Individuals empowered, church losses, democratization

Empires grew, global connections, dictionary

Church, governments

Electronic

Eliminated space as an issue, privacy

Instantaneous More sources complete trust in institutions

Individuality enhanced global

Dispersion of knowledge public information with private access

Mass society, heterogeneous less precision

Sousa

The rapid development of new communication technologies contributed to

post modernity

LECTURE 4 - THEORIES OF COMMUNICATION

“mass” in mass society; collection of segregated, isolated individuals, interdependent, yet lacking central unifying purpose or value, only loosely bound together due to the weakening of traditional bonds, division of labor and growth of rationality (Broom and Selznick)

The feeling of “mass society’ arose in America in the early 1900s because of the convergence of mass society with new communication technologies and the need to generate mass messages like propaganda

The Magic Bullet Theory assumed that stimuli reached every individual of mass society and that each person perceived and responded in a uniform manner. It developed during World War I and Gemienschaft. The theory presumes particular set of unspoken assumptions of social organization of society and psychological structure of humans.

The social forces that led to the development of the Magic Bullet Theory consist of psychological and socially organized factors. During World War

I everyone was disjointed and needed to be unified against the war. The fast rise and popularization of radio and television, the emergence of persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda. Hitler’s monopolization of the mass media during World War II to unify the German public behind the Nazi party.

The prevalent psychological and sociological beliefs and assumptions at the time that led to the development of the Magic Bullet theory was the Darwinian influence along with instinct psychology present in those times. Darwin believed that our behavior was inherited and therefore uniform. There was also a breakdown of strong social ties. Propaganda in World War I was very effective.

The downfall of the Magic Bullet Theory was in the late 1920s, early 1930s when people began to realize the society wasn’t as disjointed as earlier thought, they no longer believed behavior was primarily genetic and there was a greater emphasis on role of social and cultural factors that influence behavior. (great change of thought)

The Two-Step Flow of Communication theory claims that ideas flow from media to opinion leaders (after WWII) who interpret and contextualize and are then passed onto less active sections of population. The differentiated, mediated message reaches general populace, compared to the direct message such as magic bullet. They are basically messages passing from mass media through a social mediation process. The opinion leaders put them in their own words and are passed down to people who value the opinion leader, then the message gets out to world in different messages.

The large surveys done in the 40’s and early 50’s – showed the impact of personal influence in communication patterns in America along with the flow of personal influence. The influence was related to personification, competence, strategic social location and accessibility. They showed how opinion leaders vary by subject matter but they are present in all societies. Most people were more out to be persuaded by individuals they knew then by the media.

From a media perspective, the notion of a two-step communication process was important because the media is used to analyze what is said by a specific opinion leader and is relayed then to society with several different interpretations instead of a direct message that is interpreted in possibly the wrong way. It changed how the media might meet its final target audience.

The One-Step Flow of Communication proposed by Bennett & Mannheim involves the refined targeting of messages directly to individuals. This one step flow reflects both a transformation in communication technologies and fundamental changes in the relations between individuals and society.

Bennett & Mannheim claim that society, communication technologies and individual communication habits have changed fundamentally in past 50 years because of social isolation (people are less likely to participate in group), communication channel fragmentation and media targeting messages to individuals not opinion leaders. Media fragmented and

differentiated, contributing to individualization process thus targeting smaller audiences.

The assumption for the Two-Step model was pluralist social order with lots of personal interaction while the assumption of the one-step model was social membership was declining and fluid networks replacing opinion leaders as key factor in shaping opinions. The assumption of the magic bullet theory was everyone receives messages the same.

Media changing: conventional mass media reaching smaller audiences, niche media gaining audience

Society changing: individuals assuming more responsibility for managing their own emotional and cognitive realities, less reliance on interpersonal influence

LECTURE 5 - MEDIA PEOPLE, ORGANIZATIONS AND MONEY

The media content is shaped by organizational forces since they are the ones producing the shows and they are responsible for producing and putting it out to the television shows. The media content is shaped by cultural forces because they must cater to different countries with different cultures in order to sway or help the individuals relate to them.

It is important to consider the level of analysis when we examine mass communications because each level brings a different perspective, media products as the creations of individual people, of media organizations, or of media industries. The media together constitutes an institution and the ultimate shape of media is influenced by the interaction of the media institution with other social institutions. Media are influenced by the culture in which they are produced.

An examination of the people involved in the production of mass media has to consider how different individuals create different spins on the same subject based on their personal experiences. However, our society predisposes one to think and act in patterned ways.

When new media is introduced, such as when TV replaced radio or web replaced newspapers, we generally find that at least at first new media follows patterns of old media because there is a general template that media follows, there are common genres and common elements, they tend to suppress innovation.

The roles journalists commonly see themselves playing are interpreters (62%), disseminators (51%) and adversaries (10% when talking about the government). They tend to become more investigative than neutral when the government or any other authority figure is involved.

Role the media has in educating our populace: government, education, medicine and law enforcement

Role the media has in contributing to healthcare: healthcare advertisements

Role the media has in law enforcement: TV Shows such as Law and Order

Some of the most notable characteristics of media created outside traditional media organizations are innovation & risky, journalist versus user centered, accuracy & trust.

