Exam 1 Flashcards
Culture
The shared understandings (beliefs), values, practices (customs, rituals, traditions) and symbols (cultural artifacts) of a group of people.
Values - Characteristics
- Few
- More global and abstract than beliefs
- Widely accepted
- Value conflicts
Characteristics of Culture
- Specific to a group of people
- Individuals socialized into culture(s)
- Can belong to many different cultures (subcultures)
- Within cultural group-shared beliefs, behaviors, etc.
- Culture changes
Mediated Pop Culture
A culture that develops from/for the people that is distributed through mass media to the people and that conveys meaning through signs(symbols) and cultural artifacts.
Characteristics of Pop Culture
- Origin
- Motivation
- Diffusion
- Shelf-life
2 dominant models of communication
- Transmission Model
2. Cultural Model
transmission model
source—–> message—–> receiver
transmission model
Harold Lasswell (1948) and Paul Hodkinson (2011)
cultural model
Relationship Between
- Processes of social communication
- Production of a common culture
cultural model
Culture as communication is the process of producing new shared meaning out of the interaction of historically given shared meanings and individually created meanings.
cultural model
rituals social construction of reality = new shared meanings
2 Theoretical Approaches
- Social Psychological Perspective
- Critical/Cultural Studies
2 Theoretical Perspectives
- Media-as-Shaper
- Media-as-Mirror
Ongoing process
media representations influence society and reflect society
Story
- Has a beginning, middle, and end
- Conflict
- Events-causal connection
Conflict
- Not necessarily negative
- Driving force of the story
- Balance and equilibrium disrupted
- Mission
Characters
- Each has a role to play; serve a function
- Protagonist-leading character
Message
- Central message of story
- Ideological or moral statement that works as the central theme throughout the story
Formulaic Premise
- the initial circumstance, situation, in which characters find themselves
- Tells the audience what it can expect when it comes upon the story
Formulaic Structure
- Reaffirms the worldview (ideology) of the story
- Most common structure (order/chaos/order)
Formulaic Plot
- A planned series of events in a narrative, progressing through a struggle of opposing forces to a climax and a conclusion
- conflict is central to most plots; artificially built into plots
Formulaic subplot
secondary stories that are frequently interwoven into narratives
Plot Conventions
recurrent incidents that appear within the narrative
5 Media Trends-Business of Pop Culture
- Media fragmentation
- Concentration of Ownership
- Mass Media Conglomerates
- Cross-media ownership
- Globalization
Political Economy Perspective
Structure of Business
Profit oriented business model/mind-set
Effect on content
Stages from creation to consupmtion
- production
- distribution
- marketing & promotion
- exhibition
Vertical Integration
Company owns production, distribution, and exhibition processes
Horizontal Integration
Company owns companies within tv, movies, music, books, magazines, radio
Advantages of vertical and horizontal integration
- cost effective
- enables company to control whole process
- cross promotional marketing
Disadvantages
- people with certain views of the world are the only ones producing products
- loss of quality
- difficult for independent artists
- lack of competition drives prices up
Commodification
the process whereby a product, a person, etc. is transformed into an object that is available for sale for a profit
Robert McChesney-Age of Hyper-commercialism
Media more concerned about pleasing advertisers (increasing ratings to attract advertisers) than about producing good quality TV shows or informative news
Branded Entertainment
Embedding one’s brand or brand icons as part of any entertainment property in an effort to connect with consumers in a compelling way
Trends
-Advertising, branding and entertainment are converging at an accelerating rate
Why is this convergence happening?
- Audience fragmentation
- Ad-avoidance hardware
Solution
- Place brands wherever consumers are located
- Branded Entertainment and product placement
Product Placement
embedded advertising placed visually
Product integration
embedded advertising which characters talk about the specific product
Characteristics of embedded advertising
- media consumption
- paid
- credibility
- agencies
Intended Effects of PP
- Brand awareness
- brand familiarity and liking
- brand recall
- create realism ( increased authenticity of the content)
- indirect product endorsement/perceived popularity
- revenue stream for production
Unintended Effects of PP
- story content may be compromised
- blurring of selling and entertainment
- controversial products (tobacco, alcohol, guns, etc.) circumvent advertising restrictions and bans
- Lack of disclosure
- Manipulation?
