Media Sociologists

Question 1

Dutton - mass media characteristics

Answer 1

Mass media has been differentiated from other types of communication in terms of four essential characteristics: Distance, Technology, Scale, Commodity.

Distance - traditional mass media is impersonal, lacks immediacy and is one-way. No matter how emotionally involved a person is, they have no way of directly affecting what is happening on screen.

Technology - mass media requires a vehicle such as a television, or a mobile phone.

Scale - mass media involves simultaneous communication with many people, e.g. live television.

Commodity - mass media comes at a price, e.g. to watch Netflix you must pay a subscription fee.

Question 2

Crosbie - new media

Answer 2

Crosbie argues that the new media has characteristics that make them very different to other forms of mass media.

Technology - They cannot exist without the appropriate (computer).

Personalisation - Individualised messages can be simultaneously delivered to vast numbers of people.

Collective control - Each person in a network potentially has the ability to share, shape and change the content of information being exchanged.

Question 3

McQuail - impartial news

Answer 3

McQuail (1992) argues that ‘news’ is not objective or impartial. News is a socially manufactured product because it is the end result of a selective process.

Question 4

Galtung and Ruge - 9 news values

Answer 4

Galtung and Ruge (1965) identified 9 key news values. Some of the most memorable include: Extraordinariness, Reference to Elites, and Negativity.

Question 5

Davies - churnalism

Answer 5

Pluralist Davies (2008) argues that modern day British journalism is characterised by ‘Churnalism’, which is the uncritical, overreliance by journalists on ‘facts’ churned out by public relations experts and government spin doctors. He found that 80% of news stories in a two-week period in 1997 were sourced this way and that only 12% of stories were generated by journalists.

Question 6

Bagdikian - wider power elite

Answer 6

Bagdikian (2004) suggests that almost all media owners in the USA are part of a wider power elite made up of industrial, financial and political establishment. He claims that this makes the news politically conservative and promotes corporate values. This explains why newspapers usually have sections dedicated to financial news rather than the growing gap between the rich and poor.

Question 7

Herman and Chomsky - media propaganda

Answer 7

Herman and Chomsky (1988) argue that the media participate in propaganda campaigns helpful to elite interests. They suggest that media performance is largely shaped by market forces. The media promotes elitist values as powerful institutions such as the government can threaten and pressure the media, thus controlling the flow of information.

Question 8

Edwards and Cromwell - the West in media

Answer 8

Edwards and Cromwell (2006) argue that particular subjects e.g. US and UK responsibility for genocide, corporate criminality, and threats to the existence of life are ignored by the British mass media. For example, the USA is almost always presented as the champion of democracy.

Question 9

Hall - hierarchy of credibility

Answer 9

Hall agrees that news is supportive of capitalist interests because those in powerful positions have better access to media institutions. Hall argues that this is a result of the news values employed by most journalists. In particular, the views of politicians, business leaders and police officers (primary definers) are believed to be more important than those of pressure groups, trade unionists and ordinary citizens. Hall refers to this as the hierarchy of credibility.

Question 10

Schlesinger - power of the elites

Answer 10

Schlesinger (1990) is critical of theories that focus on the power of the elites and media owners because the media does not necessarily act in the best interest of these people. For example, politicians are very careful of what they say in the media as they understand that it can be misconstrued. They are aware that the media can strongly influence voting behaviour.

Question 11

GUMG - language used by the media

Answer 11

The Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) found that language used by the media are more sympathetic to the interests of the powerful and often devalued points of view of less powerful people. For example, the media reported strikers as making ‘demands’ whereas those in powerful positions were reported as ‘negotiating’.

Question 12

Stein - internet as a secondary source

Answer 12

Stein (2002) urges caution in the use of the Internet as a source of secondary data because its content has not been academically or scientifically verified. Stein also argues that access to computers and the Internet, both within the Western societies in terms of social class and worldwide, is still deeply unequal. This is referred to as the ‘digital divide’.

Question 13

Bagdikian - media ownership

Answer 13

Bagdikian (2004) notes that in 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the USA, but by 2004 media ownership was concentrated in 7 corporations.

