Terminology

Question 1

Active Audience

Answer 1

The term refers to the agency or creativity of media audiences. Audiences are seen to be active interpreters of media texts. Recent debates about audience agency have also focussed on the capacity which audiences have to be produsers/prosumers.

Question 2

Agency

Answer 2

By agency is meant the capacity that human beings have for creativity and critical self-reflection in the face of structures or constraints.

Question 3

Asymmetrical Relations of Power

Answer 3

Unequal relationships of power in the social world with particular reference to how inequality manifests itself in terms of people’s position in the social structure based upon one’s class, ethnicity or gender in one or other combination.

Question 4

Citizenship

Answer 4

Refers to the relationship between citizens and the Liberal Democratic state. Citizenship implies both rights and responsibilities.

Question 5

Citizen Journalism

Answer 5

Refers to journalism engaged in by so-called ordinary citizens. Citizen journalism has expanded significantly in the context of the spread of social media. Free or cheaper forms of media technologies have allowed ordinary people to re-circulate existing media texts or create commentaries on and/or offer eye-witness accounts of matters of public interest.

Question 6

Class

Answer 6

The categorisation of members of a society according to socio-economic status. Class is one of three key variables (ethnicity and gender) used to understand inequality and social stratification in modern societies.

Question 7

Conglomerate/Conglomeration

Answer 7

Large-scale corporations that operate at national and transnational levels. Conglomerates are made up of a range of corporations that have strong monopolistic tendencies and are either vertically or horizontally integrated in terms of their ownership structure. Media corporations may be part of larger media conglomerates or conglomerates of a more general nature which have economic interests outside of the media industry.

Question 8

Constructionist

Answer 8

Researchers interested in media audiences use the term constructionist to describe the discursive and reflexive activities of media audiences.

Question 9

Content Analysis

Answer 9

Traditionally, content analysis referred to a research method used to count the occurrence of specific phenomena – particular kinds of representations – within media texts. More recently content analysis has come to refer to either quantitative or qualitative analysis of media texts. Qualitative analysis can involve a close critical reading of a media text, focusing for example on it’s discursive dimensions, rather than an attempt to count the occurrence of specific phenomena within a text.

Question 10

Convergence

Answer 10

As used here the term convergence means the coming together or merging of media technologies and media organisations. Media organisations concerned with old media and new media converge through the process of conglomeration. Recent developments with the mobile or cell phone allowing live streaming of television programming or photography are an example of how media technologies can converge. Convergence is in further evidence in terms of how media can operate across platforms – an online edition of a newspaper might include links to social media such as Twitter or Facebook or to email in order to share media content.

Question 11

Core, Peripheral and Semi-Peripheral Societies

Answer 11

World System Theory sees the world as being divided into core, peripheral and semi-peripheral societies. The labour forces and raw materials of peripheral and semi-peripheral societies are exploited in order to create goods and services for the core societies in the western capitalist world.

Question 12

Cultural Industries

Answer 12

According to Hesmondhalgh the cultural industries are involved in the making and circulating of products that, more than the products of any other kind of industry, have an influence on our understanding and knowledge of the world.

Question 13

Deregulation

Answer 13

In some territories the state has played a strong role in regulating publically and privately owned media organisations. The deregulation of the media market has seen the state play a reduced role in regulating media organisations. Conglomerates favour a deregulated environment and have lobbied the politically powerful to ensure less regulatory involvement by the state.

Question 14

Diaspora

Answer 14

The term diaspora originates form diaspeirein: a Greek word meaning the scattering of seeds. According to Karim Diasporas are ‘viewed as comprising ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious groups who reside in a number of countries to which they or their ancestors migrated’.

Question 15

Diasporic Media Audience

Answer 15

Media audiences who are members of the diaspora.

Question 16

Deserving Poor

Answer 16

The poor or socially excluded who are deemed to be worthy of assistance or help. The deserving poor are believed to be poor through no fault of their own and are deserving of state or other forms of support or assistance. The deserving poor are sometimes referred to as God’s Poor. To be compared with undeserving poor.

