Soc 100 - Media

Question 1

Religion, Politics, & Education are all… Explain.

Answer 1

centrally-directed attempts to shape society as a whole:�-Religion & Politics present alternative ways to coordinate society: for Struc Functionalists they ensure social solidarity; for Critical Theorists, they help one group control the others�

Question 2

Diff between Religion/Politics and Education

Answer 2

Religion & Politics are central structuring features of society, whilst Education is one specific program aimed at a particular goal in society�.

Question 3

Mass Media vs Mass Communication

Answer 3

The technology (print, radio, television, internet) that allow mass communicationvsThe actual transmission of message from one source to huge audience at same time

Question 4

A medium (plural = media) is …

Answer 4

the thing we use to carry a message.

Question 5

Agenda-setting

Answer 5

Media’s power to select which topics we think and talk about.Whatever gets discussed in the media is likely to be uppermost in our thoughts�.

Question 6

Who wrote “Deciding What’s News” and what is it?

Answer 6

Herbert J Gans.empirical study of news media: how do they decide what appears on our screens?Gans’s study involved interviews with journalists etc, and analysis of news stories.

Question 7

What did Gans discover a prevalence of in the media?

Answer 7

negative news – stories of crime or war, instead of ‘positive’ ones: “if it bleeds, it leads.�”

Question 8

What has happened to ownership of media in recent decades? Examples?

Answer 8

concentration of ownership: more and more of media concentrated in fewer & fewer hands.Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has global media interests, owning tv & newspapers in many countries.Most of Canada’s mass-media is privately owned�

Question 9

What was the 1981 Kent Commission?

Answer 9

criticised near-monopolies in Canadian media ownership: it suggested that something should be done to preserve small newspapers. Stalled by political pressures�.

Question 10

What did Gans discover about messages of an owners’ political allies? What does this lead to?

Answer 10

media deliver messages that won’t embarrass owners’ political allies.Leads to narrow selection of political viewpoints.Media restricted in views it can set forth�

Question 11

Conglomerate

Answer 11

Large business structure with interests in a variety of fields (e.g. gambling, movies, drinks, media)�

Question 12

What did Gans discover about the importance of market considerations in choosing stories (what does the audience want to hear)?

Answer 12

Simple, entertaining stories, e.g. about celebrities, were more popular than news about elections in Italy, say�.

Question 13

How is media driven by commercial concerns too? Consequences?

Answer 13

they’re increasingly owned by large conglomerates not just focused on news.Therefore, more driven by concerns of profit, not truth: Larger corporations have a duty to their shareholders.Therefore, costs are cut, and marketable news is preferred�.

Question 14

How does the brevity of news bulletins affect what is covered? What does this mean or politicians?

Answer 14

Difficult to present complexity of real issues in a short tv news bulletin: must be simplified so people don’t turn off�-news coverage focuses increasingly on personality, not issues: politicians are judged only as characters, and interesting or charismatic ones are favoured�

Question 15

What are political stories often reduced to now? Example?

Answer 15

reduced to soundbites, or presented in simplified, ideologically-slanted way. Newspapers often just report polls instead of discussing issues.Joseph Kony not a media issue – until it was simplified in a glossy, easily-relatable video�.

Question 16

Colonization of the Lifeworld

Answer 16

Habermas’s term for increasing dominance of impersonal system motives (profit, power etc) in areas previously open to free debate.Seen in effects of profit motive on media’s ability to be a space for public discourse�

Question 17

What did Jurgen Habermas argue about 18th century Europe?

Answer 17

Habermas’s term for increasing dominance of impersonal system motives (profit, power etc) in areas previously open to free debate.Seen in effects of profit motive on media’s ability to be a space for public discourse�

Question 18

To Habermas, what happens to free, open debate as society gets more complex?

Answer 18

it relies more on impersonal systems such as political power or money to simplify interaction. Too hard to decide everything as individual decisions�.

Question 19

How does commercialisation of the media represent colonisation of the lifeworld by system imperatives�?

Answer 19

media should be part of fluid public sphere, with open debate, but this is harmed by profit motive, which fixes (or reifies) arena of lifeworld debate�.