Question 14

Curran - press barons

Answer 14

Curran (2003) notes that ownership of British newspapers has always been concentrated in the hands of a few ‘press barons’, e.g. in 1937, four men owned nearly one in every two national and local daily newspapers sold in Britain.

detailed systematic examination of the social history of the British press does suggest that the evidence for owner interference in and manipulation of British newspaper content is strong.

notes that in the period 1920-50 press barons openly boasted that they ran their newspapers for the express purpose of propaganda that reflected their political views.

points out that even when engaged in investigative reporting, the majority of newspapers in Britain have supported the Conservative Party.

also notes that the period 1974-92 saw the emergence of Rupert Murdoch, however, Curran rejects the idea that Murdoch is part of a unified capitalist elite but acknowledges that Murdoch’s newspapers are conservative in content and strongly supportive of capitalist interests. He argues Murdoch’s motives are economic rather than ideological in that Murdoch believes that right wing economic policies are the key to vast profits.

Question 15

Doyle - examination of media ownership

Answer 15

Doyle (2002) suggests that examination of ownership and control patterns is important for two reasons.

1) All points of view need to be heard if society is to be truly democratic.

2) Abuses of power and influence by elites need to be monitored by a free media.

Doyle argues that too much concentration of media ownership is dangerous and unhealthy because the media have the power to exert considerable influence over public opinion.

Question 16

Miliband - role of the media

Answer 16

Miliband (1973) argued that the role of the media is to shape how we think about the world we live in and suggested that audiences are rarely informed about important issues such as inequalities in wealth or why poverty exists.

Five ways of ideological manipulation

Question 17

Tunstall and Palmer - government control of media owners

Answer 17

Tunstall and Palmer (1991) suggest that governments are no longer interested in controlling the activities of media owners because they need their support to either gain power or hang onto it.

Question 18

Curran - media owner intervention

Answer 18

Curran’s analysis of British newspapers suggests that both pluralist and Marxist theories may be mistaken in the way they look at media ownership. He argues the pluralist view that media owners do not intervene in media content is evidentially false.

argues that since 2000 there has been even greater intervention by owners such as Murdoch. However, Curran disagrees with Marxists about the motive for this. He notes that the actions of media owners are not collectivised, rather they pursue their economic goals in a ruthlessly individualised way in an attempt to obtain a bigger share of the market than their capitalist competitors.

Question 19

GUMG - role of journalists

Answer 19

The GUMG suggest that media content does support the interests of those who run the capitalist system. However, this is an unintended by-product of the social backgrounds of journalists and broadcasters rather than a conscious capitalist conspiracy.

The GUMG points out that most journalists working for national newspapers, television and radio tend to be overwhelmingly male, White, and middle class, e.g. 54% are privately educated.

The GUMG claims that these journalists and broadcasters tend to believe in middle-of-the-road (consensus) views and ideas because these are generally unthreatening. Journalists believe that these appeal to the majority of their viewers, listeners and readers.

Ideas outside this consensus are viewed by journalists as ‘extremist’. People who hold these opinions are rarely invited to contribute their views in newspapers or on television, or if they are, they are ridiculed by journalists.

The GUMG argues that these journalists are not motivated by a desire to defend capitalist interests. Media companies are profit-making businesses.

Those who commission and plan programmes, or decide newspaper or magazine content, usually play safe by excluding anything that might offend or upset readers or viewers. Losing several thousand readers, or viewers, because they were offended by ‘extreme’ views and potentially losing millions of pounds in revenue and profit is too much of a risk.

Question 20

Barnett and Weymour - media being dumbed down

Answer 20

Barnett and Weymour argue that such decisions have had a negative cultural effect in the sense that education, information and news have been increasingly side lined.

They compared television schedules in 1978, 1988 and 1998 and argued that the evidence suggests that television in Britain has been significantly dumbed down, e.g. the number of one-off dramas and documentaries has halved, while soap operas and cheap reality shows have increased fivefold.

Barnett and Weymour note that even the BBC is succumbing to these commercial pressures. Furthermore, they conclude that despite having hundreds of television channels, we do not have more choice, just more of the same thing.

Question 21

Adorno and Horkheimer - media should encourage critical thinking

Answer 21

Adorno and Horkheimer (1940) think that mainstream, mass culture is mostly produced in an entirely rational way, so creative decisions are also commercial decisions.

think that real culture should challenge us, stimulate critical thought and encourage our individuality. The culture which they think is valuable helps to cultivate a critical disposition in people.

Question 22

Curran - manipulation of media content

Answer 22

Curran (2003) found lots of evidence of owners directly manipulating media content.

argues that in the later 20th century and today, owners are, if anything, even more interventionist, with again Rupert Murdoch being the obvious example.

