Media Culture and Society PDF

Media Culture and Society 2 3 Media Culture and Society an introduction 2ND Edition Paul Hodkinson 4 SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, C...

Media Culture and Society 2 3 Media Culture and Society an introduction 2ND Edition Paul Hodkinson 4 SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road New Delhi 110 044 SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd 3 Church Street #10-04 Samsung Hub Singapore 049483 © Paul Hodkinson 2017 5  First edition published 2011 Second edition published 2017 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. Library of Congress Control Number: 2016939482 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-4739-0235-0 ISBN 978-1-4739-0236-7 (pbk) Editor: Michal Ainsley Editorial assistant: Delayna Spencer Production editor: Imogen Roome Copyeditor: Kate Campbell Proofreader: Jill Birch Indexer: David Rudeforth Marketing manager: Lucia Sweet Cover design: Jen Crisp Typeset by: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd, Chennai, India Printed in the UK 6 Contents List of Illustrations About the Author Acknowledgements 1 Introduction Introduction Media, Culture, Society Starting Points: Shaping, Mirroring and Representing The Communications Process Transmitters, Receivers and Noise Who Says What in Which Channel to Whom With What Effect? Linear and One-Dimensional Elements of Media in Socio-Cultural Context Media, Power and Control Media, Identity and Culture Making Connections PART ONE: ELEMENTS OF MEDIA 2 Media Technologies Introduction Classic Medium Theories McLuhan: The Medium is the Message Kill Your Television Technological Determinism Hot, Cool or Both? Generalisation and Reification Technologies and Social Contexts Capacities and Constraints Into the Digital Age Convergence Interactivity Diversification Mobility The Internet as Solution to or Cause of Social Ills Democracy and Freedom? Isolation and Superficiality Digital Technologies in Context Conclusion 7 3 Media Industry Introduction Media Organisations Commercial Ownership Concentration of Ownership = Concentration of Ideas? The Bottom Line: Sources of Revenue Advertising Revenue Direct User Payment Payments Between Media Companies Maximising Audiences The Role of Sponsors Governments and Regulation Access Restrictions Ownership Restrictions Content Regulation Deregulation Regulation to Support Industry: Copyright Conclusion: Economic Determinism? 4 Media Content Introduction Media Texts as Arrangements of Signs Signs as Arbitrary? Levels of Meaning Signs as Relational Uncovering Mythology Limitations of Semiology Narrative, Genre and Discourse Analysis Narrative Analysis Genre Analysis Discourse Analysis From Quality to Quantity: Content Analysis ‘Objective, Systematic and Quantitative’ Categories and Coding Population and Sample Case Study: Gerbner and Television Violence Limitations of Content Analysis Conclusion: Putting Texts into Context 5 Media Users Introduction US Empirical Traditions of Audience Research Effects Research 8  Limited Effects and Two-Step Flow Uses and Gratifications Functionalist and Complacent? Cultural Studies: Dominant and Oppositional Readings and Beyond Encoding, Decoding and Preferred Meanings Social Context and Differential Readings Audiences as Producers of Meaning Ethnographies of Audiences, Fans and Users Digital Participatory Culture? An Audience Continuum Conclusion: An Uncritical Celebration? PART TWO: MEDIA, POWER AND CONTROL 6 Media as Manipulation? Marxism and Ideology Introduction Marxism and Ideology: Basics The Culture Industry as Mass Deception Unsupported Elitism? Ideological Meanings Beyond Marx’s Materialism Case Study: Consumerist Myths Political Economy and Ideology Manufacturing Consent Cultural Imperialism as Globalisation of Ideology Arguments and Criticisms Political Economic versus Cultural Approaches Complex Communication Flows and Consumer Resistance Conclusion: Avoiding Easy Dismissals 7 The Construction of News Introduction Selection, Gate-Keeping and Agenda Setting News Values Out of Date? Case Study: Major Terrorist Attack Stories Constructing Stories Differences Between Outlets Medium Style and Market Position Political Stance Similarities: Back to Bias and Ideology? 9  Class Bias Institutional Bias The Powerful Influencing the Powerful Infotainment and the persuit of clicks Conclusion: Signs of Hope? 8 Public Service or Personal Entertainment? Controlling Media Orientation Introduction Public Service Broadcasting Reith and the BBC Contrasting PSB Arrangements Developing PSB Principles Enabling or Imposing? Censorship: Preventing Harm and Offence Avoiding Offence Pornography Violence Preventing Harm or Inhibiting Freedom? Commercial Competition and Consumer Choice Neo-Liberal Approaches US Broadcasting: A Free Market Model Digitalisation and the Decline of Regulation Digital Censorship Conclusion: A Rosy Commercial Future? 9 Advertising: Emergence, Expansion and Transformation Introduction The Development of Advertising Emergence Growth and Professionalisation Post-Fordism, Niche Markets and Branding Modes of Persuasion: From Information and Use to Symbols and Identity Developing Frames Cultivating Cool Shifting Yet Mixed Approaches Advertising in the Digital Age Challenges to ‘Traditional’ Advertising A New Era of Advertising? Critical Perspectives on Advertising Manipulative Magic Subversive Consumers 10  Interactive or Co-optive? Conclusion: Ubiquitous Commercialism 10 Media and the Public Sphere: Digitalisation, Commercialisation and Fragmentation Introduction Media and the Public Sphere Habermas’ Public Sphere Media and Public Engagement Nation as Imagined Community Decline of the Public Sphere From Facilitators to Shapers Commercially Driven Content A Digital Public Sphere? Online Participation and Democracy Enduring Power Differentials Fragmentation Globalisation Conclusion: Decline of the National Public PART THREE: MEDIA, IDENTITY AND CULTURE 11 Media, Community and Difference: From Mass Stigmatisation to Grassroots Identity Groups Introduction Media as Eroder of Difference Homogenisation and Atomisation Individualisation as De-Differentiation Stigmatising (and Amplifying) Difference Poverty Porn? A Stigmatised Underclass Folk Devils, Moral Panics and Labelling Targeting Community Local Media Niche Media and Interest Groupings Participatory Media and DIY Community DIY Print Media Online Micro-Communication Virtual Communities? Social Network Sites: Community or De- Differentiation? Conclusion: Communities or Loose Affinities? 12 Media, Race and Ethnicity Introduction Racism and Exclusion 11  Representation Under-Representation Stereotypical Representations The Reproduction of Subordination Promoting ‘Positive’ Images Reversing Stereotypes of Passivity Successful, Well-Adjusted, Integrated The Burden of Representation Hybridity, Diaspora and Transnationalism Shifting Ethnicities Diaspora Representing Diaspora Transnationalism Media Segregation? Newspapers, Film and Global Bollywood Ethnic and Transnational Specialisation in the Digital Era Conclusion: Empowerment or Ghettoisation? 13 Media, Gender and Sexuality Introduction Constructions of Femininity Marginalisation of Women The Male Gaze Patriarchal Romance and Domesticity Post-Feminist Independence? Enduring Objectification Elitist Critics? Empowering Possibilities Reading the Romance Subversive Pleasures? Feminist Prosumers? Identifying Agency, Remaining Critical Media and Masculinities Masculinity or Masculinities? Contradictory Representations: Lads and Beyond Beyond Heterosexuality Conclusion: A Balanced Approach 14 Saturation, Fluidity and Loss of Meaning Introduction Saturation as Loss of Meaning Consumerism: Expansion and Speed-Up 12  Information Overload Media = Reality From Truth, to Ideology, to Simulacra Celebrity Culture as Hyperreal Identity: Fragmentation and Fluidity Recycling and Pastiche The Internet As Virtual Playground Simulated Identity? Internet as Extension of Everyday Life Case Study: Social Media Conclusion: Saturated but Real? Glossary References Index 13 List of Illustrations 1.1 Media as shaper 4 1.2 Media as mirror 4 1.3 Circular model of representation and influence 5 1.4 Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication (1949) 6 1.5 Diagrammatic representation of Lasswell’s model (1948) 7 1.6 Simplified model of the elements of media in socio-cultural context 9 2.1 Telegraph wires 21 2.2 Selected properties of traditional media 26 2.3 A digital mobile device 27 4.1 Cosmopolitan front cover, February 2015 61 5.1 Two-step flow model (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955) 82 6.1 Cultural imperialism (adapted from Malm and Wallis 1993) 111 7.1 News filtering 120 7.2 Simplified illustration of syntagmatic and paradigmatic news analysis 126 8.1 Original façade of BBC Broadcasting House, London 141 9.1 Early Pears Soap advertisement 163 9.2 MAC advertisement 2015 167 10.1 Illustration of centripetal/centrifugal media impact 193 11.1 Consumer magazines 212 12.1 Simplified cycle of subordination 228 13.1 Wondermark comic 248 14 About the Author Paul Hodkinson is a sociologist whose work is focused upon youth cultures, online communications, contemporary fatherhood and the relationships between media and cultural identities. He is author of Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture and Media, Culture and Society. He is also co-editor of Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes (with Wolfgang Deike) and Ageing and Youth Cultures (with Andy Bennett). He has published a wide range of journal articles and book chapters across the range of his interests. His most recent research projects have focused on ageing and youth cultures, experiences of targeted harassment among subcultural participants and fathers who are primary or equal carers for young children. He is based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey where he teaches and supervises on media, music and youth cultures. 15 Acknowledgements Thanks to the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey for providing me with a wonderful place to work for the last 13 years. Thanks, specifically, to colleagues at Surrey and elsewhere connected to research and teaching on media, culture and society, including those who have offered advice or thoughts related to sections of this book. Acknowledgement is also due to Graham McBeath, from whom I learned so much at the University of Northampton and, most of all, to all those who first inspired my interest in the study of media, culture and society when I was a student in the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. Thanks also to the team at Sage Publications for all the help and support provided throughout the process or producing the second edition of this book. And thanks to my students, without whom my enthusiasm and understanding would be so much less. Finally, thanks to my partner, Holly Cummins, for her love, support and ever-entertaining proof-reading, and to my little boys, Laurie and Asher, for making life so entertaining even in the midst of the most frantic of writing and editing. 