Media Flashcards
What characteristics distinguish new media from old media?
Digitalisation
Interactivity
Choice
Participatory culture
Define digitalisation
The convergence of information into binary code
Define participatory culture
Audiences are no longer passive receivers of information but collaborators or media producers.
Define collective intelligence
The pooling of resources and information which allows people to share knowledge.
Define horizontal integration
Bigger media companies owning a range of different types of media outlets
Define vertical integration
Media conglomerates controlling all levels of media production.
Define lateral expansion
When media companies diversify into new business areas in order to spread economic risk. Losses made in one area may be compensated for by profits in another.
Define global conglomeration
A small number of media companies becoming transnational conglomerates that monopolise ownership of a diversity of media across dozens of countries.
Define synergy
Media companies using their diversity to package the same product in several different ways in order to increase profit.
How many people dominate the ownership of all UK national newspapers?
7
Define regulatory favours
As long as the media is promoting government policies, the government will not intervene to act and enforce media regulation
Turnstall and Palmer
What do marxists believe the media is used for?
Used as a tool by the ruling class to enforce the ruling class ideology and keep the proletariat in a state of false class consciousness
What is candy floss culture?
Idea suggested by Harvey, TV speaks to everyone and nobody in particular. Mass media audiences are fed a dumbed down media diet to avoid them focusing on serious issues.
How do media owners control what is published?
They control their workers economically, so workers produce what their bosses want out of fear of losing their jobs therefore the media is biased.
What did Boyle note about choice?
Society’s use of television has evolved from a system of supply led television to a demand led television, organised around the idea of viewers choosing what they want to watch and when.
What did Jenkins note about choice?
The audience can now interact with a variety of new media often using a single device in search of entertainment, information, social relationships and services.
What did Olson et al find about boys and video games?
Boys are more likely to play violent video games because they wanted to express fantasies of power an glory
What did Royse et al find about female gamers?
Found them to be mainly motivated by the technical competition offered by games that allowed them to challenge gender norms
What did Ofcom 2014’s report find about female and male use of the internet?
Males were more likely than females to access the internet, 23.3 hours compared with 17.8 hours
Women are more likely to use social media sites than men (67% versus 60%)
What does Helpser (2011) say about the digital underclass?
A digital underclass has emerged, characterised by unemployment, lower education levels and lower digital skills.
80% of the richest households in England have internet compared to…
11% of the poorest households
What is the impact of the generational digital divide?
Boyle suggests that adults have new fears and anxieties around media, for example accessing pornography and terrorist propaganda
70% of young people (16-24s) use Twitter and Facebook compared to
40% of old people
85% of content online is in…
English
In which countries do government limit social media access?
North Korea and China
What percentage of African inhabitants are online?
7%
Who is an example of someone who was radicalised online?
Shamima Begum at 15
Neophiliacs are…
optimistic about the spread and influence of new media as it leads to more choice and participation
Cultural pessimists see…
the new media as having a negative impact upon society as it has created new crimes, undermined the democratic process and created a decline in culture
What do neophiliacs say convergence and interactivity has led to?
An increase in consumer choice, the competition between this diversity of media will improve the quality of media output
What is the e-commerce revolution?
E-retailers have undermined high street sales, e-commerce has led to more choice for consumers as it increases competition, leads to lower prices and puts consumers in control as they can compare prices from a huge range of products and services.
How do neophiliacs argue that new media has led to the revitalization of democracy?
New media offers people to acquire the education and information that is needed to participate actively in democracy.
You can access alternative interpretations and viewpoints which are unlikely to be found in the mainstream
You can communicate with giant corporations or politicians on sites such as twitter, holding them accountable
What does Itzoe argue?
The internet is ‘perhaps the freest forum of speech in history’
What can activists use the internet to do?
Monitor immoral activities of big businesses
To harness support for causes
To coordinate protests
What did Hill and Hughes find about the new media and politics?
Only 6% of webpages are dedicated to political issues
78% of political opinions expressed on American websites are…
mainstream
Why do Cornford and Robins believe that the new media reinforces elite power?
