Mass Media and Society

Chapter 1: Media and Culture

Jan. 17, 2014

Chapter 1:Media and Culture

• Mass communication and mass media

• How culture affects media, and media affect culture

• The roles played by media in society

Chapter 1:Media and Culture

• Convergence• Free speech• Popular culture• Media literacy

Understanding Media and Culture

• What is culture?• “A particular way of life

and how that life is acted out each day in works, practices and activities”

Defining culture

• “The expressed and shared values, attitudes, beliefs, and practices of a social group, organization or institution”

• “Culture should not be easy to define”

Marshall McLuhan

• “The medium is the message”

• 1950s to 1980• Media themselves are

more important than any content they carry

Marshall McLuhan

• Media influence how the brain works and processes information, creating new patterns of thought and behavior

• Dominant media shape society

Mass communication

• Communication transmitted to large segments of society

Media

• The word media is plural!• A medium is simply an

instrument or means of communication

• Mass media: means of transmission designed to reach a wide audience

Mass media

• Radio, film, newspapers, magazines, books, video games, websites, blogs, podcasts, video sharing

The evolutionof media

• Gutenberg’s 15th century invention of the printing press made the mass production of print media possible.

Newspapers

• As the United States developed, print newspapers helped give expression to developing American culture.

• Helped create an “imagined community”

Radio and rise of television

• 17,000 TVs in 1946; within 7 years, in 1 of 3 U.S. households

• Cable television spreads in 1980s and 1990s

What do media do for us?

• Inform and entertain• Serve as public forum• Monitor government and

institutions• Watergate• N.J. bridge scandal:

Bergen Record

Convergence

• Process by which previously distinct technologies come to share content, tasks and resources

• Smartphones; news stories appearing on multiple platforms

Jenkins: Types of convergence

• Economic• Organic• Cultural• Global• Technological

Media shape culture and vice versa

• Free speech, obscenity, copyright law

• Persuasion and propaganda

• Gatekeepers

Mass media and popular culture

• Pop culture: The media products and attitudes that are part of the mainstream of a culture and the everyday life of common people

• Tastemakers and crowdsourcing

Media Literacy

• The ability to access, analyze, and communicate information.

• Skeptically examine the media messages we receive.

5 core concepts of media literacy

• Messages constructed• Using own language• Different experiences• Embedded

values/viewpoint• Organized to gain

profit/power