16 Chapter 1 Introduction Focal Points Introduction to the notions of media, culture and society The relationship between media representations and society Linear models of the communication process A suggested model of the elements of media in social context Summary of the chapters to follow Introduction Perhaps more than ever before, media and communication are at the centre of everyday lives. At work, at home, in public spaces or while travelling from one location to another, we are rarely far away from mediated sounds, images or words, whether in the form of television, websites, magazines, mobile apps, newspapers, music or social media. On our own and in the company of others, media entertain us, enable connections with friends and communities, provide interpretations of the world around us and offer resources for the forging of identities and imaginations. And their importance to everyday lives and routines suggests that media also must have the most significant implications for the nature and character of the broader culture and society that surround us. We live, it may be argued, in a media culture, a media society. This book provides an introduction to the relationships between media and the broader social and cultural world in which they operate. Media, Culture, Society It is worth remembering that media is the plural of the term medium, which refers, essentially, to the means through which content is communicated between an origin and a destination. It could be argued that the human body acts as the first and most fundamental medium in this respect, transferring thoughts, ideas and emotions into speech or gestures audible or visible to others. Yet our concern here is with the use of artificial forms 17 of media to enhance and extend our communicative capacity beyond the capabilities of our own bodies, transforming the range of expression open to us and mediating what we say over longer distances or to greater numbers of people, for example. At one extreme, such media may enable each of us to interact with friends or acquaintances without the need to be in the same room, city or even country, while on the other, they may enable a relatively small number of professional media producers to transmit large volumes of content to audiences of millions. Such producers, along with the technologies they utilise and content they distribute, are often collectively referred to as ‘the media’ and this certainly has become an acceptable use of the term. It remains important, however, to understand media as plural and diverse. Although contemporary large-scale ‘mass media’ figure heavily in our discussions, we’ll focus on a broad range of different types and scales of communication involving a plethora of organisations, communities and individuals. This is of particular importance in the context of a digital media age in which the interrelationships between traditional forms of mass media and a range of more interactive forms of communication have become pivotal. Two connected senses of the word culture are of importance to our discussions in this book, both of which are identified in the influential writings of Raymond Williams (1988; 1989) on the subject. First, culture is sometimes used in a specific sense to refer to the worlds of creative expression or, as Williams puts it, ‘the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity’ (1988: 90). Traditionally this sense of the term was reserved for elite or ‘high’ forms of literature, music, art and theatre, but increasingly its use also encapsulates the larger realm of so- called popular culture, including pop music and popular fiction or drama, for example. As Williams puts it, ‘culture is ordinary’ (1989: 3). At certain points, we’ll use the term culture in this more restricted sense, including as a means to refer to mediated forms and practices of expression. Importantly, however, such creative forms and activities form just part of a crucial second sense of the word culture, as a way to refer to the whole way of life of a society or group, including values, meanings, identities, traditions, norms of behaviour and ways of understanding the world. As Williams argues, although they are different, the two senses of culture are closely related. After all, the practices of creative, artistic and intellectual expression in a given society encapsulate anything from the production and consumption of famous art, literature, music or television programmes 18 to grassroots dancing, music-making, dress and acts of worship – all of which form an integral part of the overall ways of life of that society. The word culture, then, often refers simultaneously to creative practices and broader ways of life, whether in reference to the distinctive identities, rituals, practices and forms of expression associated with a particular group (as in ‘punk culture’), or a certain activity (as in ‘television culture’), or as a more general way to invoke the range of cultural features and practices across a broader range of people. Society, meanwhile, is a closely related, but somewhat broader term, which refers to the whole social world in which we exist or ‘the body of institutions and relationships within which a relatively large group of people live’ (Williams 1988: 291). Society particularly invokes an emphasis on social relations, including the detail of everyday interactions and the operation of broader social groupings and categories of social differentiation, such as those based on class, ethnicity and gender. Patterns of wealth, power and inequality are a further core element of societies, as are social institutions, including the apparatus of government and law, education systems, religious organisations, commercial corporations and smaller-scale organisational units such as the family. Together with established hierarchies of wealth, power and control, such institutions form a complex set of structures through which social relations are lived out. Among those who study societies, a key question concerns the relationship between these established structures and human agency, which means people’s ability to be self-determining. Are we shaped by the gender, social class or ethnic category into which we were born – or indeed by the family structure, education system or religious institutions which play a role in our lives? Or do we have the power to determine our own futures? The importance of media at so many levels of contemporary social life renders it a crucial consideration in such questions of structure and agency. Crucially, it is difficult to envisage a study of such questions about the make-up of society, the arrangement of social relations or the balance of structure and agency, that omits the cultural ways of life and expression which lie at the heart of all societies – and equally difficult to imagine how one might examine questions about cultural rituals, understandings, identities or creative practices without reference to the society in which they take place. The emphasis of the terms culture and society is different in some respects, then, but there are extensive overlaps and ambiguities between them, something that particularly applies to the connection between society and the broader sense of culture as way of life. I would 19 urge readers to feel comfortable with this fuzziness. For although the particular emphasis of one term or the other may be invoked at different stages of the discussions ahead, our ultimate concern is with the relationship of communications media with the range of phenomena covered by the two. We will explore the possibility, then, that media have, in one way or another, become integral to what we might term the broader social and cultural environment, something that includes the distribution of wealth, power and influence, the operation of social structures and institutions, class, gender and ethnic relations, patterns of identity and community, ideas and understandings, practices of intellectual, artistic and creative expression and broader ways of life. Starting Points: Shaping, Mirroring And Representing Needless to say, the development of a detailed understanding of the role of media in relation to these various features of the broader social and cultural environment in which we live is far from a simple task. So let’s take things one step at a time and consider, by way of a starting point, two simple and contrasting approaches to the relationship between mass media content and society. For the purpose of the discussion, let’s assume society here can be taken to include, amongst other things, culture in its broad sense as a reference to overall ways of life. Some approaches regard media as constructors or shapers, arguing that the content they distribute has the power to influence people and affect the future of society (see Figure 1.1). Figure 1.1 Media as shaper There are all sorts of arguments that fit into this approach. Some suggest, for example, that media depictions of sex and violence are liable to influence viewers to the extent that people’s real lives may become more dominated by promiscuity or danger, while others warn that stereotypical portrayals of ethnic or sexual minority groups might increase the marginalisation of such groups within society. Arguments that political or 20 moral bias in the media may lead to a predominance of certain opinions among audiences also come into this category, as do assertions that the general quality of media content in a given society may affect how informed, engaged or creative its population is. Such perspectives all focus on the ways media may be affecting or influencing us. Others focus, not on how media content shapes us, but on the way it reflects or mirrors society (see Figure 1.2). The predominant role of media, according to this view, is to reflect back to us events, behaviours, identities, social relations or values which are already important. Media, then, are deemed more significant for the way they follow rather than the way they lead. Figure 1.2 Media as mirror From this perspective, if media are dominated by sex and violence, this is because we already live in a society in which these are important – and if particular opinions or values are given prominence in media content, this reflects their existing currency. When accused of manipulating public opinion through bias, news media professionals often defend themselves by reciting the cliché ‘don’t shoot the messenger’. The implication is that news is neutrally reflecting the world and that, if we don’t like it, we should seek to improve that world rather than blaming media. As Alexander (2003) shows, the belief that media reflect society has prompted some analysts to try to learn about changing structures, cultural norms or politics within real society by studying media content. Such analysis can be instructive up to a point. For example, during the 1980s, the baddies in Hollywood action or war films (Rocky, Top Gun, From Russia with Love) often were from the former Soviet Union, reflecting real world Cold War tensions at the time between that country and the US. By the 1990s, the Cold War was largely over and a switch of US foreign policy towards the Middle East was apparently mirrored by a greater emphasis on Arab or African Hollywood enemies (Patriot Games, Black Hawk Down, The Siege). In their extreme form, however, suggestions that media content either 21 shapes or mirrors society are both simplistic. An improvement would be to understand the relationship as a circular one involving elements of both processes. The media-as-mirror approach is useful in reminding us that, rather than being invented out of thin air, media content often relates closely to real events and to prevailing social trends and cultural values. But media content does not reflect these perfectly or neutrally. Media producers are highly selective with respect to what they include, and they present those elements which they do include in very particular ways. They do not offer us a mirror but a selective, manufactured set of representations (or re-presentations) of the world. As Hall (1982: 64) explains: ‘representation is a very different notion to reflection. It implies the active work of selecting and presenting, of structuring and