Test 3: Mass Media Flashcards
MASS MEDIA
help us forge identities, notions of gender, sense of class, of ethnicity and race, of nationality, of sexuality
•Important source of knowledge
MASS MEDIA
help shape vision of the world, our values, how we think, how we feel, what we believe, what we fear, how we should behave
Mass Media Defined
print, radio, television, and other computer-mediated communication technologies
-“Mass” implies the media reach many people
Mass Media Defined
Media signifies communication not directly face-to-face interaction, but tech intervenes/mediates in transmitting messages from senders to receivers
•One Way: 1 producer + mass of consumers
Mass Media Defined
Communication via mass media is usually one-way, or at least one-sided (although internet and social media are an example of two-way communication)
•CMC: Comp mediated communication – tablets, cellphones, laptop
Media literacy
ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in a variety of forms
History of Mass Media
Harold Adams Innis & Marshall McLuhan - Each type fosters different social perceptions, interactions, institutional arrangements
•Printing Press: Cheaper to make, more ppl able to read, don’t have to rewrite books
Why the Mass Media Grew
- Protestant Reformation promoted literacy
- Democratic movements promoted mass involvement: wanting to get more info because suddenly they had a say in policies
- Capitalist industrialization promoted the search for profit: not for public good
Functionalist
Mass media perform important functions
Surveillance
what is happening in the world
We hear about a small portion of what’s going on around the world more
oInternet allows us to seek sources of info that covers it better
Interpretation
selection of stories and tell us how we should respond
oSynthesize, summarize, interpret what’s important
socialization
Act as agent
•How we get norms + values, how to behave, how to be good citizens
entertainment
-for fun
Conflict/Critical
institutions + processes cannot be understood from viewpoint of society as a whole
need to be understood from that of unequal and conflicting groups and classes
Conflict/Critical
- Passes on some ideology more, not all views represented
* Selective process, chooses to present dominant ideology
Political Economy
Mass media favour interests of dominant classes + political groups
dominant classes + political groups benefit disproportionately from mass media
Mass media broadcast beliefs, values, and ideas
create widespread acceptance of basic structure of society, including its injustices and inequalities (dominant ideology and hegemony)
Ownership of mass media
highly concentrated in hands of small number of people and is highly profitable for them (CTVGlobeMedia, Rogers, Shaw)
•Fewer and fewer companies own media
oOverwhelming on all media
oThey don’t want anything that critiques them + creates instability for the norm
Consequences of Media Concentration
i. Deprives the public of independent sources of information
ii. Limits diversity of opinion
iii. Encourages the public to accept their society as it is
TELEVISION: ECONOMY, CULTURE, A IDENTITY
Canadian tv dominated by American tv
•Cultural imperialism: a society’s media exert influence over another society’s culture
•Canadians prefer domestic news and public affairs programming
•American lifestyle, norms, values
•Can be hard to find alternatives
•CRTC: force comps to have some sort of Canadian content
NEWS AND DOMINANT IDEOLOGY
News media: One of principle sources of information about social reality
•More news you watch, the more you feel it’s more dangerous than ever
•Reinforcing dominant definitions of what is normal + desirable
Feminist
Representation, misrepresentation + under representation of women + other minorities
•We need to be concerned with mass media representation
•Advertisement works: we spend billions
Interpretive
way audiences filter + interpret mass media messages in context of own interests, experiences, and values
•Variations in how we interpret content
Two-step flow of communication
occurs between mass media + audience
i. Respected ppl evaluating media messages
ii. members of community being influenced to varying degrees by these opinion leaders
Two-step flow of communication
opinion leaders filter media messages, not just opinion leaders anymore
intermediary, more ppl watching commentary
•More and more is not just the original product, all this filtering by others
INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Interactive media: Communications flow back + forth
people exchange roles with one another in transmission + reception of communication (social networking)
• Forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC)
INTERACTIVE MEDIA
New interactive technologies more accessible, creating more complex communications environment that mediates role + tempers impact any single medium can have at home, work, or school
•Public has more and more of a say in the content
•Any research on social media released later on could be irrelevant by the time research
CANADIAN INTERNET USE
-increasing, more than US
SOCIAL MEDIA vs TRADITIONAL MEDIA
-Almost everywhere all the time
•Network
-hybridity
Hybridity
enable integration of new and old technologies
Able to use multiple media at the same time
Networked and Nonlinear
many-to-many connectivity
more like spider web, more connections
Interactive
content is user-generated and continually modified
TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA
- Social Network Sites–create personal profiles, establish list of people they are connected to + share info (Facebook)
- Virtual Worlds – Virtual game environments (World of Warcraft)
TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA
- Blogs and microblogs – Online journals or short status updates (Twitter)
- Collective projects – ppl participate in the joint creation of content (Wikipedia)
- Online content communities – Services that allow people to share media, photos, videos (YouTube)
Web 2.0
encourages users to be digital collaborators:
build web pages and blogs, creating content, uploading on YouTube, editing Wiki
•Audience is much less passive than in traditional media
Web 2.0
- tools of production to audience
* users, consumers, audiences, take on hybrid role as producers
Web 2.0
2 way mode of communication & two step flow of communication: ‘likes’, tagging, trending topics, YouTube hits->consumption patterns of others operate as a point of social reference for how we consume media
Web 2.0
Henry Jenkins argues participatory media culture changed the face of literacy, shifting it from individual expression to community involvement
•Recommendations
SOCIAL ACTIVISM 2.0
- People use social media for awareness or advocacy purposes
SOCIAL ACTIVISM 2.0
- Social media to organize and mobilize others for political action
•#BellLetsTalk
•info readily available about protests
Social Media
In real life (IRL) vs virtual/online world
provides new possibilities for socializing online
Virtual communities embedded in our everyday real worlds + offline social lives
Groups established online are often extensions of offline sociability + enhance it
Digital Divide
rapid Internet growth, but still considerable inequality in access and use
•In Canada, richer, better educated, urban + younger most likely to enjoy Internet access
•Access related to race and ethnicity more in USA than in Canada
Digital Divide
- Internet access not evenly distributed globally
* Dominated linguistically by English, technologically and culturally by the U.S.
