Chapter 1 - Mass Communication: A Critical Approach

Question 1

Communication

Answer 1

The process of creating symbol systems that convey information and meaning (for example, language, Morse code, film, and computer codes).

Question 2

Culture

Answer 2

The symbols of expression that individuals, groups, and societies use to make sense of daily life and to articulate their values; a process that delivers the values of a society through products or other meaning-making forms.

Question 3

Mass Media

Answer 3

The cultural industries - the channels or communication - that produce and distribute songs, novels, news, movies, online computer services, and other cultural products to a large number of people.

Question 4

Mass Communication

Answer 4

the process of designing and delivering cultural messages and stories to diverse audiences through media channels as old as the book and as new as the internet.

Question 5

Digital Communication

Answer 5

images,texts, and sounds that use pulses of electric current or flashes of laser light and are converted (or encoded) into electric signals represented as varied combinations of binary numbers, ones and zeros; these signals are then reassembled (decoded) as a precise reproduction of a TV picture, a magazine article, or telephone voice.

Question 6

Senders

Answer 6

The authors, producers, agencies, and organizations that transmit messages to receivers.

Question 7

Messages

Answer 7

The texts, image, and sounds transmitted from senders to receivers.

Question 8

Mass Media Channel

Answer 8

Newspapers, books, magazines, radio, movies, television, or the Internet.

Question 9

Receivers

Answer 9

The targets of messages crafted by senders.

Question 10

Gatekeepers

Answer 10

Editors, producers, and other media managers who function as message filters, making decisions about what types of messages actually get produced for particular audiences.

Question 11

Feedback

Answer 11

Responses from receivers to the senders of messages.

Question 12

Selective Exposure

Answer 12

The phenomenon whereby audiences seek messages and meaning that correspond to their preexisting beliefs and values.

Question 13

Convergence

Answer 13

The first definition involves the technological merging of media content across various platforms; cross platform. The second definition describes a business model that consolidates various media holdings under one corporate umbrella.

Question 14

Cross Platform

Answer 14

A particular business model that involves a consolidation of various media holdings - such as cable connection, phone service, television transmission, and Internet access - under one corporate umbrella; convergence.

Question 15

Narrative

Answer 15

The structure underlying most media products, it includes two components: the story (what happens to whom) and the discourse (how the story is told).

Question 16

High Culture

Answer 16

A symbolic expression that has come to mean “good taste”; often supported by wealthy patrons and corporate donors, it is associated with fine art (such as ballet, the symphony, painting, and classical literature), which is available primarily at theaters or museums.

Question 17

Low Culture

Answer 17

A symbolic expression supposedly aligned with the questionable tastes of the “masses,” who enjoy the commercial “junk” circulated by the mass media, such as soap operas, rock music, talk radio, comic books, and monster truck pulls.

Question 18

Modern Period

Answer 18

The term describing the a historical era spanning the time from the rise of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries to the present; it’s social values include celebrating the individual, believing in rational order, working efficiently, and rejecting tradition.

Question 19

Progressive Era

Answer 19

A period of political and social reform that lasted from the 1890s to the 1920s.

Question 20

Post Modern Period

Answer 20

The term describing a contemporary historical era spanning the 1960s to the present; its social values include opposing hierarchy, diversifying and recycling culture, questioning scientific reasoning, and embracing paradox.

Question 21

Explain the interrelationship between culture, mass media, and mass communication.

Answer 21

Culture is the values held, mass communication is the message that is designed to share those values, and mass media is the means by which mass communication is shared.

Question 22

What are the key technological breakthroughs that accompanied the transition to the print and electric eras? Why were these changes significant?

Answer 22

Printing press, telegraph, film, television, computers, cable, DVDs, VCRs, satellite, cell phones, smart phones, PDAs, and email.

It changed our relationship with media and culture.

Question 23

Explain the linear model and it’s limitations.

Answer 23

Senders transmit messages through a mass media channel to large groups of receivers. In the process gatekeepers function as message filters. This process allows for feedback in which receivers can return messages to senders if the choose.

Limitations: messages usually do not move smoothly from point A to point Z. Senders have no control over how their messages will be interpreted.

Question 24

Describe the development of mass medium from emergence to convergence.

Answer 24

1. Emergence Stage: inventors and technicians try to solve a particular problem.
2. Entrepreneurial Stage: inventors and investors determine a practical and marketable use for a new device.
3. Mass Medium Stage: businesses figure out how to market the new device or medium as a consumer product.
4. Convergence Stage: older media is reconfigured in carious forms on newer media.

Question 25

In looking at the history of popular culture, explain why newer and emerging forms of media seem to threaten the status quo values.

Answer 25

When someone does something that isn’t seen as acceptable, the number of people that see that is extremely high. People become desensitized and all of a sudden values are changed.

Question 26

Describe the skyscraper model of culture. What are its limitations?

Answer 26

A view on culture as a hierarchy, with superior products at the top and inferior ones at the bottom.

Limitations:

1. An inability to appreciate fine art
2. A tendency to exploit high culture
3. A throw-away ethic
4. A diminished audience for high culture
5. Dulling our cultural taste buds

Question 27

Describe the map model of culture.

Answer 27

Here culture is an ongoing and complicated process that allows us to better account for our diverse and individual tastes.

Question 28

What are the chief differences between modern and postmodern values?

Answer 28

Modernism is efficiency, individualism, rationalism, and progress. Postmodernism is populism, diversity, nostalgia, and paradox.

Question 29

What are the five steps in the critical process?

Answer 29

1. Description
2. Analysis
3. Interpretation
4. Evaluation
5. Engagement

Question 30

Which of the five steps in the critical process is the most difficult? Why?

Answer 30

Interpretation. I’m not positive why but I would think it is because the number of possible interpretations are endless, and dependent on the knowledge of the person doing the interpreting.

Question 31

Why is the critical process important?

Answer 31

It allows us to participate in a debate about media culture as a force for both democracy and consumerism.