shaping’. The content of television drama series, for example, can often relate closely to scenarios and dilemmas already of significance within broader society. Such series do not simply mirror society, however, because only certain characters, issues and incidents are included and these are represented to audiences in particular, dramatically appealing ways. Likewise, there may indeed be a relationship between the race or nationality of Hollywood villains and real US foreign policy, but rather than comprising a neutral reflection of the world, this demonstrates a selective emphasis on particular US-oriented perspectives. Figure 1.3 Circular model of representation and influence 22 Because media representations are selective and manufactured, this makes them distinct from the world they sometimes are assumed to reflect. It is this which creates the possibility that media may also have the potential to influence us. Repeated emphasis upon certain opinions, themes, events or practices across media, and consistent exclusion of others, may have a bearing upon future attitudes, identities, behaviour and social patterns. Rather than deciding between the shaping and mirroring approaches, then, a more useful starting point is to conceive of an ongoing process whereby selective media representations constantly feed into and are themselves fed by the makeup and character of society (see Figure 1.3). The Communications Process The circular representations model outlined above provides a helpful starting point for an understanding of the socio-cultural significance of media, and it can be usefully applied to many of the specific topics covered throughout this book. Yet, as well as rather over-simplifying the complex range of phenomena included within our earlier discussion of culture and society, this model remains too general to facilitate a detailed analysis of the way media work. In order to take us a step further, we need 23 to break the process of media communication into its core components and consider the significance of each one. This involves thinking not just about the content of media, but where such content comes from, how it is transmitted and what happens when people engage with it. Transmitters, Receivers and Noise One of the first attempts to develop a systematic understanding of the relationship between different components in the communications process was developed by Shannon and Weaver (see Figure 1.4). The model was developed for the Bell telephone company, which wanted to improve the efficiency of communication using technology. It was not intended to represent broader processes of mass communication, but became highly influential in this respect. The model comprises a one-directional process whereby a message goes through a number of stages. It is created by an information source (e.g. somebody’s voice), encoded into an electronic signal by a transmitter (e.g. their telephone), decoded back into its original form by a receiver (e.g. the other person’s telephone) and received by a recipient at its destination. The model also incorporates noise, which refers to interference which might distort the message en route so that what is received is different to what was sent. Shannon and Weaver’s primary concern here were technical problems relating to faults or technological limitations – a poor connection can make it hard to understand what people are saying and, even if the medium is working perfectly, we don’t hear people on the telephone in quite the same way as we would if we were in the same room. However, they also considered the notion of semantic problems, which refers to the possibility that the recipient might misunderstand the message itself as a result of ambiguities in its content, and effectiveness problems, relating to the failure of the message to have the desired impact on the recipient. Shannon and Weaver’s interest in semantic and effectiveness problems was largely focused on how such complications could be avoided through improving the technical efficiency with which messages are encoded and decoded (Fiske 1990). Nevertheless, their focus on such matters opened the doorway to important issues about the human interpretation or ‘decoding’ of different forms of media content by audiences and the ways media might influence people. Figure 1.4 Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication (1949) 24 Who Says What in Which Channel to Whom With What Effect? Emphasis on communication as a human as well as a technical process was taken a stage further by Lasswell (1948), who produced a model oriented to the development of a broader understanding of the role of mass media in society. The model is phrased as a question: ‘Who says what in which channel to whom with what effect?’ Memorable and deceptively concise, this question sets out an agenda for the understanding of media, through breaking up the communications process into its key components and formulating an interpretation of the relationships between them. If we separate out the components of the question and present them as a diagrammatic model, we can see clear similarities with the transmission model (see Figure 1.5). Whereas Shannon and Weaver focused on the efficiency of the technical apparatus of communication, Lasswell’s approach suggests each of the factors he identifies have equally important implications for the outcome of the communication process. I might conduct a detailed analysis of the content of a set of YouTube videos, then, but unless I also investigate the status and motivations of those who created and distributed them, the capacities and limitations of YouTube itself as a medium through which they are transmitted and the make-up and orientation of their audience, then my understanding will be partial and limited. One of the strengths of Lasswell’s model is that it could potentially be applied to all manner of forms of communication, from music listening, to social media conversations, to magazine reading, or even university lectures. 25 Figure 1.5 Diagrammatic representation of Lasswell’s model (1948) Linear and One-Dimensional Although valuable in breaking the communications process into components and considering the relationship between them, the models of Shannon and Weaver and Lasswell have been criticised for over- simplifying the communications process. According to Chandler (1994a), Shannon and Weaver’s model relies upon a ‘postal metaphor’ of communication. That is, it treats communication as something centred upon the effective (or ineffective) transport and delivery of a pre-existing message, complete with any meanings it contains, to a destination. Its overriding concern with the efficiency of the delivery system may make sense as a means for Bell to enhance its technical services, but provides a limited understanding of the broader operation of media in society. As Chandler points out, the Shannon and Weaver model encourages us to view communication as an essentially one-way, linear process in which the sender of the message is active and the role of the receiver is limited to passively collecting and absorbing it. It implies what some have termed a hypodermic syringe approach to media, whereby messages are automatically injected into the mind of recipients, whether in the lounge, the cinema or the lecture theatre. What is not allowed for is the possibility that ‘recipients’ might do more than just receive, that they might engage with content actively, drawing upon their existing identity and surroundings to produce their own interpretations of what senders present to them. The construction of meaning, then, might be seen as a joint project between senders and receivers. Neither does the model refer to the possibility that receivers might directly influence the messages which are sent to them through their provision of different sorts of feedback to senders (Fiske 1990). In the case of interpersonal forms of communication, constant adjustment to the cues and responses of others comprises a critical part of effective interaction. Likewise, mass media are intensely sensitive to audience responses, whether through ratings, market research or direct communication. Developed specifically as a means to understand the role of 26 communication in society, Lasswell’s model has more going for it in this respect than Shannon and Weaver’s approach. In specifically inviting us to ask questions about the status of senders and receivers, as well as about content and medium, the model goes further towards the development of a detailed understanding of media processes, something for which it is not always given appropriate credit. Yet the wording and ordering of the model tends to reproduce the linear approach of the Shannon and Weaver model. Although it encourages us to consider the status of the recipient, it is clear that the primary role of the latter is deemed a passive one: to be affected in one way or another by what is communicated to them. Later communications models, which drew upon the work of Lasswell and of Shannon and Weaver, did encapsulate feedback loops from recipients back to senders (Westley and Maclean 1957) and/or the potential for audiences to interpret media in different ways (Gerbner 1956), amongst other things. However, many of these adaptations tended still to present communication as a largely one-way process. Perhaps the most important element of the communications process which is not accounted for in Shannon and Weaver’s model is the broader social and cultural environment within which media communication takes place. The model encourages us to think about communication as a process centred upon isolated individuals (Chandler 1994a). Lasswell’s approach represents an improvement in this respect because, through encouraging us to think in detail about the identity of the sender and receiver of the message, it allows for some consideration of the context of each. Yet the lack of any explicit emphasis on the role of broader culture and society in the model under-estimates their importance. Elements Of Media In Socio-Cultural Context In this book, we’ll draw partially upon the first four parts of Lasswell’s question – ‘who says what in which channel to whom?’ – as valuable early contributions towards the identification of the key elements of the media and communications process. Consistent with the approach of many other contemporary scholars, however, the model I would advocate (see Figure 1.6) specifically focuses upon ‘media industry’ and ‘media users’ rather than thinking in terms of ‘senders’ and ‘recipients’. Through these categories, we can specifically emphasise the power and significance of media organisations to mediated communications processes whilst, at the same time, avoiding the portrayal of the millions of people who engage 27 with media as passive individuals whose only role is to receive, absorb or to be affected. The avoidance of a one-way, linear understanding of communication also can be achieved by the representation of a series of multi-directional flows between the different components of the model. And crucially, our understanding of media processes has to incorporate constant flows of influence both to and from a complex broader social and cultural environment, which consists of an established but developing overall world of social relations, ways of life and modes of expression. This broader environment forms an ever-changing context within which industry and users – alongside the technologies and content they use, create and distribute – operate. It should therefore be regarded as integral to the operation of all four of the elements of the media process. The four elements of media which are represented in the context of broader culture and society in the model above form the basis for the chapters in the first part of this book – entitled Elements of Media – and we’ll briefly introduce them here. Equating with the ‘in which channel?’ part of Lasswell’s model, media technologies (Chapter 2) refers to the hardware through which media content is created, distributed and used. Crucially, rather than being neutral, technologies such as books, television, online newspapers, social media and music streaming services each offer their own particular sets of possibilities and limitations. For example, books require all of our individual attention and have the capacity to provide extensive depth and detail through the written word, whereas television has greater potential to be enjoyed alongside other activities or with other people and tends to facilitate greater emphasis on what things look and sound like on the surface. Rather than simply shaping us, however, technologies are developed and used in ways that relate closely to the social and cultural context of industry and users. Figure 1.6 Simplified model of the elements of media in socio-cultural context 28 Media industry (Chapter 3) may in some cases be seen as a more specific and contextualised formulation of the ‘who?’ at the beginning of Lasswell’s model. Media and related organisations are far from the only creators of content in the digital age but they continue to dominate its production and distribution. They also play a pivotal role in controlling the development and availability of technologies that enable different forms of communication and, as such connect closely to Lasswell’s ‘in which channel?’ question. An understanding of media processes, then, requires an appreciation of the motivations of these organisations, of the ways they work and their relationships with other organisations, media users and broader social and cultural relations. At the centre of an examination of industry are questions about the large-scale, commercial nature of the most influential media organisations, the implications of their need to generate revenue by attracting advertising and the ways governments and regulators have sought to control their activities. Media content (Chapter 4) comprises the ‘what?’ in Lasswell’s model and is probably the most talked about element of the media process. We can’t hope to understand the role and significance of media by focusing on content alone, but neither should we ignore it. Television programmes, advertisements, music videos, social network profiles, news articles and a plethora of other content all may be seen to represent the world in partial and particular ways and this places limits on the range of likely interpretations or uses of them. This implies that content may have the capacity to influence the thoughts and lives of users and the broader ways of life and social relations of which they are a part. Careful analysis of what is included and excluded and the complex ways meanings are constructed through content remains a key element of the study of media, culture and society. The notion of media users (Chapter 5) is considerably broader than the ‘to 29 whom?’ in Lasswell’s model in that, rather than restricting their role to that of receivers who are affected by media messages, it recognises that those who engage with media play an active role in communications processes. It is crucial, then, to learn about the circumstances in which users engage with different forms of media and the ways they contribute to the generation of meaning through bringing their existing identities, opinions and social position to their encounters with content and technologies. Users also should be understood as small-scale creators and distributors of content, whether through responding to mass media through comments or discussion, sharing via social media or communicating with one another. Some ‘users’ also engage in the production and distribution of more substantive forms of amateur content in the form of blogs, video, images or music. As we shall see, one of the key complexities of the current media environment is that the distinction between this sort of amateur content creation and more professional forms of media production is not always clear-cut. The broader social and cultural environment is represented here as feeding, via users and industry, into each of the different elements of the ongoing media process, while at the same time developing and changing as a result of that process. It is impossible to understand the operation and significance of any one of the elements of media without placing it within this socio-cultural context. Because of this, rather than having a separate chapter on the theme, different elements of culture and society are discussed throughout the chapters on technologies, industry, content and users which make up the first part of the book. And the relationship between media processes and the various elements of broader culture and society dominates the second and third parts of the book, which address a range of substantive issues and debates under the themes of Media, Power and Control and Media, Identity and Culture. Media, Power and Control The second part of the book focuses on a series of themes connected to the relationship between media and questions of power, influence, regulation and control. We start in Chapter 6 by examining highly influential Marxist approaches which regard media as a form of ideology or, more specifically, a means by which powerful groups manipulate people by reinforcing understandings of the world which serve to legitimate an unequal and exploitative capitalist system. Concerns about ideology also 30 figure, among other perspectives, in Chapter 7, which addresses the specific role of news media as a way of distributing particular representations of the contemporary world to media users. In Chapter 8, our focus shifts to broader questions about what media are for and, specifically, whether their role in society might be improved if governments try to control how they are run. Should we attempt to control media by having subsidised public service broadcasters or restrictions on content, or would we be better served by an unfettered commercial media system? One of the implications of commercial media systems is that they tend to centre upon the incorporation of commercial messages as their key funding source, and Chapter 9 offers a detailed examination of the growth and development of advertising, with a particular emphasis on how strategies and modes of persuasion are transforming in the digital media age. Finally, Chapter 10 addresses the relationship between media, national identity and democracy, focusing in particular upon the possibility that the increasing commercialisation and diversification of media may be contributing to declines in cultural cohesion and socio-political engagement. Media, Identity and Culture The third and final part of the book moves us towards questions about the relationship between media and patterns of identity, culture and community. Chapter 11 opens the section through an examination of the implications of media processes for patterns of collective difference and identity in society. In contrast to theories that suggest media tend to erode difference and community, the chapter examines a range of ways that, for better or worse, differences can be amplified and distinct communities strengthened through media. We highlight contrasting examples, from mass media stigmatisation of marginalised groups to the role of niche and participatory media in facilitating a variety of community identities. Chapters 12 and 13 deal with two of the most discussed subjects within the study of media: race and gender. In Chapter 12, we consider intense debates about the exclusion and stereotypical representation of subordinated ethnic and racial groupings within media before examining the implications of the increasing use by such ethnic minorities and migrant groups of specialist and sometimes transnational forms of media. Chapter 13 centres partly on questions about the representation of femininities and masculinities, while also examining debates about the role of audiences and users in the construction of gender. The chapter also 31 examines the link between representations of gender and sexuality, and focuses on developments in the depiction of sexual minorities. The final chapter of the book, Chapter 14, addresses the possibility that, as a result of the rapid and ongoing expansion of media, everyday culture has become so saturated by communication, images and representations that we no longer can hope to know what, if anything, any of it means. Truth, reality and stability all are deemed under threat in a world dominated by fluidity, uncertainty and the loss of meaning. Making Connections These thematic sections of this book offer a useful means of organising and making sense of so large a range of material. However, readers hopefully will identify a range of connections between the issues covered in each part. They may note, for example, that questions of national community clearly relate to identity as well as power and that discussions of gender and race connect to issues of domination and subordination as well as to those of cultural differentiation. And, as one would expect, the issues covered in the chapters of the opening section, on technologies, industry, content and users, will resurface at various points during the discussions of the substantive topics which follow. Equally, a number of particular issues surface at a number of different points in the book. Questions about commercialisation and the quality and depth of media content, for example, appear in all three parts of the book, as do considerations of the relationship between media and advertisers and questions about the increasing specialisation and interactivity of media. Such interconnections are important and readers are encouraged to draw their own links between the various topics covered in the chapters that follow. It is only through making such connections that we can gradually develop a more rounded understanding of the themes and approaches which dominate the study of media, culture and society. Questions/Exercises 1. Select a piece of media content of your own choice and address the following: 1. In what ways does the content draw upon elements of existing social relations or ways or life? 2. In what ways is it selective in doing so? 32  3. In what ways might these selective representations influence the future of society? 