Question 23

Galbraith - technocratic managerial elite

Answer 23

Galbraith (1967) found a ‘technocratic managerial elite’ - despite being well paid and regarded, they remain employees rather than the employers. Those employers are called ‘media conglomerates’.

Question 24

Bernard and McDermott - media ownership rules

Answer 24

‘current media ownership rules in the UK prevent any one entity acquiring excessive influence in the sector, thereby ensuring plurality of voice and diversity of content’.

Question 25

Davis and McAdam - new economic shift

Answer 25

David and McAdam (2000) suggest that globalisation has given a new meaning to diversity and competition through what they call a ‘new economic shift’.

Question 26

Murdock and Golding - separation of interests

Answer 26

Murdock and Golding (1977) argue the separation of interests between owners and controllers is more apparent since managers are increasingly also owners of the companies they control - and they think and act in much the same way as the individual media owners of the past.

Question 27

Collins - competition does not guarantee diversity

Answer 27

Collins (2002) argues competition does not automatically guarantee media pluralism and diversity.

Economies of scale, for example, mean that the majority of consumer demands can be satisfied by very few giant corporations (Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook…) that wield huge amounts of economic, political and ideological power - regardless of whether their ownership is concentrated in the hands of a single individual or a wide diversity of anonymous shareholders.

Question 28

Allen and Densmore - 10 aspects of the media

Answer 28

Allen and Densmore (1977) identified 10 key aspects of the media.

1 - Media: The Source of Power and Key to Women’s Progress

2 - In History, Women Made Progress When They Had A Means of Communication

3 - Individual Communication and the Technological & Economic Structure of Mass Media

4 - Women’s Criticism of Mass Media as A National Communications System

5 - The Disseminators of Information as A Causal Factor in History

6 - Efforts to Expand Communication.

7 - Mass Media Response to the Demand for Expanded Media to Convey More Information

8 - Philosophical Basis for a New Communication System.

9 - Finding the Way.

10 - Women’s Role in the Restructuring Process.

Question 29

Greer - women’s bodies as aesthetic objects

Answer 29

In ‘The Female Eunuch’, Greer claimed that treating women’s bodies as aesthetic objects without function deforms them.

Question 30

Hill Collins - media experiences of Black women

Answer 30

Hill Collins (2000) found that media experiences of Black women in Britain have changed over the decades but among what has remained consistent are struggles against their limited and derogatory depiction in ‘controlling images

Question 31

Sobande - new media opportunities for Black women

Answer 31

Since the days of events and collective work in the 1980s led by Black women in Britain concerning their media experiences and material conditions, increased availability and accessibility of digital devices and content-creation processes has resulted in new opportunities for Black women to relatively autonomously produce media, depict themselves, and generate discourse that counters dominant narratives.

Question 32

Tong - domestic sphere of the family

Answer 32

Tong (1989) notes that Marxist feminists identify how work shapes consciousness, and women’s work shapes her status and self-image. Therefore, Marxist feminists are primarily concerned with the division of labour that keeps women in the domestic sphere of the family and men in the workplace. One tool to shape womens consciousness and work place is the media for example in kids cartoons do we see many business women? Or stay at home moms?

Question 33

Strinati - media concerned with surface style and imagery

Answer 33

Strinati suggests that postmodern TV and film become preoccupied with basic surface style and imagery, rather than deeper underlying themes, which might relate to ‘realities’ of the human condition. For example, action movies are more focused on special effects rather than human experiences.

Question 34

Kaplan - pop and rock videos

Answer 34

Kaplan (1987) identified pop and rock videos as perfect examples of postmodernist culture because they abandon all notion of a narrative structure - there is no attempt to ‘tell a story’, rather the power of the video lies purely in the collage of images mixed with music.

Question 35

Lyotard - cynicism about metanarratives

Answer 35

Lyotard suggested that the postmodern world is characterised by a spreading cynicism about ‘metanarratives’ or general belief systems, including world religions, political ideologies such as socialism or liberalism, and even science and reason. We have become disillusioned and no longer expect the world to become a better place.

Question 36

Baudrillard - decline of absolute truth

Answer 36

Baudrillard found that postmodern sociologies contain the observation that in postmodernity, as opposed to modernity, we witness the decline of absolute truth and the rise of relativism. He views consumption not only as merely economic and material activity but symbolic and meaningful.

Question 37

Eco - hyperreal

Answer 37

Eco (1987) defines the hyperreal as that which is more real than real. For example, Coca Cola on the surface level is just a drink, but it represents other things such as the celebration of Christmas.