Question 17

Developing and Developed World

Answer 17

Both of these concepts are problematic, particularly the former. The term developing world seems to imply that the poorer regions of the globe are slowly catching up with the more prosperous parts. The notion of the developed world is also troublesome in that it masks the existence of poverty and inequality in the northern hemisphere.

Question 18

Digital Divide

Answer 18

A concept used to highlight the gab between the information rich and the information poor. While the digital divide is most apparent between northern and southern hemispheres, the concept may also be used to understand information inequalities in the developed world. The concept of the digital divide warns us to be sceptical about the widely used concepts such as the global village and the information society.

Question 19

Discourse Analysis

Answer 19

A method of research focused on the analysis of text and talk, discourse analysis is concerned with the use of language in a social context and the relationship between language use and power relationships – equal and inequal.

Question 20

Encoding/Decoding

Answer 20

A model of media analysis devised by leading media theorist Stuart Hall, it examines how media professionals encode meaning in media messages/texts and how these texts are possibly decoded or understood by media audiences.

Question 21

Effects

Answer 21

The effects model of media analysis stresses the power of media content over media audiences. The latter are usually constructed as being passive in the face of powerful media messages. The metaphor of the hypodermic syringe injecting its contents into the minds of audience members has long been used as a way of conceptualising the media effects paradigm.

Question 22

Empirical

Answer 22

That which is observable.

Question 23

Epistemological

Answer 23

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned with truth or knowledge.

Question 24

Ethnicity

Answer 24

Within sociology the term ethnicity has come to replace the problematic concept of race. By ethnicity we mean the shared common cultural heritage of a group. Membership of an ethnic group can have a strong bearing on one’s life-chances and opportunities. Ethnicity is one of three key variables (class and gender) used to understand inequality in modern societies. There is an important body of content analysis-based media research on how ethnic groups are problematised in a media setting.

Question 25

Ethnography and Ethnographic

Answer 25

A research method that has its roots in social anthropology, ethnography seeks to understand and describe social behaviour in its natural everyday setting. The ethnographic approach uses a wide range of qualitative research methodologies such as participant observation, observation and interviews as a source of data. Traditionally, doing ethnographic work mean engaging in field work for long periods of time, but a marked feature of recent ethnographic work within media analysis is the truncated nature of the fieldwork.

Question 26

E-Zines

Answer 26

Internet-based magazines or newlestters. These are often aimed a specific interest groups.

Question 27

Fans

Answer 27

An abbreviated form of the word fanatic which in turn is derived from the Latin fanaticus meaning a devotee or servant of the temple. Although it is possible to identify estreme examples of fans and fan behavious, the use of the term fan is best seen in positive, agentic terms.

Question 28

Fandom

Answer 28

Within media and cultural studies fandom refers to the phenomenon of fans forming an attachment to a particular star, celebrity or media genre. Fan studies are often the site of some very interesting research on what some audience members can do in their role as prosumers.

Question 29

Focus Groups

Answer 29

A research method using unstructured or semi-structured group interviews. The groups in question might be selected on the basis of gender, age or occupation. Focus groups may be used either as a sole or supplementary research method.

Question 30

Feminist

Answer 30

The feminist perspective is concerned with gender inequalities in modern and post-modern societies. Inequalities are seen to stem from the patriarchal character of these social systems. The feminist perspective has made a very significant contribution towards how we understand the media.

Question 31

Frame Analysis

Answer 31

Influenced by the work of the sociologist Erving Goffman, frame analysis in a media setting examines the used of interpretive frames in constructing media content. Media professionals resort to using interpretive frames in telling stories about the social world. The agenda-setting perspective would suggest that the selective framing of news stories, for example, has an important bearing on public beliefs about matters of social, economic and political importance.

Question 32

Genre

Answer 32

In media studies context genre means distinct types of categories of media content such as punk rock or heavy metal music; television soap operas or news programming, action movies or romantic dramas.

Question 33

Gender

Answer 33

One’s gender is not the same as one’s biological sex. The categories male and female are social constructs. Through the process of socialisation individuals are taught that particular sets of values, behaviours and roles are natural to their biological sex. The media play a hugely significant role in the process.