2. Design your own diagrammatic model of processes of mediated communication and their relationship with the broader social and cultural environment. Think carefully about how you will represent the key elements of the communications process and the nature of the relationships between them. 33 Part One Elements Of Media 34 Chapter 2 Media Technologies Focal Points Theories that suggest that communications technologies influence the social and cultural world Arguments about the socio-cultural impacts of print and electronic media Criticisms of technological determinism and arguments about the need to study technologies in context The growth and properties of digital media and the internet Optimistic and pessimistic analyses of the impacts of digital media Introduction When asked to think about media, the first thing to enter many people’s minds would probably be an example of media content, whether a film, an advertisement, an audio clip, a music video or a piece of news footage. Similarly, analysis of the social or cultural significance of media often focuses on questions of media content. Is news coverage of current affairs biased? What kinds of things do people disclose about themselves on social media? What do depictions of gender in advertisements tell us about attitudes to masculinity and femininity? Such questions are, of course, of great importance. This chapter, however, is not about content, but about the technologies or hardware through which content is transmitted. It is, in other words, about the significance of media themselves, remembering that media is the plural of medium. For some commentators, known as medium theorists, the properties of communications technologies can have profound social and cultural impacts and the understanding of these impacts should be pivotal to any quest to make sense of media. From the development of newspapers to the growth of different forms of internet platform, the onset of new technologies with distinct capabilities has often been accompanied by intense debate about their likely impact upon power, politics, culture and everyday life. In recent times, debates have raged about the impact of 35 social media, mobile technologies and various facets of the internet, while in the past equally intense discussions took place with respect to newspapers, radio, records, cinema and, of course, television. This chapter begins by focusing on some of the contrasting conclusions drawn by prominent medium theorists about the development and impacts of print and electronic media technologies. As well as discussing case studies, we will examine criticisms of medium theories, including the claim that such approaches have a tendency to over-estimate the extent to which technologies have inevitable or predictable socio-cultural effects. We will go on to discuss arguments about the significance of more recent digital technologies and the internet. Classic Medium Theories McLuhan: The Medium is the Message …in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. (McLuhan 2001: 2) The first of our case studies involves the most well-known medium theorist, Marshall McLuhan, who famously argued in the 1960s that the study of media content was of little significance compared to the analysis of communications technologies. He expresses this through the often-cited slogan ‘the medium is the message’. Essentially, he meant that the medium is more important than the message: that it is the capacities of media hardware, rather than the details of particular examples of content, that have real social significance and impact. Debating the specifics of the content of news articles, advertisements or radio broadcasts is regarded by McLuhan as an unnecessary distraction – something liable to result in a failure to see the forest for the trees. To study the social significance of television by focusing on the content of particular programmes is no more useful, from McLuhan’s point of view, than trying to learn about the cultural impact of the telephone through reference to the subject matter of a particular conversation between two friends in Toronto or, to take a more 36 recent example, attempting to ascertain the impact of digital tablets by conducting a close analysis of the music listened to on such a device by a particular individual on a Monday morning. What is important, he argues, is not the detail of the content, but the broader fact that particular modes of communication are made possible. For McLuhan, each media technology enables a different extension of our communicative senses – in both space and time – beyond what was previously possible. Arguing that media should be regarded as ‘the extensions of man’, he writes that ‘after more than a century of electric technology we have extended our central nervous system itself into a global embrace, abolishing both space and time…’ (2001: 3). In different ways, then, media technologies expand our physical sphere of communications – we can see, hear, talk or write across greater distances and at greater speed. It is this that leads to McLuhan’s most famous pronouncement – that as a result of the ease with which we can communicate across the world through electronic media, we increasingly inhabit a ‘global village’. Crucially, each medium extends our senses in different ways – encouraging certain patterns of communication and preventing others. The central distinction made by McLuhan between different forms of media involves two categories – hot and cool. Hot media are high definition and data intensive with a large amount of information conveyed – usually to a single one of the human senses. Including books, newspapers and radio, hot media occupy all or most of the attention of an individual and leave few gaps to be completed by the audience. In contrast, cool media are low in information-intensity and high in audience participation – rather like a discussion-based seminar as compared to a lecture. For McLuhan, the cool medium par excellence was television, whose ability to combine sound with what, during the 1950s and 60s, were very low-definition moving pictures, is deemed to have enabled both visual and audio senses to be engaged simultaneously, but each less intensively than in the case of printed literature or radio. As a consequence, television did not spell out every detail, it is argued, leaving audiences able to fill in the gaps. By way of illustration, we might imagine how McLuhan might have compared sports commentaries on radio and television. On the radio extensive detail has to be spelt out by commentators, requiring intense concentration from listeners and strongly shaping their interpretations. In contrast, television commentators are able to provide less detail, allowing viewers to partially interpret moving pictures for themselves. 37 The most important comparison for McLuhan, though, was between print media, which he regarded as universally hot, and electronic media, which he believed were becoming increasingly cool. Outlining the social significance of the historical development of the printing press, McLuhan (1962) argues that the ability to mass-produce books and, later, newspapers precipitated an end to the age of oral, informal, face-to-face communication and its replacement by a society so dominated by standardised print media that the human senses became fragmented because everything was reduced to and dictated by the format of the written word. The effect of this, he argues, was to standardise dialect, language and culture, dictate particular ordered ways of viewing the world and homogenise societies into hierarchically organised nation states. Inherently, McLuhan suggests, print media was amenable to such hierarchical arrangements. Isolated, individualised and silent, the reader is dictated to by the one-directional, linear organisation and intense detail of the information in the text, receiving a precise and literal set of messages from a small number of sources and unable to participate or interact with the material. For McLuhan, such technological biases rendered print media responsible for the development of an early capitalist society dominated by rigid cultural hierarchies, standardisation and individual isolation. In contrast, the ongoing development of electronic media is deemed to have culminated in television, a cool technology, deemed to have liberated audiences from the restrictions of the print age, heralding a return to organic, participatory communicative practices. ‘Mechanical, one-way expansion from centres to margins,’ he argues, are ‘no longer relevant to our electric world’ (2001: 39). Whilst print culture served to homogenise language, television’s emphasis on cool speech and pictures is deemed to have precipitated a shift away from such centralised officialdom in favour of an emphasis on local dialects and everyday talk. More generally, television is regarded as spontaneous, intimate, informal and incomplete, inviting creative audience participation. Ultimately, the capacities of this cool, informal medium are deemed pivotal to the increasing development of a global village, envisaged in the most organic, decentralised of terms. Gone would be the individual isolation and one-way standardised, linear national communication which characterised print culture, to be replaced by a proliferation of multi-directional, decentralised electronic communication across the globe. 38 Kill Your Television McLuhan’s optimism about the social impact of electronic media was not shared by all commentators. Postman (1987) looks back fondly on the age of print media and describes a range of social ills brought about by developments in electronic and visual communications. From this point of view, early newspapers offered a detailed, localised and relevant source of communication, filled with rich, coherent information of direct significance to the lives of readers. Far from being a disadvantage, as McLuhan saw it, the level of concentration required from readers is deemed by Postman to have encouraged a rational, serious engagement with local issues and to have been important to the development of informed, reasoned critical discussion and political engagement. For Postman, such engagement has gradually been undermined by a series of technological developments, beginning with the telegraph and ending (at the time he was writing) with television. Developed by Morse in the 1830s and 40s, the telegraph enabled the transmission of coded electric signals across significant geographical distances (see Figure 2.1). Amongst other things, this possibility had a profound impact on newspapers, which became able to report stories from distant places without the inconvenience and time delays associated with physical travel. In Postman’s view, however, ‘the dazzle of distance and speed’ (1987: 67) prompted an increasing emphasis on the superficial reporting of a multitude of enticing stories from elsewhere. When it came to newspaper content, telegraphy is deemed to have been suited only to ‘the flashing of messages, each to be quickly replaced by a more up to date message’ (1987: 71). Instead of offering coherence, depth and local relevance, each edition would offer an arbitrary mixture of temporary sources of fascination from afar. Figure 2.1 Telegraph wires ©Robert Hillman 39 The ability to reproduce photographs as part of newspapers – first developed in the late 1800s – is deemed by Postman to have represented a further step in the direction of superficiality. Where printed text had provided depth and context, encouraging rational engagement and critical thinking, photographs are argued to reduce the complexity of issues to particular observable fragments and encourage emotional, voyeuristic captivation. Worse still, this inherent superficiality is hidden by a veneer of realness and proximity – photographs, then, entice us into the mistaken feeling that we have fully understood the situation depicted. Meanwhile, the desire for image-based journalism is deemed to have affected news priorities themselves, the inclusion of issues increasingly based not on importance but visual appeal. For Postman, this made the photograph the ideal counterpart for the emphasis created by telegraphy on exciting short- lived stories from afar. Together, the two are blamed for a reorientation of mass media towards empty spectacle. Postman’s strongest comments, however, are reserved for the societal impact of television. In contrast to McLuhan’s optimism, Postman regards the small screen as having concentrated all the worst tendencies of the alliance of telegraphy and photography, ‘raising the interplay of image and instancy to an exquisite and dangerous perfection’ (1987: 79) while bringing them to the centre of our domestic lives. Television’s emphasis on moving pictures is deemed to have extended the emotionally enticing 40 qualities of the photograph, combined them with sound, and, in so doing, intensified the domination of communications by voyeurism and spectacle. Even more so than photography, moving pictures allow us to imagine that we have seen all there is to know, when in reality we have witnessed only superficial fragments. In place of the depth and coherence once provided by text-based media, the technological properties of television ‘suppress the content of ideas in order to accommodate the requirements of visual interest…’ (1987: 92). If television exaggerates the visual biases of photography, then its relentless emphasis on tempo and immediacy may be traced back, according to Postman, to the telegraph. It is no coincidence, argues Postman, that US television news reports each last no more than a minute; that individual programmes rarely last more than 30 minutes; and that rarely is there any sort of link or coherence between one segment of content and another. For Postman, the ‘now this!’ tendency, whereby content rapidly shifts the attention of the viewer between an array of unrelated subject matter, has resulted from the inherent bias of television as a medium – its ‘predisposition toward being used in some ways and not others’ (1987: 84). And, as a consequence, audiences are induced into any number of instant emotional responses to the spectacles placed in front of them, but are unlikely to understand or even to remember them: There is no murder so brutal, no earthquake so devastating, no political blunder so costly – for that matter, no ball score so tantalising or no weather report so threatening – that it cannot be erased from our minds by a newscaster saying ‘now this!’