Exam 1 Flashcards
Encoded
Transformed into understandable sign & symbol system
Decoded
Signs & symbols interpreted
Culture
Learned behavior of members of given social group
We learn (our) culture via communication & the media
Functions and effects of culture
- Limits our options & provides guidelines for behavior
- In pluralistic society, dominant culture (mainstream culture) is often challenged (by alternative culture)
- Many smaller, bounded cultures exist within large, national culture (Ex). Equestrian this area
- Culture can divide and/or unite
- (Mis)communication turns differentiation into divide (Ex). Islam vs. West
Before the invention of writing
Oral / preliterate culture – Local-based, memory is crucial, myth & history intertwined
Invention of writing
- Ideogrammatic writing 田島淳志
- (Syllable) Alphabets
Changes by writing
(esp. printing press):
- Uniformity (e.g., reliability info. for mass)
- (Long) distance communication
- Recording of memory
Literacy
The ability to effectively and efficiently comprehend and use written symbols.
What do you learn with literacy
- Spelling (orthography)
- Grammar: “arts of letters”
- Etymology
Media literacy
The ability to effectively and efficiently comprehend and utilize mass communication
Cultural Definition of Communication
“Communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired & transformed.”
Third-person effect
The common attitude that others are influenced by media messages, but I am not
Industries in Turmoil…
- Movie attendance has been down
- Album sales decreased
- Major TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, & Fox) possess only 34% of viewing audience compared to 60% 15 years ago . . .
What is the rate of media consumption currently?
- Media consumption is at an all time high
- Kids (age 8-18): Spend 8h 33m /day with media content
- “Rules” of media consumption have changed.
The 5 major industries
Comcast, AT&T, Disney, ViacomCBS, & SONY
Concentration of ownership
Fewer media owners own more media companies
Conglomeration
The ownership of the media outlets by larger, non-media
companies
(GE owned NBCUniversal (–2011); Disney owns ABC)
Oligopoly
(market structure)
A concentration of (media) industries into an ever smaller
number of companies
How can mass communication be compared to an industrial factory?
“economies of scale” relative to the media industry…
Economies of Scale
Relative cost of an operation’s output declines as the size of the endeavor grows (works well in media industry)
Synergy
The use by the media corporations of as many channels of delivery as possible for similar content
((AOL) Time Warner controls all the way)
This media content can sell well if a company has book, magazine, film, music, TV, & more simultaneously
Convergence
/digital tech
The erosion of traditional distinction among media
Non-rivalrous Public Goods
One media product can be shared by many people. Goods that can be inexpensively copied and distributed, allowing many consumers to enjoy product at the same time. Duplication does not cost much.
First-Copy Cost
The cost to produce the original product that can then be copied and distributed. Media industry is more willing to spend greater first-copy cost than most other industries.
Consequences of media concentration
- Lack of diverse contents, not only in the US, but also globally
- “Safe” contents (be sure to generate profit!; avoid controversy)
- Price goes up (Oligopoly)
- Media’s “watchdog role” decreases …
Watchdog
- a watchful guardian, esp. against illegal or unethical conduct
- media are expected to disclose corruption, scandal, etc. for social justice
(Ex) Watergate
Consequence of media conglomeration
How NBC would cover / not cover a plane crash, maybe they are owned by those people…
Hypercommercialism
Increasing the amount of ad, and mixing of commercial & non-commercial media contents
Product placement
Brand entertainment
Brands are part of & essential to the program
(placement agencies connect advertisers with film producers)
Audience Fragmentation
Narrowcasting, niche marketing, & targeting
Taste public
increasingly fragmented into demographically targeted media content, groups of people bound by little more than an interest in a given form
Addressable technologies
technologies permitting the transmission of very specific content to equally specific audience members
Appointment consumption
audiences consume content at a time predetermined by the producer and distributor;
for example, a movie time at a theater, your favorite television show at 9:00 p.m. on Tuesdays, news at the top of the hour, your magazine in your mailbox on the third of the month
Consumption on demand
the ability to consume any content, anytime, anywhere
Media multitasking
Simultaneously using multiple kinds of media
Platform agnostic
Don’t care which medium to get contents
Technology changes and influences
The development of media technologies, especially via the Internet, allows the media industry to develop algorithms to obtain feedback in a much more precise fashion, such as who’s using media contents in what way.
Why is changing nature of audience feedback important?
- Privacy (e.x. Identity theft)
- Tailored Ads – Good or bad? What you see (ads) is controlled by the media, not your autonomous choice.
- Freedom of Speech: What you watch, read, etc. are important part of your identity.
Externalities
Externalities are economic and social costs of a market transaction that occur independently of the decision to
make that transaction.
- Not a concept for media only; for any business
- Both positive and negative
The printing press
Printing = Technology
Printing and books are the first ever mass medium!
Gutenberg’s printing press
Historically, what has the printing press allowed us to do?
Mass identical information
Reaching many people
Information became reliable
Increased literacy
Information travels geographically as well as “chronologically” (i.e., over time)
Creation of mass social consciousness
Development of complex social systems, such as education and politics
Helped create bigger communities, even nations
The print (books) had long been the only mechanically mass- produced goods in our history!
History of printing in Colonial America
1638: First printing by Cambridge Press – Governmental & religious
1765: Printers revolt after passage of Stamp Act mandated all printing on paper stamped with government’s seal
= Censorship
Mid-1770s - Anti-British sentiment
Books/pamphlets, motivated & united political dissent.
After Independence, printing became more central to political, intellectual & cultural life in major cities (e.x. Boston, NY, & Philly)
Later, Chicago, CA cities.
But still mostly from East.
Books & Education
Books provide knowledge, but also literacy in itself . . .