Question 34

Globalisation

Answer 34

The term globalisation is at once both multi-faceted and ambiguous. As a process globalisation refers to a number of things – the restructuring of activities on global lines; the apparent shrinkage of time and space as a result of new information and communication technologies; the increased awareness of the global in everyday life; cultural homogenisation and the intensification of local identities. The media industries have globalised in terms of both their reach and their presence in a range of core, peripheral and semi-peripheral societies. Media globalisation has resulted in the wider circulation of media texts and has given rise to new kinds of concerns and questions for audience researchers in particular.

Question 35

Glocalisation

Answer 35

Occurs when media audiences appropriate, localise and hybridise globally circulated media texts. In interpreting such texts, audiences make their own of them.

Question 36

Grounded Theory

Answer 36

Traditionally social research has used existing theories in order to make sense of data gathered in a research project. Grounded Theory, by contrast, allows theory to emerge from the data gathered.

Question 37

Hegemony

Answer 37

The dominance of one social group over another. Hegemony may be achieved through either force or consent. Hegemonic ideologies are those ideologies that facilitate or enable domination to take place. Counter-hegemonic ideologies are ideas that run counter to those expressed within the dominant ideology.

Question 38

Homogenisation

Answer 38

Refers to the sameness evident in the world as a result of economic and cultural globalisation. McDonaldisation is one of the more obvious examples of homogenisation.

Question 39

Hybrid and Hybridisation

Answer 39

The term hybrid has two key meanings. Hybrid media texts may be created when their producers or creators mix the ingredients from more than one media genre. Hybridisation also occurs when globally circulated media texts are appropriated by audiences and are localised.

Question 40

Hyperreality

Answer 40

According to Baudrillard, in the media saturated post-modern world it is no longer a question of us having to examine how the media represent reality. Media reality has become the reality for most members of society.

Question 41

Ideology

Answer 41

At is most basic ideology means the Science of Ideas. In media analysis the emphasis is on examining how the media construct and disseminate ideas that are of benefit to the dominant class or other social group. We usually differentiate between dominant or hegemonic ideologies about class, ethnic or gender relations and other counter-hegemonic ideologies evident in media content.

Question 42

Infotainment

Answer 42

The merging of information and entertainment usually in a news setting. It may also refer to the increasing tendency within more serious media content of entertainment masquerading as information.

Question 43

Integration (Horizontal and Vertical)

Answer 43

The terms horizontal and vertical integration refer to two contrasting styles of media ownership structure. With vertical integration a media company owns and controls all aspects of the production, marketing, distribution and selling of a media product. Media companies that a horizontally integrated own and control a range of media companies involved in different kinds of activities such as printing, broadcasting and ICT.

Question 44

Intertextuality

Answer 44

The tendency for media texts to make reference to or make use of some of the component parts of other kinds of media texts or genres that audiences are likely to be familiar with. A television advert for soap powder making use of some of the ingredients of a James Bond movie would be an example.

Question 45

Localisation

Answer 45

The term localisation is used in two ways in this textbook. A key facet of the globalisation process is the tendency for local identities to intensify. Globally circulated media texts may be appropriated by local audiences to fit local conditions. Global media conglomerates also engage in localisation in tat they will create media products to suit the characteristics of the local market in order to ensure greater market penetration and domination.

Question 46

Marxist Perspective

Answer 46

The Marxist perspective is concerned with explaining the inequalities inherent in capitalist society, in terms of media analysis, the focus is on media companies as examples par excellence of capitalist organisations and more particularly on how the media facilitate the continuation of capitalism by representing it as being inevitable and desirable.

Question 47

Media and Mass Media

Answer 47

The word media is the plural of medium. When we talk about the mass media we usually mean those industries and technologies capable of communicating with large numbers of people in diverse social situations.

Question 48

Media Imperialism

Answer 48

The terms media imperialism, cultural imperialism and US imperialism are often used interchangeably in reference to the spread and global domination of western media culture. Those who are concerned about western media imperialism see it as being responsible for the wearing down of local cultures. However, those who argue from a localisation perspective believe that local audiences have the capacity to resist, hybridise and localise globalising forms of media culture.

Question 49

Media Oligopolies

Answer 49

Powerful media conglomerates who dominate and control the global media industry.