Through a series of assertive tactics- alliances, mergers, take overs, licensing deals, patents and copyright restrictions media corportations seek to monopolise key strategic links within the new media.
How can political parties use new media to ensure their world view dominates the world?
By creating websites, social media campaigns etc
Describe Conford and Robins idea of the ‘not-so-new-media’
Interactivity is not new, people have phoned into radio shows, written in to newspapers for years.
The only new thing about the media is its speed, information, news and entertainment can be accessed in ‘real time’. E.g 9/11
Why do cultural pessimists argue that commercialisation and consumer choice is a bad thing?
Many companies sell products and services on the internet that lead to consumer surveillance through cookies.
This means that companies can monitor engagement and target future audiences and enchance profits. FALSE NEEDS.
What does Turkle refer to new media users as?
Cyborgs because they are always connected to other people at any time, anywhere. However whilst being constantly connected it has led to people feeling anxious and isolated.
Cultural pessimists argue that increased choice and digitalisation of television has led to a decline in quality of popular culture. What does Harvey say about this?
The digital television may have drastically increased the number of television channels for viewers to choose from but this has led to the dumbing down of popular culture. Companies fill channels with cheap, imported material, films, repeats, reality TV
It is argued that ITV and BBC have experienced the process of tabloidisation over the past 10 years because they have to compete with Sky and other channels. What has this led to?
A decline in high culture material such as documentaries, news coverage and instead an increase in reality TV
Cultural pessimists argue that the new media is dangerous because there is a lack of regulation which has led to…
Easy access to pornography, sites that are homophobic or racist or incite terrorism. New crimes, e.g trolling, global cyber crime, sexual grooming of children online
Keen argues that new media is chaotic. He claims there are is no governing moral code and truth is selective and frequently subject to change. What are his four main criticisms?
1) social networking do not contribute to democratic process as they are vehicles for narcissistic self broadcasting
2) user generated sites like Wiki are open to abuse and bias and are unreliable sources of info.
3) The internet has created a generation of ‘cut and paste’ plagiarists and intellectual thieves
4) Output on new media outlets are unchecked and uninformed opinions, lies and trolling are the norm
5) the internet is contributing to cultural illiteracy, young people are less actively engaged
Cultural pessimists argue that the role of transnational media conglomerates in the development and control of the new media undermines…
the potential for media democracy
News selection is generally dependant on 3 broad influences…
1) the news values held by the organisation
2) organisational constraints
3) ownership of media organisations
McQuail argues that…
events happen but this does not necessarily mean they will become news.
The news is a social construction because it is the end result of a selective process, gatekeepers such as editors and journalists make choices and judgements about what events are important enough to cover and how to cover them
Ofcom suggests that the majority of the UK population trust television news more than any other news and they regard it as…
‘a window on the world’
Galtung and Rouge identified ten news values which makes news more newsworthy. What are they?
Extraordinariness, threshold, unambiguity, reference to elite persons, reference to elite nations, personalisation, frequency, continuity, negativity, composition
Describe extraordinariness (Gultang and Rouge)
rare, unpredictable events have more newsworthiness than routine events because they are extraordinary e.g the reporting of Felicite Tomlinson’s death as she died young (18)
Describe negativity (Gultang and Rouge)
Bad news is regarded by journalists as more exciting and dramatic than good news.
Describe reference to elite persons (Gultang and Rouge)
The famous and powerful are more newsworthy than those who are ‘ordinary’.
A ‘cult of celebrity’ has developed and extended the definition of who counts as worthy of public interest so celebrity gossip is increasingly front page news e.g James Charles gossip
neo marxist Hall suggests that a hierarchy of credibility exists in the media. What is this?
This is the idea that journalists rank the views of politicians, police officers, civil servants and business leaders (primary definers) as more important than those of ordinary people.
Glasgow University Media Group suggest that the way the news is selected and presented is as a result of…
journalists middle class background
Davies argues that journalists should be renamed…
churnalists because they are generally engaged in uncritically churning out facts or stories given to them by government spin doctors and public relations companies working for celebrities and corporate interests.