Question 20

Struct Funct view of mass media?

Answer 20

Mass media help transmit shared values and preserve culture of community.Media can transmit vital information quickly�.-look at how media as a whole transmit certain values or information important to society: they look at media within the larger whole�

Question 21

Critical Th view of Mass Media?

Answer 21

Mass media serve interests of their wealthy owners.Media are a way to dominate discourse & gain ideological hegemony over masses�-look at what the media say, and who controls the media: they suggest that mass media serve function of ‘brainwashing’ the masses�

Question 22

To Struct Funct, what are the three tasks media fulfils to society as a whole?

Answer 22

Socialization: Like education, mass media can present a single standard view of society as a whole, ensuring cohesion.Robert Park (1922) examined role of newspapers in helping immigrants adjust to values of new country�Enforcing Social Norms: In both news and entertainment, we see criminals being punished when they break social rules�Economic Stimulus: Media promote consumption through advertising, thus helping economy�

Question 23

Gatekeeping and Alternative Media

Answer 23

Gatekeeping: Actively preventing certain ideas, values, people, lifestyles from appearing in media�Alternative Media: Less prominent media sources, but used by subordinate groups to transmit views�

Question 24

Gans discovered that news is slanted in a way that flatters those…

Answer 24

with power over the media – thus presenting their views first�

Question 25

Epistemic Closure

Answer 25

When individuals choose only news outlets that agree with their politics, they find only confirmation of their beliefs.Possible in highly marketised media world�

Question 26

Modern highly-specialized media market allows us to choose only… Consequences?

Answer 26

news outlets that agree with us�.-In the US, Fox News is highly conservative; MSNBC is generally liberal. Mass market allows such exact specialisation�-As a result, we constantly hear things that confirm what we already know, and never get the opposite view.We live in a closed world, in which what we already believe to be true is constantly reinforced�

Question 27

Cultivation Theory

Answer 27

Masses are terrified by constant images of threats and conflict on tv.Consequently, they support hardline solutions for nonexistent problems�.

Question 28

What did George Gerbner and Larry Gross explore? What did they find?

Answer 28

explore ways television creates a climate of fear that politicians can exploit.People exposed to large amounts of violence on tv have exaggerated fears about violence in world.Consequently, they support hardline political solutions, e.g. very strict policing, wars against international “threats.”

Question 29

What did Franz Neumann’s Anxiety and Politics explore?

Answer 29

explores cultivation theory in rise of Fascism, using Freudian theory.By making people afraid, Fascist leaders gain support�

Question 30

How does the media often present violence?

Answer 30

present glamourised version of violence: the good guys’ hair is never out of place in a fight, and only the bad guys die. Violence is exalted.

Question 31

How do Robert Merton and Paul Lazarsfeld argue that media can be dysfunctional?

Answer 31

narcotizes us, by overstimulating us. We suffer ‘compassion fatigue’ from seeing too many disasters. We become desensitised to violence�.

Question 32

What research provides conflicting evidence on the issue of compassion fatigue and violence desensitization?

Answer 32

Violence on tv has some definite short-term effects on behaviour, but link with longer term violence is less clear.Japanese media depict extreme violence – but not reflected in Japanese society�.

Question 33

How is Cultivation THeory and similar arguments criticized?

Answer 33

for overstating effect of media on people: implies we’re too easy to influence, and have no resistance at all to media message�s.

Question 34

Homogenisation

Answer 34

When differences disappear, and we all become the same. Mass media encourage cultural homogenisation�.

Question 35

How does the power of money shape media across the globe? Consequences?

Answer 35

the richest parts of the world will be able to dominate the world culturally.Big movies cost a lot to make; news broadcasts require money.This means American values, ideas, and culture spread everywhere: they have largest entertainment industry of all.-This leads to risk of homogenisation, as other cultures are pushed out by American dominance: we all become the same�.

Question 36

How do some countries defend own culture against US?

Answer 36

Canada has ‘Canadian content’ regulations (‘CanCon’) mandating a certain about of Canadian-produced media.We’re supposed to use Canadian-produced textbooks in class�!

