The Media Landscape 7

Question 1

Changing Audiences

Answer 1

Leading to Saturation and Fragmentation

Question 2

Market Saturation

Answer 2

Media & commerce ➚
central to our lives
-symbolic value
-consumer culture
Information overload
- Constant engagement with
media
-Multitasking, media life
photo: clay banks on unsplashed

Question 3

Fragmentation

Answer 3

We’ve seen this before!
Many ‘niche’ choices for different
social & cultural groups
-Also: we have less time for media
-Our eyeballs are harder to reach,
and harder to sell
* YouTube itself notices this, in its
culture/trends report (2022)…
photo: pexels

Question 4

Loss of reality/hyperreal

Answer 4

Saturation leads to blurring of distinction between representation and reality
Our point of reference is (almost) always some
previously mediated experience(s)!

Question 5

Pastiche

Answer 5

Pastiche is a new mix of (recycled) symbols
Free-for-all of selected meanings taken out of context and re-mixed
Think of:
mixed music genres
borrowing of old themes/sampling
movies that re-use old ideas, plotlines, and themes
revival of older media products in new forms

Question 6

Stimulated Identities

Answer 6

Playing different roles online than we do in real life.

Question 7

4 societal trends since World War II

Answer 7

1) Fragmentation of society
- Loss of traditional social structures
- Increased focus on individual aspirations

2) Economization
- Rise of monetary, image-based,
- Free market values and, consumption instead of
production.

3) Rationalisation
Increased demand for evidence, research

4) Mediatisation
Increased centrality of media insocial processes

Question 8

Post Modernism

Answer 8

A late 20th C. philosophical
movement of:
-Skepticism of ‘modern’ reasoning
about reality, ethics
-Relativism instead of objective truths about society
-Sensitivity to the role of ideology in maintaining &
asserting power

Question 8

Baudrillard French sociologist, social critic, & philosopher,
1929-2007

Answer 8

PHASE 1: truthful signs:
signs faithfully represent the real world
PHASE 2: obscuring signs:
signs primarily obscure/distort reality
PHASE 3: misleading signs:
signs as misrepresenting that reality
exists; no unmediated reality remains – reality is mediated
PHASE 4: signs as “hyperreal” simulacra:
signs no longer even seek a connection to reality;
media don’t reflect society but are society