Davies found that…
80% of stories found in tabloid newspapers come from those official sources rather than journalists own news gathering skills
Craig identified 3 media representations of homosexuality
1) Camp, extremely colourful and flamboyant figures of fun e.g Laganja Estranja on Rupaul’s Drag Race Season 6
2) Macho- exaggerated masculinity, sexualised practical male clothing such as police officer’s caps as erotic symbols popularised by The Village People
3) Deviant- sexual predators. Gay characters are completely defined by their ‘problem’, homosexuality = morally wrong
Describe Stonewall’s research on LGBT representation in the media
Out of 126 hours of programming aimed at young people, only 5 hours 43 minutes were focused on LGBT related character issues and only 46 minutes of this coverage portrayed them realistically and positively.
What is the pink pound?
The spending power of the LGBT community
How do advertisers exploit the pink pound?
Capitalise on pride month etc, use LGBT friendly advertising to overturn profit.
What did University of Alberta find about homophobia on twitter?
Over 2012-2015 they tracked all public tweets that used 4 homophobic slurs and record 56.4 million homophobic comments
How many tweets were tweeted under #lovewins in 2015 after the legalisation of same sex marriage in the US
3.6 million tweets
LGBT people experience symbolic annihilation, meaning they are invisible. Dyer says signs of gayness makes LGBT people visible. What are the signs of gayness?
Vocal tics
Facial expressions
Stances
Clothing
What did GLAAD’s 2014 study find?
110 major films, only 7 films included LGBT characters that weren’t ‘defined by their sexual orientation’
What did Stonewall crticise BT for in 2015?
Providing parents with the option to block LGBT lifestyle content
What are the two representations of lesbians?
Man hating, radical femnists, butch, hairy legged
OR
Sexualised, subject to male gaze, represented for male gratification, a product of heterosexual fantasies
Connel identified hegemonic femininity what is this?
Expressive woman in the media this is transmitted into the home and through generations
Tuchman identified two stereotypical representations of women. What are they?
1) housewife, mother
2) sexual and romantic
All agents of socialisation are involved in creating these expectations
Describe Wolf’s idea of The Beauty Ideal
Women should treat their bodies as a constant project in need of improvement
Describe Orbach’s idea of slimness = happiness
The media’s images of skinny women link slimness with happiness (relates to the possibility of eating disorders)
Describe Ferguson’s idea of a cult of femininity
Magazine’s focus on ‘him home and looking good (for him)’
Describe Mulvey’s idea of the male gaze (1975)
Women are sex objects to be consumed by the male gaze. Women are sexually objectified in music videos and lyrics
What is Gill’s idea of female empowerment?
The media now presents women as active, independent and sexually powerful agents
What did the Equal Opportunities Commission 2005 find?
Less than 5% of chief executives of large media companies in Britain were women.
Fewer than 16% of editors of national newspapers are female
What did Lauzren (2015) find?
27% of executive media roles are now women
What does Wilkinson’s idea of Genderquake prove?
Media encourages new woman.
Cultural and social changes have emerged in British TV.
What did the Women’s Sports and fitness Foundation 2006 find?
Little coverage of women in sport
Coverage = sexualised, trivialised and devalued
What percentage of the 2012 olympics focused on girls?
4.5%
Women’s achievements are not seen as…
newsworthy
What did Children Now 1999 find?
Asked boys aged 10-17 what they thought about males they see on TV: Attention focused on girls Violent and angry Leaders Rarely cry Funny confident and successful This behaviour gets the girl
Easthope identified 6 stereotypes of men
1) The joker
2) The jock
3) Strong and silent
4) The big shot
5) The action hero
6) The buffoon
What is Rutherford’s idea of retributive masculinity?
Reclaim masculinity, make sure that men are not too feminine.
There should be an attempt to reassert masculine authority by celebrating male concerns
Describe McCabe + Martin’s (2005) idea of the superhero or dishinibition effect
Superheroes are portrayed as heroic and problemsolving, this leads to the dishinibition effect where boys see violence and law breaking as acceptable
What is hegemonic masculinity (Connel)?
the instrumental male
What does Whannel suggest?