Question 38

Jameson and Baudrillard - importance of media

Answer 38

Jameson and Baudrillard found that the decline of engineering and manufacturing in many advanced capitalist economies, the provision of the cultural and media services has become a key sector in the economy. For example, the record industry is one of the leading export sectors of the economy.

Question 39

Harvey - images dominate narrative

Answer 39

Harvey found that popular culture is seen to express these confusions and distortions. As such, it is less likely to reflect coherent senses of space or time. Some idea of this argument can be obtained by trying to identify the locations used in some pop videos, the linear narratives of some recent films or the times and spaces crossed in a typical evening of TV viewing…In short, post modern culture is a culture sans frontieres, outside history.

Question 40

Lechte - hyperreality not so all-embracing

Answer 40

Lechte makes the point that hyperreality might not be so all embracing. He suggests that the judgemental standards of a modern period - based on science and reason are still significantly in place.

Question 41

Kellner - importance of social relationships

Answer 41

Kellner suggests that that there is an overemphasis on the importance of TV technology in determining the way that society develops and ignores the importance of social relationships.

Question 42

Lechner and Boli - globalisation?

Answer 42

Lechner and Boli (2005) found that there are sociologists who question whether globalisation is really happening at all. and those who question the extent to which it is inevitable and irreversible.

Question 43

Strinati - media as a global industry

Answer 43

Strinati (1995) argues that the media today is a global industry, and it promotes (through advertising and the promotion of brands and logos) other global industries.

Question 44

McLuhan - global village

Answer 44

McLuhan (1962) wrote about the global village. The idea that through global communications we have neighbours all around the world. We no longer always need the filter or gatekeeper of a professional media production to hear about what’s happening on the other side of the world : through new media we can hear it instantly and from the source.

Question 45

Fenton - cultural imperialism

Answer 45

Fenton has suggested that the globalisation of the media has led to cultural imperialism.

Question 46

McBride - western values

Answer 46

McBride (1980) suggests this deluge of Western-created media changes the culture and values of countries elsewhere in the world. One impact of that cultural shift is to stoke demand for Western products.

Question 47

Rizter - McDonaldisation

Answer 47

McDonaldisation is a concept that suggests that one impact of globalisation is the world becoming more and more like McDonalds: standardised and low-skilled. Concept was developed by George Ritzer.

Question 48

Klein - cultural homogenisation

Answer 48

‘cultural homogenisation’ - that idea that local cultures are killed off by globalisation and the whole world becomes the same, with the same shops, films, television programmes and brands.

Question 49

Sklair - world ideas

Answer 49

Sklair argues that the media blur differences between entertainment, information and promotion of products, and sell across the world ideas, values and products associated with what is presented as an idealised Western lifestyle.

Question 50

Ritzer - companies operating on a global scale

Answer 50

Ritzer argues that companies and brands now operate on a global scale, promoting a global culture along with the consumerist lifestyle associated with them, whereby weakening local cultures.

Question 51

Cohen - moral panics

Answer 51

Cohen (1972) believes the media play an important role in creating moral panics, even just by reporting the news.

In Cohen’s view the media overreact or sensationalise aspects of behaviour which challenge social norms. The media’s representation therefore then helps to define it, which can then lead to outsiders adopting and observing the behaviour based on the model they see in the media. The moral panic depicted by the media fuels further unacceptable behaviour.

He first developed the concept of the ‘moral panic’ in his study of the relationship between the media and the Mods and Rockers in the 1960s.

Question 52

Barker and Petley - media blamed for violence

Answer 52

Every time a particularly high-profile crime of violence is committed, there are those who blame the effects of the media. The familiar culprits of cinema, television, video and rock music, have now been joined, particularly in the wake of the massacre at Columbine High, by the Internet and the World Wide Web.

Question 53

Thornton - moral panic failures

Answer 53

Thornton (1995) found that the media failed to generate a moral panic over rave culture, mainly because youth culture had become mainstream by that point, as had the taking of drugs such as ecstasy.

Question 54

Tunstall - gender representations in the media

Answer 54

Tunstall (2000) argues that media representations emphasise women’s domestic, sexual, consumer and marital activities to the exclusion of all else. The media generally ignore the fact that a majority of British women go out to work. Men, on the other hand, are seldom presented nude or defined by their marital or family status.

Question 55

Newbold - research into women’s sport

Answer 55

Newbold’s (2002) research into television sport presentation shows that what little coverage of women’s sport there is, tends to sexualise, trivialise, and devalue women’s sporting accomplishments.