Education needs books, education fosters literacy.
By 1900, compulsory education had come to most states, which swelled the number of book readers.
1860: Irwin and Erastus Beadle began publishing dime novels (10 cents)…
By 1865 Beadle & Company produced over 4 million volumes.
Also called “pulp novels.”
Mass circulation of books & literacy go hand by hand.
Letterpress printing
This is where the idea of “font size” came from
(From Gutenberg Museum, “12 pt DOUBLE space”)
The advantegous type for printing…
Phonetic Alphabets - English, etc.
(Ideographic Characters - 中華、韓国語、日本語 = Not so advantageous)
Linotype machine
with a typewriter-like keyboard (line of type)
Offset lithography
made it possible to print from photographic plates rather than from heavy metal casts
Marshall McLuhan’s well-known argument…
“the medium is the message”
the medium through which a message is presented communicates an idea independent from its content
Helvetica
- Post-WWII Europe
- Swiss neutrality
- Denationalized (removing WWII nationalism stigma)
- Modernist movement
- Neutrality ideal for international business
Times New Roman
- Legibility – Scientifically redesigned from The Times
- Content-focused
- Font designed to be “crisp”
- Tight line spacing & condensed appearance
- Default for journalism, Academic, legal, etc.
Books are:
- agents of social (activism) & cultural change
- important cultural repository
- windows on the past
- important sources of personal development
Also - wonderful sources of entertainment, escape, and personal reflection
- allows readers to use their own creativity and imagination (not in Baran)
- more individual, personal than advertiser supported media
- mirrors of culture
Historical – More institutional censorship of books…
- Nazi Censorship
- Joseph McCarthy – Removing “procommunist” 100 books
Today – more self-censorship (e.g., school libraries)
- Sexually explicit
- Offensive language
- Occult / Satanism
- Homosexuality
- Racism
Aliteracy
(Self-censorship):
Where people possess the ability to read but choose not to…
“…For that crime, a person pays with his whole life; if the offender
is a nation, it pays with its history” Joseph Brodsky (1987)
A unique nature of book publishing as a business
resale & remainders
Resale (/retail) price maintenance
The practice whereby a book publisher and book stores agree that the book stores will sell the publisher’s books at certain prices determined by the publisher.
Remainders
Bookstores return unsold copies to publisher, then sold at discount as remainders.
Book industry today
e-publishing
- e-books
- Platform agnostic publishing
- Print on Demand (POD)
E-books
More publishing opportunities, higher royalties, Disintermediation
Print on Demand (POD)
content stored digitally, then printed & shipped when ordered
eliminating remainders
A cottage industry
past book industry
publishing houses were small operations, closely identified with their personnel
Today compared to cottage industry:
A few giants
Publishers sell off subsidiary rights to filmmakers, foreign publishers, v-games, etc.
But, rise of smaller pub houses- “alternative” specialized in specific areas: environment, gay issues, etc.
How do newspapers differ from books?
- Daily (or periodical)
- Current events
- Multiple sections
- Local oriented
- Inexpensive
- Ads
US colonial newspapers
- Bookseller/print shops posted broadsides, single-sheet announcements of events.
- Boston News-Letter (1704 – the Revolution) – Governmental
- In 1734 New York Weekly Journal publisher criticized Colony’s royal governor and was jailed for seditious libel.
After Independence (NPs)
- 1790: the Bill of Rights
- First Amendment
- But, Alien and Sedition Acts (p. 90)
Modern NPs
In 1833, New York Sun – The first 1¢ NP known as the penny press (also New York Morning Herald & New York Tribune)
NPs became a mass informative medium (news, entertainment, & human interests), attracted ads… means:
- newspaper became a lucrative business
The more people read the paper, the more profit the publisher makes (from ads) even though people do not “buy” paper by themselves. – Pass-along readership - More ordinary people can read news—good for our society.
- helped other industries by spreading ad messages.
- free from governmental censorship.
The penny press established the basic business model of…
- Magazines
- Broadcasting Media (particularly network TV)
The People’s Medium
Freedom’s Journal (1827)
The first Afro-Am NP
Chicago Defender (1905)
Most influential Afro-Am NP after Civil War
First commercially successful Black NP
Correspondent System
New York Morning Herald started the correspondent system, placing reporters in D.C. & major cities (and abroad)
Wire services
Origin = 1848: 6 NY NPs pooled efforts & shared expenses collecting news – New York Associated Press
Inverted Pyramid Style (writing style)
This allows each NP to cut the story according to its needs (e.g., space, importance to the NP) without chopping off key points.
Yellow Journalism
1883: J Pulitzer bought New York
World, adopted a populist approach.
Sensational sex, crime, & disaster
Giant headlines
Illustrations
Cartoons
Generating $
“Manufacturing & decorating news”
National daily NP examples
Wall Street Journal
USA Today (est. 1982)
Types of NPs
Large metropolitan dailies
Zoned editions attract more ads
Suburban & small-town dailies (becoming popular since 1980~)
A simple definition of Communication
Transmission of a message from a source to a receiver
- Must be sharing (correspondence) of meaning
- Message & Response/feedback
Inter-Personal Communication
b/w two or a few people (could be more), immediate feedback, reciprocal & on-going process, medium is not necessarily needed
Mass communication
b/w sender & mass; normally anonymous audience.
Message is always carried by a medium with technology.
Feedback is slow & inferred.
How is a message carried?
by a medium with technology
- The word media is the plural of medium - derived from the Latin world medius, which means “middle.”
Media
“In the sense of mass communication, … the word is plural:
The news media are resisting attempts to limit their freedom.”
Lasswell’s 5-Ws
- Who
- says What
- through Which channels, means, medium
- to Whom
- with What effect