. (1987: 99– 100) The depth of Postman’s concern also relates to what he sees as the ubiquity of television – its dominance of lives and imaginations across boundaries of class, age, gender and ethnicity. As a consequence, television’s in-built emphasis on superficiality is deemed to have had a profound impact on culture and society off the screen: ‘Television is our culture’s principal mode of knowing about itself. Therefore… how television stages the world becomes the model for how the world is properly to be staged’ (1987: 92–3). Postman’s attack on the social impacts of television shares some features with an earlier polemic entitled Four Arguments for the Elimination of 41 Television, in which Mander asserts that the technological biases of television make attempts to regulate its use futile: ‘Far from being “neutral”, television itself predetermines who shall use it, how they shall use it, what effects it will have on individual lives and… what sort of political forms will inevitably emerge’ (1978: 45). And, like Postman, Mander argues that such biases create an emphasis on short, snappy content and a focus on style, presentation and entertainment. Whilst presenting us with all this superficiality, argues Mander, television consumption makes us believe that we understand the world: ‘because of television we believe we know more, but we know less’ (1978: 349). In contrast to McLuhan’s insistence that television would undo the centralised top down culture created by print, Mander also asserts that television is itself inherently a hierarchical, one directional mode of communication which empowers an elite minority, whilst distracting and disorienting a passive mass audience. Technological Determinism There should be no doubt as to the importance either of McLuhan’s highly influential optimistic approach to electronic technologies or of the pessimistic approach taken by Postman. Alongside a range of other medium theorists, including Innes (1951), Ong (1977) and Meyrowitz (1985), they offer a crucial reminder that in order to answer questions about the relationship between media, culture and society we must consider the significance of different media hardware and software. They remind us that questions of power, space and time, as well as patterns of interaction and understanding, can be intimately connected to the dominant means of communication within different societies and eras. Nevertheless, there can also be problems with medium theory, whether it is optimistic, pessimistic or neither. Difficulties vary somewhat from theorist to theorist, but as a whole, the approach has tended to overplay and simplify the role of technologies, regarding them as the primary cause of social change and giving insufficient consideration to the causal significance of the broader context in which they are developed and used. Hot, Cool or Both? It should already be clear, not least from the disagreement of Postman, that McLuhan’s specific interpretations of the qualities and impacts of media technologies are open to question. His distinction between high intensity 42 low participation (hot) technologies and those that are low intensity and high participation (cool) is confusing, especially when one considers his own categorisation of different examples. In some respects, his interpretation of print media as hot makes sense: books and newspapers do indeed place emphasis on linear textual detail and require intensive engagement from an isolated individual reader. Yet these media surely also have potentially cool characteristics. Is it not the case that reading can generate participation, imagination and critical thought, for example, not least through the construction of our own vivid visual representations of what is being described? Some degree of co-construction is surely taking place here – and arguably more so than in the case of some encounters with television content, where pictures, sounds and sometimes text are each shaped by media producers. Another dichotomy presented by McLuhan – between cinema which is regarded as hot and television as cool – is even more questionable. McLuhan suggests the way cinema places the viewer in a darkened, silent room in front of an enormous, detailed screen creates a hierarchical and individualising effect similar to the consumption of print media. He contrasts this with the more social, less prescriptive properties of early 1950s and 60s fuzzy black and white television. Now we may agree that, of the two viewer experiences, the cinematic probably was – and is – of higher intensity in McLuhan’s terms. Notwithstanding this difference of degree, to categorise two such apparently similar forms of communication at opposite ends of the hot/cool spectrum is curious at best. And McLuhan’s emphasis on differences in the quality and detail of the screens in each case has become increasingly redundant as a result of predictable improvements in the resolution of moving pictures and sound on a range of devices, from mobile tablets to large LCD or plasma screens. The broader point highlighted here is that the very exercise of categorising technologies as inherently ‘hot’ or ‘cool’ is hazardous, as is the broader assumption that the inherent properties of technologies predetermine their use and social impact. When I ask students to categorise different media technologies as hot and cool, their most frequent response is to point out that levels of intensity and audience participation are dependent upon both content and the contexts of media users. They surely are right. Listening to a complex play on the radio may require more intense concentration than listening to pop music or light-hearted chat between presenters, something likely to affect, amongst other things, whether listening comprises a primary or secondary activity. The technical capacities of radio are of 43 much importance here but the kind of communication engendered is equally dependent upon content and context of use. Contrary to McLuhan, then, we need to examine the message as well as the medium, and to understand media users too. Generalisation and Reification The negative commentaries of Postman and Mander also assume technologies have automatic social effects, regardless of content or context. Both insist deficiencies in television content are an inevitable result of technological bias. Neither entertain the possibility that television content could, through regulation or other means, be made more compatible with a culturally rich, democratic society. Yet both tend to focus on those examples of content that best support their case, making little reference to more in-depth, informative or educational forms of television, for example. Their focus on US television, meanwhile, leaves little space for consideration of television in different cultural contexts or regulatory systems. Many would argue, for example, that early television content in many European countries was significantly different to that of their US equivalents as a result of public service forms of regulation (see Chapter 8). Questions about how media are controlled, then, and about the broader cultural context in which technologies are placed, tend to be brushed aside. Because they regard technological features as having inevitable and predetermined social consequences, approaches such as those of Postman, Mander and McLuhan can be labelled technologically determinist. They assume that the inherent biases of technologies dictate their impact, regardless of who develops and controls them, how they are used and in what socio-cultural context. Technologies, then, are reified; that is, they are transformed by the theorists into independent objects, when in reality they are developed, manufactured, controlled and used by people in particular social contexts (Chandler 1995). One of the consequences of this, according to Raymond Williams (1974), is that our attention is distracted away from the human actors and structures responsible for the development and use of technologies and the broader shape taken by society, including with respect to inequalities of power. From this point of view, the techno-optimism of McLuhan plays into the hands of the powerful by offering technology as a magic solution to man-made problems, while the techno-pessimism of Postman and Mander lets 44 powerful interests off the hook by deferring the blame for social problems onto inanimate objects. Technologies and Social Contexts The opposite view from that held by technological determinists is that, far from having pre-determined socio-cultural impacts, technologies should be regarded as tools whose development and use is dependent on social contexts and human priorities. A garden spade normally is used to help us to dig holes and move soil, but it may also lend itself to various other activities – a support for its user to lean on, a weapon with which to defend oneself, a means to smash windows and break into someone’s house and so on. Similarly, it is sometimes noted that a knife may be used to cook, kill or cure. The technology, then, does not determine its use, the latter depending on the physical and social situation of users, on socio-economic conventions, regulations, cultural expectations and a range of other factors. Meanwhile, the very existence of a technology such as the spade – the fact that it was developed and manufactured in the ways it was – is itself reflective of social context. Like other technologies, it is a product of particular human needs, purposes and arrangements (see Williams 1974). Similarly, communications technologies may be regarded as having been developed as a result of socio-cultural circumstances and open to a variety of possible uses. Often, eventual uses can differ from the purpose for which they were originally envisaged. We tend automatically to regard the gramophone as a piece of equipment oriented to the playing of recorded music, but it was originally intended as a means to