Question 56

Ferguson - content analysis of women’s magazines

Answer 56

Ferguson (1983) conducted a content analysis of women’s magazines from between 1949 and 1974, and 1979 and 1980. She notes that such magazines are organised around a cult of femininity, which promotes a traditional ideal where excellence is achieved through caring for others, the family, marriage and appearance.

Question 57

Winship - role of women’s magazines

Answer 57

Winship (1987) argued that women’s magazines generally play a supportive and positive role in the lives of women. She argues that such magazines present women with a broader range of options than ever before and they tackle problems that have been largely ignored by the male-dominated media, such as domestic violence and child abuse.

Question 58

Giroux - media representations of women

Answer 58

Giroux found that women were represented in a narrow, restricted, and distorted range of roles. Supporting evidence lies in the historical representation of female characters in Disney Films - where the typical female character is a sexualised, yet delicate princess who needs to be rescued by a stronger male character.

Question 59

Wolf - images of women

Answer 59

Wolf (1990) suggests that the images of women used by the media present women as sex objects to be consumed by what Mulvey calls the ‘male gaze’, and notes that the media encourage women to view their bodies as a project in constant need of improvement.

Question 60

Killbourne - ‘male gaze’ representation

Answer 60

Killbourne (1995) suggests that the ‘male gaze’ representation presents women as mannequins: tall and thin, often US size zero, very long legs, perfect teeth and hair, and skin without a blemish in sight.

Question 61

Orbach - weight representations

Answer 61

Orbach (1991) suggests that media imagery that suggests the the idea that slimness = happiness creates the potential for eating disorders.

Question 62

Westwood - transgressive female roles

Answer 62

Westwood claims that we are now seeing more transgressive (i.e. going beyond gendered expectations) female roles on British television.

Question 63

Gill - depiction of women in advertising

Answer 63

Gill (2008) argues that the depiction of women in advertising has changed from women as passive objects of the male gaze to active, independent and sexually powerful agents.

Question 64

Gauntlett - female magazines

Answer 64

Gauntlett (2008) argues that magazines aimed at young women emphasise that women must do their own thing and be themselves, whilst female pop stars, like Lady Gaga, sing about financial and emotional independence.

They argue that there are still plenty of magazines aimed at men which sexually objectify women and stress images of men as traditionally masculine.

They focus on the relationship between the mass media and identity and argue that the mass media today challenges traditional definitions of gender and are actually a force for social change.

Question 65

Easthope - masculinity

Answer 65

Easthope (1986) argues that a variety of media, especially Hollywood films and computer games, transmit the view that masculinity based on strength, aggression, competition, and violence is biologically determined and, therefore, a natural goal for boys to achieve.

Question 66

Whannel - contradictory masculinity

Answer 66

Whannel (2002) notes that mass media stories about and images of David Beckham are contradictory, in that they stress Beckham as representative of both metrosexual and retributive versions of masculinity. He notes that media representations of Beckham are fluid - his good looks, football skills, competitive spirit, and his commitment mark him out as a ‘traditional man’.

Question 67

Akinti - ethnic focus on crime

Answer 67

Akinti (2003) argues that television coverage of ethnic minorities over focuses on crime, AIDS in Africa and Black children’s underachievement in schools, whilst ignoring the culture and interests of a huge Black audience and their rich contribution to British society.

Question 68

Van Dijk - representations of Black people

Answer 68

Van Dijk (1991) conducted content analysis of tens of thousands of news items across the world over several decades and found that representations of black people could be categorised into many stereotypically negative types of news.

He found that Black people, particularly African Caribbeans, tend to be portrayed as criminals, especially in the tabloid press and more recently as members of organised gangs that push drugs and violently defend urban territories.

He notes that some sections of the media imply that the lives of White people are somehow more important than the lives of non-White people. News items about disasters in developing countries are often restricted to a few lines or words unless there are also White or British victims.

Question 69

Wayne et al. - news stories concerning young Black people

Answer 69

Wayne et al. (2007) found that nearly 50% of news stories concerning young black people dealt with them committing crime.

Question 70

Cushion et al. - Black men associated with negative news values

Answer 70

Cushion et al. analysed Sunday newspapers, nightly television news and radio news over a 16 week period in 2008-9 and found that black young men and boys were regularly associated with negative news values - nearly 70% of stories were related to crime, especially violent gang crime.