Identity is fluid. You can be the metrosexual and retributive male. Contradictory representations
What does Gauntlett say about the new man?
Lad mags encourage men to be better. Studied FHM and found their content encourages men to be caring, considerate and useful in the home
What does Mort say about the metrosexual man?
Rise in male fashion magazines, products reflects the change in social attitudes of men and the emergence of the metrosexual man
What does POMO gauntlett say about representations of masculinity?
We can’t generalise there is no longer one representation of man. Diverse representations will allow men to pick and choose a range of different identities
What does Zoo Magazine say?
Booze, birds, balls
Youth are presented as a social problem. Discuss.
Youth have been constructed as folk devils as part of a moral panic. Join deviant subcultures and take part in immoral behaviour e.g taking drugs and drinking
What did Wayne et Al’s content analysis of 2130 news items on TV find?
82% focused on youths as a violent threat to society
Rarely focuses on young people’s perspective, distracts from real problems such as unemployment, housing prices and mental health.
How could youth be seen as a social construct?
Digitally obsessed, instagram allows youth to project their identities
Life style and identity is socially constructed so that companies can target young people
Stoller and Gibson 1999 suggest that media representations of age reinforce the patriarchy. How?
Older male will present the news with young attractive female.
Older women exiled to radio, whilst men dominate TV as ‘silver fox’
What are the 6 hegemonic representations of the elderly?
Grumpy Mentally challenged Dependant As a burden As enjoying a second childhood
What did Newman (2006) find?
Upper class and middle class elderly people are often portayed on TV as occupying high status roles e.g world leaders, politicians
What did Lee et Al find?
Old people represented as ‘golden agers’, healthy and active to appeal to the grey pound.
What does Akinti argue?
TV coverage of ethnic minorites over focuses on crime, AIDS in Africa, underachievement of black children in schools but ignores the contribution of Black people to British society.
Van Djik found Black people are likely to be portrayed as…
criminals
What does Watson state about moral panics and Black people
Moral panics often result from stereotyping black people as criminals
What did Hall find about moral panics?
Moral panics were constructed around the folk devil of the black mugger further moral panics have since developed around rap music e.g in 2003 ‘gangsta rap’ lyrics came under attack for contributing to an increase in gun crime
What did Best and Kellner say about rap music?
Rap music should not be dismissed as a negative form of Black culture. Rap music articulates the experiences of young black people and gives them a voice.
What did Poole find about islam?
Islam has always been demonized in western media. Muslims stereotyped as extremist, misogynistic
What did Moore’s content analysis find?
Over 1/3 media stories about Islam focused on terrorism, the other 1/3 focused on differences between Muslim and British culture.
Islamophobic attacks were rarely covered.
What did Cumberbatch find about institutional racism in the media?
1 in 7 roles are performed by BAME people.
Ethnic minorties make up 5.4% of the total media workforce
What did the mayor of london report (2007) show?
91% ofarticles in the media about muslims were negative.
Demonised as a threat because they oppress women
Rise in fashionable islamophobia
What did ameli et al find?
The hijab and veil in the media is problematic. Media suggests it is inferior and oppressive however women who want to wear them are ignored.
What did the 2005 BBC News Online survey find?
Black and Asian people were represented as news reporters but the range of roles that ethnic minority actors play in TV dramas are very limited and reflect low status e.g cleaners
What is tokenism?
When TV shows add BAME characters just because they should
What did Shak (2008) say about positive discrimination?
Broadcasters over compensate for a lack of ethnic minorites in higher roles through positive discrimination e.g a black character in Emmerdale despite the Yorkshire Dales being predominantely white
What did Hall suggest about the idea of divide and rule?
Black people are used as scapegoats (a diversion in the media) from economic problems, capitalist strucutres, bringing attention to indefensible ethnic minorites through sensationalist news
Van Djik suggest the media suggest white lives are more important. How?
News coverage of disasters in developing countries are a couple of lines unless there are white victims.
Describe Jewkes idea of the missing white woman syndrome
Extensive media coverage of missing children that are white and middle class compared to coverage of working class or ethnic minority children.