Question 50

Media Moguls

Answer 50

Powerful individuals who have a controlling interest in multimedia conglomerates. In addition to their economic power, media moguls are believed to wield considerable political influence in the shaping of state policy about media and other matters of economic and political importance.

Question 51

Methodology, Methods and Mixed Methods

Answer 51

The means by which research is undertaken. Researchers may use quantitative or qualitative research methods. In recognition of the complexity of the social world, and the fact that no one research method is trouble free, a growing number of researchers make use of a combination of research methods – a mixed method approach – in order to more fully understand their particular research question.

Question 52

Modernity

Answer 52

Increasingly a continuous term, modernity refers to the era in which societies became industrialised, secular and urban. The contention arises from whether or not modernity has given way to postmodernity.

Question 53

Narrative and Narrative Analysis

Answer 53

A research method concerned with the narrative structure of media texts. How do individual media texts such as reports broadcast on television news programmes tell or narrate stories about the social world? What conventions are employed in explaining terrorism for example?

Question 54

Neo-Liberalism

Answer 54

A now dominant ideology which sees members of society as primarily economic rather than social actors. According to this perspective, the state should either play a significantly reduced or non-existent role when it comes to the provision of goods and services in society. In addition, capital should be unfettered as far as possible and should be free from state interference. Neo-liberal marketisation ideas have assumed a dominant or hegemonic position in the shaping of state policy in terms of how education, health and welfare are provided for its citizens. It has underpinned the de-regulation and increased privatisation of the media.

Question 55

Netizens

Answer 55

Citizens who use the possibilities afforded by the Internet to discuss and debate matters of economic, political and moral importance. Netizens also use the internet as a possible Public Sphere to argue, debate and inform.

Question 56

New Media

Answer 56

Breen defines New Media as ‘recently evolved systems for the delivery of content to audiences. These media differ radically from transitional media in several respects; entry is cheap, the number of practitioners is limitless, geography is not a barrier, communication is a two way process and the audience has high levels of power in terms of how and when content is consumed’.

Question 57

Participant Observation

Answer 57

A research method most associated with the ethnographic approach. The individual researcher immerses herself in the society, community or organisation under study, usually for a long period of time. Participant observation may be covert or overt. It may be used as the sole method of data collection or as a precursor to other forms of data collection such as interviews.

Question 58

Paradigm

Answer 58

At its simplest, a paradigm is a model or a framework which is used to make sense of phenomena.

Question 59

Patriarchy

Answer 59

The control and domination of women by men. Patriarchal ideologies or discourses are ones that legitimise the continuation of male dominance in positions of influence and power.

Question 60

Performative

Answer 60

The term performative is used in the context of fan studies to refer to the ways in which some fans act out or perform their fandom. Fans, for example, may recreated and enact scenes from their favourite film or TV programme. By focussing on what some fans do we move away from simply thinking about how audiences interpret or read media texts.

Question 61

Political Economy Perspective

Answer 61

A theoretical perspective concerned with understanding how the capitalist class promote and ensure their dominant position in capitalist society.

Question 62

Postmodern and Postmodernity

Answer 62

A lively debate has ensued in recent years as to whether the era of modernity has come to pass. Postmodernists argue that modernity has been replaced by a postmodern era characterised by cultural and economic globalisation; homogenisation; increased fragmentation of local identities and media saturation. Proponents of postmodern theory treat the certainties inherent in more traditional sociological approaches towards understanding the social world in general and the media in particular with some scepticism. The postmodern perspective celebrates what it sees as the fragmented nature of postmodernity. Media reality has become hyper reality or more real than reality itself. A key criticism of postmodernism is the lack of empirical evidence to support the many arguments which state that we have moved of from the era of modernity.

Question 63

Power

Answer 63

The term power is used in two key ways in this textbook. First, in terms of the power and media texts to shape audience understandings of the social world and second in terms of unequal power relationships based upon class, ethnicity, gender or a geographical location.

Question 64

Production Research

Answer 64

A research tradition focussed on understanding more about media organisations and media professionals.

Question 65

Production, Content and Reception

Answer 65

A model of media research which focusses in equal measure on the production of media texts, their contents and how they are received/interpreted by audiences.