Question 71

Back - representations of race disturbances

Answer 71

Back (2002) conducted discourse analysis of inner-city race disturbances and argued that the media tends to label them as riots, which implies they are irrational and conjures up images of rampaging mobs, which in turn justifies a harsh clampdown by the police.

Question 72

Watson - moral panics over Black people

Answer 72

Watson (2008) notes that moral panics often result from media stereotyping of Black people as potentially criminal.

Question 73

Poole - representations of Islam

Answer 73

Poole (2002) argued that pre 9/11, Islam has always been demonised and distorted by the Western media. It has traditionally been portrayed as a threat to Western interests. Representations of Islam have been predominantly negative and Muslims have been stereotyped as backward, extremist, fundamentalist and misogynist.

Question 74

Moor et al. - representations of Muslims

Answer 74

Moor et al. (2008) found that between 2000 and 2008 over a third of stories focused on terrorism, and a third focused on the differences between Muslim communities and British society, while stories of Muslims as victims of crime were fairly rare.

Question 75

Amelie et al. - media discourse regarding the hijab

Answer 75

Amelie et al. (2008) note that media discussion around the issue of the wearing of the hijab and the veil is also problematic, often suggesting that it is somehow an inferior form of dress compared with Western female dress codes and that it is unnecessary and problematic.

Question 76

Shah - tokenism

Answer 76

Shah (2008) claims that the BBC engage in ‘tokenism’ - Black and Asian actors are cast as presenters or in roles just to give the appearance of ethnic equality, regardless of whether they ‘fit’ into the role.

Question 77

Nairn - media coverage of the monarchy

Answer 77

Nairn (1988) notes that contemporary media coverage of the monarchy has focused positively on every trivial detail of their lives, turning the Queen and her family into an on-going soap opera, but with a glamour and mystique far greater than any other media personality.

Question 78

Newman - media focus on the wealthy

Answer 78

Newman (2006) argues that the media focus very positively on the concerns of the wealthy and the privileged. He notes that the media over-focuses on consumer items such as luxury cars, costly holiday spots and fashion accessories that only the wealthy can afford.

They note the enormous amount of print and broadcast media dedicated to daily business news and stock market quotations, despite the fact that few people in Britain own stocks and shares.

They argue that when news organisations focus on the working class, it is generally to label them as a problem, e.g. as welfare cheats, drug addicts or criminals.

They argue that when the news media turn their attention to the most destitute, the portrayals are often negative or stereotypical. Often, the poor are portrayed in statistical rather than in human terms by news bulletins that focus on the numbers unemployed or on benefits, rather than the individual suffering and personal indignities of poverty.

Question 79

Curran and Seaton - working-class audiences

Answer 79

Curran and Seaton (2003) note that newspapers aimed at working class audiences assume that they are uninterested in serious analysis of either the political or social organisation of British society.

Question 80

McKendrick et al. - coverage of poverty

Answer 80

McKendrick et al. (2008) studied a week’s output of mainstream media in 2007 and concluded that coverage of poverty is marginal in British media, in that the causes and consequences of poverty were very rarely explored across the news, documentaries or drama. Dramas such as Shameless presented a sanitised picture of poverty, despite featuring characters who were economically deprived, whilst family issue-based programmes such as The Jeremy Kyle Show treated poverty as an aspect of entertainment. Cohen notes that the media often fails to see the connection between deprivation and wealth.

Question 81

Baumberg et al. - focus on benefit fraud

Answer 81

Baumberg et al. found an extraordinarily disproportionate focus on benefit fraud: 29% of news stories referenced fraud. In comparison the government’s own estimate is that a mere 0.7% of all benefits claims are fraudulent.

Common language used to describe benefits as ‘undeserving’ included:

• Fraud and dishonesty (including those such as ‘faking illness’);
• Dependency (including ‘underclass’ and ‘unemployable’);
• non-reciprocity/lack of effort (e.g. ‘handouts’, ‘something for - nothing’, ‘lazy’, ‘scrounger’);
• outsider status (e.g. ‘immigrant’, ‘obese’)

Question 82

Jones - representations of the working classes

Answer 82

Jones (2011) suggests the working classes are represented as feckless racists who hate immigration and multiculturalism - coverage of Brexit seems to offer support for this.

Question 83

Wayne et al. - representations of young people

Answer 83

Wayne et al. (2008) conducted a content analysis of 2130 news items across the main television channels in 2006 and found that young people were mainly represented as a violent threat to society. They found that it was rare for news items to feature a young person’s perspective or opinion.

