Chapter 8 Flashcards
Media and Society
Ideology:
A coherent set of social values, beliefs, and meanings that people use to decode the world
(ex. Dominant ideology)
Dominant ideology
refers to dominant or ruling-class values, beliefs, and meanings
Media
communication outlets/tools used to store and deliver content between a sender and a receiver
(ex. publishing, news, cinema, digital advertising, music, etc.)
Mass Media
sending a message from one source to multiple people
Newspapers, magazines, film, television, radio, advertising, book publishing, the internet, social media, and popular music
Mass Communication
Historically: a term used to describe communication to a large and undifferentiated group
Recently: term used to describe communication between a large number of individuals
Social Media
refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange info and ideas in virtual communities and networks
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
a theoretical explanation based on the idea that language influences thought (means there is a relationship among language, thought, and culture)
- inspired by Sapir’s work comparing European to Indigenous languages
Corporate Concentration
the increasing density of media ownership being owned by a smaller number of people and organizations
C. Wright Mills
an American sociologist who argues that the power elite have interwoven interests, and that concentrated media ownership helps communicate their interests
(specifically looks at military, political and corporate realms)
Power elite (C.W. Mills)
a small group of people who have a disproportionately large amount of control or influence (composed of political, military and corporate men
Cultural Hegemony
describes the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class, who manipulate the culture of that society through ideological means so that their worldview is the one that is accepted
(developed by Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci)
Ideological means:
the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and more
how does cultural hegemony function?
by achieving the consent of the masses to abide by social norms and rules of law by framing the worldview of the ruling class ( and the social and economic structures that go with it)
Intelligentsia
intellectual elites or highly educated people as a group
False Consciousness (Marxist theory)
describes the ways in which material, ideological, and institutional processes are said to mislead members of the working class and other class actors within capitalist societies (hides the inequality between social classes)
Marxist Theory
theory that capitalist society is based on inequalities between the ‘bourgeoisie’ (ruling capitalist class) and ‘proletariat’ (working class).
*It is a conflict theory, as it sees society as being in constant conflict between these social classes.
2 Main types of Media Diversity
Idea and Demographic diversity
Idea Diversity (type of media diversity)
refers to the range of viewpoints expressed in the media marketplace of ideas
- media concentration allows corporations to censor info based on their interests
Demographic diversity (type of media diversity)
Refers to how the media represents and addresses the interests of a diversity of people from a variety of races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and classes
- there is a lack in diversity of ownership which could limit the diversity of humanity depicted in the media
New Media
defined as accessible on demand, digital, and is interactive, meaning users may comment and provide feedback
Parasocial relationships
Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships, typically with an everyday individual and a celebrity or fictional character
AI
Artificial Intelligence
Cyberbullying
using the internet and related technologies to repeatedly intimidate or harass others
(*LGBTQ+ community has been significantly impacted by cyberbullying)
Digital Divide:
the inequality between groups in regards to their access to info and communication technologies (exists within within/between countries, between individuals, households, etc)
Global Digital Divide
Measures the gap (divide) between the digital access and use of technologies across countries
Media Literacy:
an educational tool that helps individuals analyze and evaluate the messages they receive from the media (a concept devoted to regaining control over individuals media consumption
3 main stages
3 main stages of media literacy
- Become aware of ones own media diet
- learn specific skills of critical viewing (what is there and what is missing)
- question who is behind the media your consuming and who is responsible for the messages in the media
Alternative media
based on media that falls outside the purview of the mainstream media (ex. blogs, community run newspapers, etc)
- defined by 4 main characteristics
4 main characteristics of alternative media
- the Message is not corporately controlled
- its content is anti-establishment
- it is usually distributed in a creative way
- there is a fundamentally different relationship between the producer and consumer (2-way relationship)
mainstream media
any kind of media that is commercial, publicly supported or government owned
Media Democratization
- gives the people the right to participate in media (citizen involvement, alternative media)
- make it so big corporations don’t own majority of social media