Question 37

Niche Marketing

Answer 37

Advertisers target very specific segments of the population with carefully-focused commercials and messages�.

Question 38

How do advertisers use sociological information? How does this classify society?

Answer 38

to target their products at very specific groups:They need to find out what these groups value, what sort of income they have, what they need in life.-Society classified as a variety of subcultures, each with distinct needs and their own cultural ‘languages’ to be interpreted.Different brands appeal to these values – they become associated with specific groups�

Question 39

The Medium is the Message�

Answer 39

McLuhan’s famous statement that how the media says something is more important than what it says�

Question 40

What did Edmonton’s Marshall McLuhan argue?

Answer 40

that the media are more effective if they know how to target their messages: instead of appealing to rational thought, they should appeal to basic visceral emotions, and bypass critical thought�.

Question 41

What did Marshall McLuhan think about visual media? How do advertisers exploit this?

Answer 41

He argues that visual media (e.g. television) are more direct, and thus more effective, than printed media (e.g. books).-We respond more directly and less critically to visual media�.Advertisers use this to appeal directly to our inner instincts: they aim at our unconscious desires, not our rational thought�.

Question 42

Commodity Fetishism

Answer 42

Originally a Marxist term, but changed & adapted by Baudrillard to describe the way we desire a product for its cultural value, not its actual use� (apple products lol)-we treat them as if they have ‘magical powers’ independent of the material object�

Question 43

According to Baudrillard, what do we want instead of the concrete material item?

Answer 43

we view the world as a set of brands, which are somehow more important for what they represent than what they are.�

Question 44

Hyperreality

Answer 44

The ultra-bright, fast-moving, sensory overload world produced by the mass media – which overwhelms the dull material world underneath� (what we actually live in)

Question 45

What did Baudrillard famously suggest about the first Gulf War? What does it make impossible to do?

Answer 45

suggested that the first Gulf War (1990-1) ‘did not happen’: it was really just a media event.The war as depicted on tv – the war that people thought was happening – was a carefully-packaged presentation, like a video game, a neat package of military precision�.-This profusion of images makes it impossible for us to distinguish between reality and manufactured hyperreality�

Question 46

Cultural Studies

Answer 46

Sociological study of various aspects of culture – both ‘high art’ and mass entertainment.Examines movies, tv, news etc to see what we can learn about a society from them�

Question 47

How are female disney characters really there just for the male characters?

Answer 47

Big eyes, small mouths, slim figures – a very narrow interpretation of ‘beauty.’ They are there to attract a man!Women are shown as passive. Male characters are the heroes – they usually end up rescuing the women. Even ‘heroic’ females (Mulan) end up with marriage & children�.

Question 48

How are characters with ‘foreign’ accents portrayed in Disney?

Answer 48

either villains or ‘lesser’ characters, often used for comic effect�.

Question 49

How does Disney treat black people particularly?

Answer 49

Noticeably urban, black accents used to voice villains.Often represented as less noble animals – orangutans (who want to be “like a real human”) or hyenas�.

Question 50

Male Gaze

Answer 50

Feminist concept to describe the way women are generally expected to present themselves to be judged by men.Women are trained to spend a long time looking good – to attract the ubiquitous male eye�.

Question 51

How does Suzanna Walters’ suggest that women are always represented according to the male gaze?

Answer 51

Female characters are there to be looked at – they are passive, but pretty. They motivate the men but do nothing themselves�.

Question 52

In media more generally, women (e.g. politicians) are much more likely to be described in terms of …

Answer 52

Appearance, not action. (Sarah Palin)

Question 53

Orientalism

Answer 53

Tendency for European/Western writers to depict other parts of world (especially Asia) as ‘mysterious’ and ‘magical.’Makes these areas seem irrational & pre-modern – only there for white man to ‘find�’

Question 54

How does Aladdin and Mulan represent Arabic and Chinese cultures? What are the heroes seen struggling against?

Answer 54

as regressive, brutal, or oppressive places.The heroes seen struggling against general ‘barbarism.’