They also argue that this distracts people from the real problems that young people face in the modern world, such as homelessness, unemployment, and/or mental health, and that these might be caused by society’s failure to take these problems seriously.

Question 84

Newman - representations of upper and middle classes

Answer 84

Newman (2006) notes that upper and middle class elderly people are often portrayed in the media as occupying high-status roles as world leaders, judges, experts, and business executives. News programmes seem to promote elderly men as ‘silver foxes’ whereas elderly women are often exiled to radio.

Question 85

Barnes - disability representations

Answer 85

Barnes (1992) argues that mass media representations of disability have generally been oppressive and negative. People with disabilities are rarely presented as people with their own identities. Barnes notes several common media representations of people with disabilities:

In need of pity and charity
Victims
Villains
Super-cripples
A burden
Sexually abnormal
Incapable of participating fully in community life
Ordinary or normal

Question 86

Ross - disabilities being sensational

Answer 86

Ross notes that disability issues have to be sensational, unexpected or heroic in order to be interpreted by journalists as newsworthy and reported on.

Question 87

Roper - are telethons helpful?

Answer 87

Roper (2003) suggests that mass media representations of disability on telethons can create problems for people with disabilities and suggests that telethons over-rely on ‘cute’ children who are not that representative of the range of people with disabilities in Britain.

Roper argues that telethons are primarily aimed at encouraging the general public to alleviate their guilt and their relief that they are not disabled, by giving money rather than informing the general public of the facts about disability.

Question 88

Karpf - telethons confirming prejudice

Answer 88

Karpf (1988) suggests that there is a need for charities, but that telethons act to keep the audience in the position of givers and to keep recipients in their place as grateful and dependent. Karpf notes that telethons are about entertaining the public, rather than helping us to understand the everyday realities of what it is like to have a disability.

Consequently, these media representations merely confirm social prejudices about people with disabilities, e.g. that they are dependent on the help of able-bodied people.

Question 89

Longmore - telethons reinforcing stereotypes

Answer 89

Paul Longmore (2016) suggests that telethons historically present disabled children as people who are unable to participate fully in community life (sports/ sexuality) unless they are ‘fixed’. Telethons put the audience in the position of givers and reinforce the idea that the disable receivers should be dependent on their able bodied donors. Because telethons are primarily about raising money rather than raising awareness of the reality of being disabled, they may end up reinforcing stereotypes of disabled people.

Question 90

Williams-Findlay - disability content analysis

Answer 90

Williams-Findlay (2009) conducted an analysis of The Times and The Guardian to see whether the coverage of the disabled had changed between 1989 and 2009. Findings show the use of stereotypical words had declined in those 20 years, but that stereotypical representations were still present in 2009 because journalists still assumed that disability was ‘tragic’.

Question 91

Batchelor - homosexuality not integrated into media

Answer 91

Batchelor found that being gay was not generally integrated into mainstream media representations. Rather, when it did appear, e.g. in television drama, it was represented mainly as a source of anxiety or embarrassment, or it was seen as a target for teasing and bullying. The study also found that, in mainstream young people’s media, lesbianism was completely invisible

Question 92

Gerbner - symbolic annihilation of gays

Answer 92

Gerbner (2002) argues that the media participate in the symbolic annihilation of gays and lesbians by negatively stereotyping them, by rarely portraying them realistically, or by not portraying them at all.

Question 93

Craig - 4 representations of homosexuality

Answer 93

Craig (1992) suggests that when homosexual characters are portrayed in the media, e.g. in popular drama, they are often stereotyped as having particular amusing or negative psychological and social characteristics.

1) Camp
2) Macho
3) Deviant
4) AIDS

Question 94

Watney - representations of AIDS

Answer 94

Watney has illustrated how British news coverage of AIDS in the 1980s stereotyped gay people as carriers of a gay plague. He argues that news coverage of AIDS reflected mainstream society’s fear and dislike of the gay community and resulted in unsympathetic accounts that strongly implied that homosexual AIDS sufferers only had their own ‘immoral and unnatural’ behaviour to blame for their condition or death.

Question 95

Gauntlett - LGBT representations changing

Answer 95

Gauntlett argues that lesbian, gay and bisexual people are still under-represented in much of the mainstream media, but things are slowly changing for the better.

Gauntlett suggests that tolerance of sexual diversity is slowly growing in society, and images of diverse sexual identities with which audiences are unfamiliar may assist in making the population generally more comfortable with these alternative sexual lifestyles.