record and play back speech. During the initial development of broadcast technology, radio was envisaged not primarily as a mass medium but a wireless form of interpersonal communication – a rival to the telephone. In spite of the extent of their expenditure on market research, those who develop and promote contemporary technologies also are unable fully to predict the ways they are used. That text messaging became one of the most popular uses of the mobile phone, for example, occurred not primarily by industry design but as a result of largely unpredicted consumer enthusiasm for what was originally envisaged as a marginal application (Rettie 2009). Rather than being predetermined by inherent technological biases, then, the purpose and social role of technologies is dependent upon complex contextual factors, including the interests, capacities and priorities of industry, consumers and a variety of intermediaries. From this point of 45 view, a technology such as television should not be seen as technologically predisposed towards either high participation extensions of the senses or passive short-term escapism. Depending on the context of producers and users – as well as the detail of content – television may, in different circumstances, lend itself to both these types of usage as well as various others; a tool of information and education, for example, or a facilitator of social cohesion and political engagement. So how do we break-down and study the significance of the contexts in which technologies circulate? Paul Du Gay and colleagues (1997) offer one possible answer, by proposing that, in order to understand the social and cultural significance of technologies we must examine each of a series of interlinked processes – collectively termed the ‘circuit of culture’ – which all cultural artefacts go through. Production refers to the institutional and social circumstances in which a technology is developed, manufactured and distributed, while representation concerns media discourse about the technology, which can play a crucial role in developing particular understandings of its purpose and meaning. This might include direct forms of marketing as well as broader popular representations in news, books, fiction or elsewhere. Regulation refers to the various forms of control imposed by government or other bodies, which can restrict and shape the ways technologies are used. Meanwhile, consumption emphasises the importance of the contexts in which users engage with technologies and identity concerns the way in which such consumption practices are intricately connected with the development of individual and collective subjectivities. Du Gay et al. illustrate the examination of these interconnected processes by offering an analysis of the Sony Walkman as a case study, but the model could just as easily be applied to contemporary cultural artefacts or technologies. Capacities and Constraints Yet recognition of the importance of the institutional, discursive and consumption contexts in which technologies operate ought not lead us to the conclusion that technologies themselves are neutral. After all, we could list a great many possible uses for the garden spade, but technical constraints relating to size, shape and density prevent it from being a useful means for people to cut grass, apply paint evenly or eat food. Although they are considerably more complicated than spades, communications media, from billboards to social network sites, also do 46 have their own capacities and constraints, sometimes referred to as affordances (Norman 1988), which have implications for the way they are used and their social impacts. Even though they can under-estimate the significance of context and use, then, we should still learn from medium theorists that technical features matter. While avoiding being over-prescriptive, it remains possible to develop ways of categorising different forms of established media with respect to features that might have social or cultural significance. The extent to which media facilitate communication through text, sound, still image, video or some combination of the four may be a good start, for example. We might then tentatively distinguish mass media technologies, which have afforded communication with large groups of people, from interpersonal media, more oriented to the facilitation of small-scale interaction between two people or small groups. Likewise we might categorise media with respect to the extent to which they enable one- directional or interactive communication. Synchronous media, which operate in real time could then be identified as distinct from asynchronous media, which do not, and so on. Figure 2.2 illustrates the ways in which simple differentiators such as these might work in relation to classic media technologies or what are sometimes termed ‘traditional media’. Through categorising technologies like this we simplify their capacities, but in doing so we may enhance our understanding of their potential significance. For example, the audio-only nature of radio makes it reasonable to propose that, under the right circumstances, it may be better suited than visual media to be used as a secondary activity, which accompanies things like driving or working. Meanwhile, because they are asynchronous physical objects based on printed text and image, we can probably conclude that newspapers are not especially well suited to the communication of live breaking news stories. In contrast, contemporary television, by enabling the instantaneous transfer of moving images and sound, has contributed to a situation in which we can watch and hear live events in real time. The development, use and consequences of this capacity are all dependent upon human priorities and contexts, but the availability of the technology itself still alters what is possible. Figure 2.2 Selected properties of traditional media 47 Into The Digital Age For many, recent developments in communications, dominated by the growth of digital and internet technology, have heralded a societal transformation at least as significant as the transitions from oral to print communication and from print to broadcasting. Over the next few pages we explore a number of features of digital media that render their potential impacts significantly different from those associated with the emergence of previous forms of mass media. Most notably, digital media are argued to have brought about the convergence of previously distinct forms of communication; precipitated dramatic shifts in the relationship between media producers and audiences; pluralised, diversified and fragmented the world of media; and enabled users to be connected to media constantly, wherever they are. Convergence Where traditional media each tended to have their own distinct capacities and constraints, digitalisation – alongside the specific development of the internet – entailed the prospect of bringing into a single sphere the technical possibilities of previously separate forms of communication. One of McLuhan’s claims was that, whereas print technologies privileged the written word, television served to reunite the human senses by bringing together text, moving images and sound. Processes of digitalisation, however, have enabled the development of media environments even more inclusive and flexible by enabling text, images, music, speech and video all to be converted into a universal system of binary codes (1s and 0s) and then decoded by a single piece of receiving equipment, whether a PC, games console, digital radio, smart phone or digital television set-top box. Figure 2.3 A digital mobile device © Maksym Protsenko 48 Depending on content and user priorities, on the internet we consume text, images, speech, audio and video, whether in an integrated fashion on a single site or via a number of different ones. And convergence is not limited to the bringing together of different mass communications processes. Email, instant messaging and Skype, alongside an ever- expanding range of social media platforms, illustrate how seamlessly the internet incorporates interpersonal communication too. While sometimes these modes remain discrete, in other cases mass, niche and interpersonal communication are seamlessly integrated with one another. A typical Facebook newsfeed now combines personal text or image updates between friends with a range of shared content originating from high and medium profile sites – and these may take the form of text, images, speech, music, video or different combinations thereof. To complicate things further, for those users with substantial networks of friends or followers, or those who find their communications shared beyond those initial networks, the boundary between interpersonal and larger-scale communication – and between public and private – is increasingly unclear (boyd 2014). Distinctions such as those in Figure 2.2, then, become rather more difficult to make. 49 Of course, the internet itself is not the only means through which such convergence is taking place. As well as being increasingly centred on the internet in one form or another, smart phones and larger tablet devices increasingly bring together the telephone with a personal music player, a portable games machine, a diary, a video player and considerably more besides. Because they enable many different media forms to use the same kinds of digital code, then, processes of digitalisation increase cross- compatibility between previously separate technologies. Most of all, the boundary between the internet itself and other forms of digital media is blurring, to the extent that television and radio programmes, as well as newspapers are available to view or listen to via the internet, while the internet is itself becoming an integral part of television services, phones, games consoles and so on. Interactivity As alluded to in some of our discussion under convergence, the interactivity of digital media, and particularly the internet, is another socially significant feature. Leaving aside the disagreements between McLuhan and Postman, most agree that broadcasting and print technology afforded a predominantly one-way relationship between a small number of producers and a large audience of readers or viewers. For Bordewijk and Van Kaam (2002), traditional broadcasting took the form of an allocutionary medium in the sense that content is distributed in a single direction from a powerful centre, with audiences able only to switch on and off or change channels. The medium allows neither for audience feedback to producers or for mediated communication between different audience members (Spurgeon 2008). The only truly interactive media, prior to the internet, were interpersonal technologies such as the telephone and the postal system. As well as incorporating a range of interpersonal means of communication, the internet for the first time introduced the possibility of interactive group or even mass communication. The capacity for large numbers of people to engage with the same content was combined with a level of interactivity previously only facilitated by interpersonal media. Ordinary people were able to distribute as well as receive content, whether through publishing their own website or blog, sharing and conversing with others on social media, posting messages on public or community forums or producing, uploading and publicising their own multimedia content. While such levels of interactivity were limited to a small minority of intensive users in the early years of the internet, during 50 the course of the first decade of the 2000s, easy to use blogging, social media, video sharing and other facilities had begun to generate extensive levels