What did Nairn say about the monarchy?
The media is... rarely critical of the monarchy reinforces nationalism royal events = global events praised and adored supports the hiearchy in society
Newman (2006) said…
the media focuses on the lifestyle of the rich and privileged, focuses on consumer items and doesn’t report inequality of capitalism
Why would pluralists argue the media should report on the lives of the rich and famous?
UK is a meritocracy, talented people deserve rewards
Motivates people to work hard, benefits the economy
Newman says…
there are very few w/c representations even though they make up a large part of society
Describe Jones (2011) idea of liberal bigotry
Many m/c journalists suffer from a liberal bigotry, they believe all working class people are racists. Reporting issues e.g unemployment, single parenting suggests these are personal failures rather than failure of government policy
Curran and Seaton said…
newspapers aimed at w/c people assume they’re uninterested in politics
What do Shildrick and MacDonald say about the label chav?
It is used to abuse young people
Laulet (2005) argues…
the media uses discriminatory language to vilify and socially stigmatise what they depict as white trash
How are Madeleine McCann and Shannon Matthews an example of symbolic annihilation of the working class?
MADDIE
465 stories after 9 days, £2.6 million as a reward, £1.1 million raised by the public
SHANNON
242 stories, £25,000 as a reward, thousands raised
The middle class are…
overrepresented in the media
British newspapers are aimed at…
m/c consumption
m/c concerns are covered e.g decline in moral standards, threatened by asylum seekers and terrorism
Most media professionals are m/c
The hypodermic syringe model states…
there is a direct correlation between the violence seen on screen and teenage gun/knife crime in real life.
Children are vulnerable to this as they are impressionable
How is the Jamie Bulger case an example of the hypodermic syringe model?
He watched chucky childs play and then killed a child
Fesbach and Sanger said screen violence can be
catharsis, the viewer can use the onscreen violence as an outlet for their own violence
Katz and Lazarsfeld’s two step flow model suggests…per
personal relationships with significant others result in people modifying or rejecting media messages
What are the two steps media messages have to go through?
1) the opinion leader (someone of influence, strong ideas about a range of matters) is exposed to the media content
2) Those who respect the opinion leader internalise their interpretation of that content
Does the two step flow model suggest that the audiences are active or passive?
Active, media audiences are not directly influenced by the media. They adopt an opinion and way of behaving after discussion with an opinion leader.
A criticism of the two step flow model
No guarantee that the opinion leader has not been subjected to the desensitising effect.
People who may be at most risk of being influenced by media may be socially isolated individuals who do not have access to an opinion leader who might help them interpret media content in a healthy way.
The cultural effects model suggests that…
the media is a powerful ideological influence that transmits capitalst norms and values. Audiences are exposed to it over a long time, this is the drip drip effect
How is the GUMG’s study of the mining strike an example of cultural effects model?
Presented groups with press photographs of the strike and asked what they believed. The findings showed:
Those who had no direct experience of the strike believed the messages, saw miners as violent and illegitimate.
Those who had direct knowledge of the strike rejected the message
Give a criticism of the cultural effects model
Implies marxists are the only ones who can see the true ideological interpretation of the media which suggests most of society are cultural dopes
Describe the uses and gratification model from Blulmer and McQuail
Audiences are active. They use the media to satisfy particular social needs
What are the four basic needs which people use the media to satisfy?
1) Diversion
2) Personal relationships
3) Personal identity
4) Surveillance
Describe personal relationships
Media products such as soaps may compensate for the decline of community in our own lives e.g old socially isolated people may see soap opera characters as companions who they can identify with and worry about in the absence of interaction with family members
Describe diversion
People may immerse themselves in media to make up for the lack of satisfaction in their daily lives
E.g watching a romcom because ur boyfriend is a shit shag
Barnes said ‘the disabled are actually disabled by society’ what does this mean?
Disability is a social construction
Disabled people make up
0.5% of characters on fictional programs
What does Sutherland say about representation of disablity?
the very fact that previous representations of disability have been narrow, confused and unimaginative leaves the way open for disabled writers and film makers.
What we can produce can blow the past away.