Question 96

Dyer - stereotypical signs of ‘gayness’

Answer 96

Dyer (2002) observed that ‘the person’s person’ alone does not show that a person is gay, and that the media have constructed stereotypical signs of ‘gayness’ which include certain facial expressions, vocal tones, stances or clothing.

Question 97

GLAAD - regular LBGT characters

Answer 97

They found that 8.8 percent of ‘series regular characters’ were LGBT on screen.

Question 98

Sarrubba - LGBT characters on Game of Thrones

Answer 98

Stefania Sarrubba argues that all of the LGBT characters in Game of Thrones are killed off before the end of the series, except for Yara Greyjoy, who does something powerful at the end of season eight (takes back the Iron Islands), but we don’t actually see this: the show ends focusing on all the straight characters.

Question 99

Dworkin - media impacting behaviour

Answer 99

Dworkin (1988) has suggested that there is a strong relationship between the consumption of pornography and sexual crime.

Question 100

Norris - media influencing voting behaviour

Answer 100

Norris (1996) claims that media coverage of political issues can influence voting behaviour.

Question 101

Marcuse - media transmitting a mass culture

Answer 101

Marcuse (1964) believed that the media transmitted a mass culture which was directly injected into the hearts and minds of the population making them more vulnerable to ruling class propaganda.

Question 102

Fesbach and Sanger - violent media as an outlet

Answer 102

Fesbach and Sanger (1971) found that screen violence can actually provide a safe outlet for people’s aggressive tendencies. This is known as catharsis. They suggest that watching an exciting film releases aggressive energy into safe outlets as the viewers immerse themselves in the action.

Question 103

Young - violence making us empathic

Answer 103

Young (1981), argues that seeing the effects of violence and especially the pain and suffering that it causes to the victim and their families, may make us more aware of its consequences and so less inclined to commit violent acts. Sensitisation to certain crimes therefore may make people more aware and responsible so that they avoid getting involved in violence.

Question 104

Gauntlett - problems with lab experiments

Answer 104

Gauntlett (2008) argues that people, especially children, do not behave as naturally under laboratory conditions as they would in their everyday environment, e.g. children’s media habits are generally influenced and controlled by parents, especially when they are very young.

Question 105

Cumberbatch - content analysis of violent media

Answer 105

Cumberbatch (2004) looked at over 3500 research studies into the effects of screen violence, encompassing film, television, video and more recently, computer and video games. He concluded that there is still no conclusive evidence that violence shown in the media influences or changes people’s behaviour.

Question 106

Newson - violent media availability

Answer 106

Newson argued that sadistic images in films were too easily available and that films encouraged viewers to identify with violent perpetrators rather than victims. He noted that children and teenagers are subjected to thousands of killings and acts of violence as they grow up through viewing television and films.

Newson suggested that such prolonged exposure to media violence may have a drip-drip effect on young people over the course of their childhood and result in their becoming desensitised to violence. Newson argues that they see violence as a normal problem-solving device and concluded that, because of this, the latest generation of young people subscribe to weaker moral codes and are more likely to behave in anti-social ways than previous generations

Question 107

Katz and Lazarsfeld - drip-drip effect

Answer 107

Katz and Lazarsfeld (1965) suggest that personal relationships and conversations with significant others, such as family members, friends, teachers and work colleagues, result in people modifying or rejecting media messages we see this increasingly in social media and networks.

Question 108

Klapper - selective filter model

Answer 108

In his selective filter model, Klapper (1960) suggests that, for a media message to have any effect, it has to pass through three filters of active selection.

Selective exposure – the audience must choose to view, read or listen to the content of specific media. Media messages can have no effect if no one sees or hears them. However, what the audience chooses depends upon their interests, education, work commitments and so on.

Selective perception – the audience may not accept the message; some people may take notice of some media content, but decide to reject or ignore others.

Selective retention – the messages have to ‘stick’ in the mind of those who have accessed the media content. However, research indicates that most people have a tendency to remember only the things they broadly agree with.

Question 109

Morley - interpretation of media content

Answer 109

Morley’s (1980) research into how audiences interpreted the content of a well-known 1970s evening news programme called Nationwide examined how the ideological content of the programme (i.e. the messages that were contained in the text and images) were interpreted by 29 groups made up of people from a range of educational and professional backgrounds. Morley found that audiences were very active in their reading of media content and did not automatically accept the media’s perspective on a range of issues.