of participation and user creativity as part of what some referred to as a second phase in the development of web software often termed ‘Web 2.0’ (Dinucci 1999). Such developments have prompted some to refer to the contemporary web as a medium of ‘mass conversation’ (Spurgeon 2008). Diversification The internet also offers users unprecedented levels of control over what content they interact with. Rather than merely switching on and flicking channels, we are faced with a choice between millions of sites, services and individuals. Similarly, digital television has facilitated a massive growth in the number of different channels on offer, the growth of +1 channels and personal video recording technologies that enable viewers easily to record and view programmes whenever they like. Meanwhile the last few years have seen a rapid expansion of watch-on-demand television and film services based on internet streaming technologies such as Netflix and Amazon Prime that enable people to view content on demand from a wide range of devices. Such technologies increasingly are disconnecting media users from traditional standardised schedules and increasing the range and volume of different forms of content instantly available. As well as making media more interactive, then, digitalisation has contributed to a substantial diversification and expansion of media content and of the relationships between content and consumers. A previous media system dominated by the simultaneous collective engagement of mass audiences with small quantities of content appears to be fragmenting into a far more complex, disparate and disorganised environment. Mobility A further feature of the contemporary digital environment is that, rather than being confined to particular fixed locations, more and more of the media outlets we use are mobile, enabling us to communicate from all sorts of locations. Mobile or cell phones enable conversations from wherever we are and smart devices enable us to engage with a vast array of information, content, applications, communities and networks on the move. We can take our entire music collection wherever we go, providing 51 a personalised sound track to our movement through public spaces (Bull 2007) or alternatively stream music, speech or video from online services anywhere we can get access to wifi or a high-speed cellular data network. And we can be in constant contact with what our friends and acquaintances are doing, thinking and feeling – as well as media content they’re engaging with – via ‘always on’ connections to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat and a range of other social network applications. According to a 2013 study by Pew Internet Research, 63% of mobile phone users in the US were using their phone to access the internet and 34% of these ‘cell internet users’ said they ‘mostly’ went online using their phone as opposed to another device. For young people these figures were considerably higher, with 50% of ‘cell internet users’ aged 18–29 ‘mostly’ accessing the internet from their phone rather than another device (Duggan and Smith 2013). Presumably, were the study to have included other mobile devices such as tablets, the overall figure for mobile internet use would have been even higher. As a result, whether on the train, in the cafe, at work, at home or walking between the two, many of us are drifting towards an ‘always on’ position when it comes to our engagement with media (Castells et al. 2006). The implications of such constant digital connections are only beginning to be explored. The Internet As Solution To Or Cause Of Social Ills Like previous technologies before them, the technological capacities and affordances of the internet and broader digitalisation have been the subject of a range of positive and negative predictions and proclamations with respect to their impact on social and cultural life. Democracy and Freedom? For some techno-enthusiasts, the digital revolution heralded fundamental cultural change and the creation of a better society. The ability of internet users to summon up information or culture on demand and make their own content available to a potential audience of millions, prompted enthusiastic proclamations of a decentralisation of power, a challenge to previously dominant media organisations, a resurgence of political engagement, an 52 enhancement of individual liberty and an improvement in global harmony. Negroponte (1995), for example, predicted that the technology would liberate individuals from the constraints of place, that the operation and control of societies would be decentralised and that community and global relations would be transformed for the better, while Gilder (1992) predicted the transformation of education, the decline of standardised television culture and the draining of power from the established media industry. More recently, John Hartley (2009) celebrates what he regards as the democratisation of television as a result of the capacity on the contemporary internet – specifically via platforms such as YouTube – for ordinary people to become producers and distributors of content. Others have focused on the significance of public conversation and activism via social media and the development of citizen journalism – whereby members of the public document, record and distribute evidence and reports via the internet – as indications of a renewed popular engagement in politics, a challenge to traditionally powerful voices or the enhancement of human freedom, cooperation and participation (see Allan and Thorsen 2009; Jenkins 2008; Papacharissi 2010; Shirky 2008). National governments, meanwhile, have often championed the potential of the internet to enhance political engagement and improve educational achievement. Isolation and Superficiality For other theorists, however, the technological properties of emerging digital media environments are precipitating problematic social consequences. Concerns have included anxieties about dangers to children online through exposure to inappropriate content or hostile others; arguments about our increasing exposure to online surveillance; and proclamations of social isolation and superficiality. By way of example, we’ll explore some contributions to the last of these concerns. For Sherry Turkle – once regarded as a techno-enthusiast (see Turkle 1995) – the extent of our constant connection to media technologies is having regressive impacts on genuine forms of human interaction and relationship (Turkle 2013). The ability to interact with an infinite range of content or individuals on terms of our choosing is prompting us, she argues, to opt for the convenience of online interactions over the more demanding work of developing deeper forms of relationship centred on physical interaction. We opt, Turkle argues, for the ‘illusion of 53 companionship without the demands of friendship’ (2012). As a consequence, we find ourselves constantly sharing physical space with others while we each are glued to our individual screens – interacting with a multitude of content and people online whilst ignoring those in our presence. As a consequence we find ourselves increasingly ‘alone together’, she argues, and entrapped in a vicious circle whereby the more alone we feel, the more we turn to the individualised worlds inside our technological devices (ibid.). Aspects of Turkle’s analysis connect to the writings of other theorists. While her concern is more with the vibrancy, breadth and depth of cultural lives than psychological well-being, Christine Rosen’s brief analysis of the individual control afforded to us by digital media devices also speaks to the theme of superficiality. Faced with the possibility, through PVRs, personal music players and other devices, to consume virtually anything we want when we want, we invariably are moved, argues Rosen, to focus on the already familiar and to flick impatiently between different forms of content, quickly rejecting anything without immediate familiarity or appeal (Rosen 2005). For Rosen, this means we’re increasingly living in individualised comfort zones: unlikely to be challenged and unable to engage with genuine difference. In some respects, Rosen’s point about the impact of limitless individual choice connects to Turkle’s focus on the enticing nature of online social worlds, in the sense that every engagement online is selective, partial and fleeting as a result of the constant pull to be somewhere else – a multitude of disparate sips of interaction that never add up to a single gulp, as Turkle puts it (Turkle 2012). Digital Technologies in Context It is not difficult to see why some theorists have taken an optimistic view of the social impacts of the internet and digital media. On the face of it, such technologies place unprecedented control in the hands of users, freeing them from the structured hierarchical information agenda set by dominant mass media corporations as well as from the broader constraints of space and time. Far more so than broadcast television, digital media tend to be cool, in McLuhan’s terms, in that they offer the prospect of engaging a range of senses rather than just one and can involve unprecedented levels of interactive participation. Conversely, there is much that is persuasive in the concerns of Turkle and Rosen, amongst others, who worry about the extent of the domination of contemporary 54 lives by digital technologies. The more of our lives we spend in mediated environments, it might reasonably be argued, the greater the extent to which we are liable to be shaped by their properties and, in that case, the control we are afforded over our online engagements may have negative as well as positive consequences. As with McLuhan and Postman’s contrasting interpretations of television, however, some elements of both optimistic and pessimistic discussions of digital media veer towards technological determinism. At the turn of the millennium, Howard Rheingold expressed scepticism over what he regarded as the blind optimism of theorists such as Negroponte, suggesting that such ‘technophilia’ replicated the enthusiastic proclamations which accompanied a host of earlier developments in communications technology: the same hopes, described in the same words, for a decentralization of power, a deeper and more widespread citizen involvement in matters of state, a great equalizer for ordinary citizens to counter the forces of central control, have been voiced in the popular press for two centuries in reference to steam, electricity, and television (2000: 307). For Rheingold, we must bear in mind that, although the development of these previous technologies did have a substantial impact on society, ‘the utopia of the technological millenarians has not yet materialized’ (2000: 307). In other words, if the lofty ideals of techno-enthusiasts, including McLuhan’s proclamations about television, have not been fulfilled by any of the succession of technologies on which their hopes have been pinned to date, then we would be wise to exercise caution with respect to their proclamations about the impact of the ever-developing internet. This is not to say that positive proclamations about the impact of technologies ought to be dismissed outright, or that the transformations brought about by digitalisation are not of great significance. In his criticism of early internet optimists, Rheingold was not saying that the technological capacities of the internet were irrelevant or insubstantial. His point was that the ways the technology is controlled, disseminated and used are liable to reflect the economic, social and cultural relations into which it has become embedded as much as to shape them. Fro