Question 66

Produsers/Prosumers

Answer 66

Traditionally, media producers and media audiences (consumers) were placed at opposite ends of the spectrum. With the advent of new media, which affords the possibility of user generated content, some theorists have begun to reconfigure audiences as produseres and prosumers.

Question 67

Public Knowledge

Answer 67

The degree to which members of the public are informed about public affairs concerning politics and the economy for example. Concerns have been expressed over the degree to which members of the public are informed by media organisations which are increasingly privatised and which have a greater emphasis on infotainment rather than issues of public concern.

Question 68

Public Service Broadcasting and Broadcasters

Answer 68

Traditionally dominant in Western Europe. Public Service Broadcasting refers to publicly owned media companies engaged in the production and broadcast of radio and television programmes. In the face of increased competition from privately owned media companies, Public Service Broadcasting organisations have re-iterated their public sphere function.

Question 69

Public Sphere

Answer 69

A space allowing discourse and debate of political importance. The public sphere is seen as an essential element in the democratisation of modern societies and ideally the media should facilitate such a space. The process of privatisation, homogenisation, dumbing down and the rise of infotainment all militate against the media providing a public sphere for media audiences.

Question 70

Qualitative Research

Answer 70

Researchers who are interesting in questions about meaning and interpretation tend to make use of non-quantitative or qualitative research methods. Key qualitative methods include interviewing, participant observation and semiotic analysis.

Question 71

Quantitative Research

Answer 71

The term quantitative refers to research methods such as content analysis or surveys that seek to count the occurrences of specific phenomena e.g. racist ideologies within media content such as newspaper editiorials or the measurement of public attitudes and beliefs about welfare recipients.

Question 72

Reception and Reception Analysis

Answer 72

A model of media analysis concerned primarily with the interpretative work engaged in by audiences in their engagement with media texts.

Question 73

Research Ethics

Answer 73

An ethical framework which governs the way in which research is undertaken. Research ethics should convey rights to those being research and clear responsibilities on those who are doing the research.

Question 74

Reflexivity

Answer 74

The concept of reflexivity refers to the capacity of social actors for reflection, criticism and self-awareness.

Question 75

Representation

Answer 75

This form of media analysis is primarily concerned with how media texts represent or re-represent the social world.

Question 76

Resistance

Answer 76

The ways in which audience members may reject the preferred or intended readings or meanings in a media text. The term is often used to describe how audience members reject the dominant or hegemonic codes evident within a media text. Audience members are said to be ‘reading against the grain’ in rejecting or subverting dominant or hegemonic ideology.

Question 77

Socialisation

Answer 77

Socialisation theory examines how we learn to become members of society. Agents of socialisation include the family, peer group, the education system and the mass media. We learn from each of these agencies about norms, beliefs, values, rules and ideologies.

Question 78

Structures

Answer 78

Constraints that determine or shape human behaviour. In doing media work, for example, media professionals may be constrained by rules imposed by an employer, by the laws governing broadcasting or print journalism and by audience expectations.

Question 79

Social Media

Answer 79

Media technologies and tools which allow for the creation of social networks and virtual communities. Social media enable the online sharing of a wide variety of media texts. Developments in social media underlie recent developments in Citizen Journalism and the reconfiguration of some audience members as prosumers.

Question 80

Texts

Answer 80

The increased concentration within media analysis on the agency or creativity of audience members came hand in hand with an emphasis upon seeing media content as texts rather than messages. Implicit in the notion of audience members reading media texts of active, interpretative work in the creation of meaning.

Question 81

Transnational

Answer 81

As used in this textbook the term transnational refers to both media companies or organisations and media texts. Many media texts are increasingly transnational because they are circulated globally. Transnational media conglomerates are media companies that operate in several countries.

Question 82

Triangulation

Answer 82

By using a mixture of research methods, social scientists are able to check the findings which arise from the use of each specific method.

Question 83

Uses and Gratifications

Answer 83

An approach within audience studies which seeks to understand how and why audiences use the media. It examines the ways in which audiences use the media to gratify their needs to be informed or entertained, for example.