Influence of structural and organizational factors on content: content reflects social reality, is influenced by media workers socialization and attitudes, influenced by media, influenced by social institutions and forces outside the media and is a function of ideological positions and maintains the status quo

LECTURE 6 - MEDIA PEOPLE, ORGANIZATIONS AND MONEY (Part 2)

The movie “Good Night and Good Luck” depicted the influence of individuals, media management, advertisers, and other institutions on media content by showing that advertisers had a say in the programming, management had tough decisions to make regarding the programming. Institutions such as the government and air force had to get involved.

Profit drivers and risks differ depending upon how media products are paid for because profits depend on economics of scale, meaning only records that can be expected to be sold sufficiently large numbers will be sold. (profits depend on the size of the audience) Risks are that people have little brand loyalty meaning that people don’t really care because they have so many brands they can choose from. Risks are lower when there is more investment capital.

The difference between TV ratings and TV share is that TV ratings are the number of televisions in use out of the total number of households that have televisions and TV share is the percent of those televisions which are turned into that particular program.

The media spending by families has changed in the last 2 decades compared to the prior 60 years because our lifestyles have greatly changed. We have become dependent on the media for every piece of information. Newspaper, internet, email, phone and etc have become the basis of our community and the way our lives function.

The reasons for switching for the Digital Television transition is that it will free up parts of the valuable broadcast spectrum for public safety communications (for emergencies for police, military, rescue etc.) some of the spectrum will be auctioned to companies that will be able to provide consumers with more advanced wireless services (to raise money up to $19.6 billion was raised), it will give a better picture and sound and lot more bandwidth.

The digital TV transition goes into effect June 12, 2009. The arguments for the digital TV conversion being a political action rather

than a commercial action are that since it is a government based issue, the government has the power to decide what to do with the extra parts and the money. They are going to be the ones to conduct the operation.

LECTURE 7 - MEANING AND INTERPRETATION OF MEANING

The Magic Bullet Theory believes meaning is conveyed by directly affecting the audience (propaganda). The theory suggests that the mass media could influence a very large group of people directly and uniformly by shooting or injecting them with appropriate messages designated to trigger a desired response. (content= stimulus delivered to mass audience and achieved mass effect)

The Content Theory found to dispute the Magic Bullet Theory’s understanding of meaning by stating everyone has different interpretations and thus there are alternative meanings to what is being said. (complex structures embody alternative meanings different interpretations)

Meaning: representational, conceptual, more than information (involves emotional and affective relations), private experiences combined with common codes and maps

Structuralism; way meaning is constructed in texts, structures of language consisting of signs, narrative or myths, language works because of inbuilt structures

Semiotics studies nature of any system of meaning, study of signs and symbols and their use of interpretations, linguistic, culture as well as verbal.)

The encoding and decoding fit into the transfer of meaning from a sender to a receiver because the sender encodes the message or what he tends to imply while the receiver decodes the message and how he tends to interpret it.

Myths: pre existing and value laden Pictures: no equivalent set of rules, greater denotative power Encoding: mass media complexity Decoding: receivers interpretations The Cultural model addresses meaning and interpretation of meaning by

illustrating that individuals interpret meaning by shared languages, they struggle to interpret experiences and create them thru attempts to communicate experience. The model shows culture as a communication process that produces new shared meaning out of interaction of historically given shared meanings and individually created meaning.

Representational meaning; any language that points to the real world, physical object

Conceptual meaning; not simple objects, points to an idea that is not just physical but exists in our minds as well, thoughts inside our minds

Signs are elementary units of a code. Signs are something standing for something else, any sound or image we can see or hear which refers to some object or aspect of reality. Signs are used to convey meaning about objects in the world. A code is systematic structure or organization of signs, can be simple or complex.

DeSaussure’s process of signification is the giving of meaning by means of language. There are two elements; signifier and the signified. The signifier is a physical element; the word, the image, the sound. The signified is a mental concept; it is what that physical sign invokes. Example: traffic light (the

physical element would be the red light while the mental element or the signified would mean stop)

The relationship between signifier and signified is one, you cannot have one without the other because you need both mental and physical context to create a sign. The connection between signifier and referent is arbitrary while the relation between signifier and signified is cultural and must be learned.

According to semiotics, we obtain meaning by creating it; it is not given to us. Out of the signs and codes we create meaning for everyday things. Since a sign is composed of a signifier plus the signified (signification), we need to look at codes for the meanings and it has to be learned.

Codes matter for a society because without it the world would be chaotic. People would not know what anything is and everything would be the same. Every society lives within its own codes and meaning which it produces for itself. These codes produce the maps of the world in which we live and interpret the world.

Denotation; first order of signification, it is the relation of physical aspect to mental concept, it refers to universality, straightforward

Connotation; second order of signification, how you interpret something, your emotional, cultural, ideological assumptions, deeper knowledge and meaning, associated meanings conjured by object signified, variable by culture

Semiology helps us understand mass media because everything in mass media can be interpreted as a sign. Semiotics helps us understand how to differentiate and understand signs and codes. Sometimes semiotics cannot be detailed enough to explain mass media because it is a general tool.