CMNS 130: Week 2 - Mass Media PDF

CMNS 130: Week 2 “Mass Media”  This week... Wednesday: – Review Quiz – Morley & McQuail – History, Theoretical Influences & Models of CMNS Saturday: – Contemporary Approaches (Ritual/Reception models) – Video & Discussion: Representation...

CMNS 130: Week 2 “Mass Media”  This week... Wednesday: – Review Quiz – Morley & McQuail – History, Theoretical Influences & Models of CMNS Saturday: – Contemporary Approaches (Ritual/Reception models) – Video & Discussion: Representation and “Frameworks of Knowledge”  Models and Definitions “Mass communication” defined “Media”, “New media”, “Mass media”, and “Convergence” Mathematical and Social models of CMNS  What is “Mass Communication”? Mass Communication: the transmission and transformation of information on a large scale, designed to reach a large number of people. Usually one-way communication.  Media and Mass Media Medium (plural =“media”): any vehicle that conveys information – Language, pictures, musical instruments, videos, morse code...(etc.): all are media. Mass Media: vehicles through which mass communication takes place  “New Media” New Media: technologies, practices, and institutions designed to facilitate broad participation – or interactivity – in information production and exchange (i.e., communication) on a mass scale  Convergence The bringing together of previously separate entities or processes. 2 types identified for our purposes: Technological convergence: the merging of a wide range of previously separate and distinct communication technologies Corporate convergence: the merging of formerly separate companies and/or industries across previously separate media and/or information sectors  Artifacts/producers/audiences Artefacts: the texts of media, the content or product (e.g., not only textbooks and text messages but also films, songs, albums, advertisements, IG pictures, memes, news stories, etc.) Producers: the people and institutions that create or intermediate media artefacts (Hollywood movie companies, Youtubers, musicians, writers, journalists, etc.) Audiences: the people reading, listening, watching, or interacting with media artefacts  It’s complicated Increasingly in a digital media world, audiences modify or remix artefacts that are produced by other media producers. In this case, audiences are called “Active” audiences, taking part in ‘participatory media’ Active audiences (and remixes) existed long before digital media, but digital media has in many respects made it easier to participate. Mathematical Model of CMNS (aka the “transmission” model)  Social Model of CMNS aka the “reception” model History/Theoretical Influences in CMNS studies Effects theories of media  Effects, Agenda-Setting & Cultivation Analysis Effects Research (the “hypodermic needle” model): presumed that media messages, once communicated to audiences, are directly influential on how people think and act Agenda-Setting Thesis: media don’t determine but lead public opinion Cultivation Analysis: people who spend more time with media (esp. TV) internalize the values it represents  The critical paradigm Various approaches fall under this Rejects the over-simplifications of the “transmission” model Qualitative methods Non-deterministic Concerned with inequality, power, and values in society  Approaches under the “Critical paradigm” Uses & gratifications theory Marxist/Frankfurt School British Cultural Studies Feminist approaches Uses & Gratification Research  Uses & Gratifications researchers in the U&G tradition ask “what do audiences do with media?” Researchers in this school look closely at the micro- scale, examining particular situations, interactions, and use scenarios. In this sense, U& G is criticized as reductive (not accounting for the wider social context in which media use occurs) Marxist/Frankfurt School  Marxist/Frankfurt School Marxists see mass media as a site of contestation between social forces; state and corporate institutions tend to produce media that perpetuate ideologies that maintain elite power structures The Frankfurt School: a group of German Marxist philosophers in the early 20th Century who saw mass media industries as institutions of capitalism, working to imprint their logic of exchange into every part of our lives Audience members are deprived of agency in this model, positioned as cultural “dupes”. British Cultural studies  British Cultural Studies British Cultural studies: a school of thinkers that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, posed a critical response to the “mass society” critique of the Frankfurt School focused on the agency of audiences, & how audience groups make use of media (popular songs, fashions, and TV shows, etc) as a form of identity construction against the flow of mass media persuasion Feminist research  Feminist Media Research During the mid-20th century, feminist critics (such as Betty Freidan) wrote about how patriarchy and sexism are perpetuated within media distortions (untrue representations of women) Part of so-called “second wave feminism”, early feminist media critiques aligned with that movement’s struggle for equal pay, abortion rights, and other symbols of sexist inequality Third Wave Feminism  Third Wave Feminism Beginning in the late 1980s, “third wave feminism” offered renewed critiques of the representation of gender: intersectional analysis of gender, queer theory and critical race theory, recognition that feminism is different for women in different cultural and social contexts Key theorists like bell hooks use poststructural analysis as an entry point into understanding media and audiences  Next day... Ritual and Reception models Application: Frameworks of Knowledge and Never Have I Ever  Four Models of CMNS transmission ritual attention/publicity reception  Transmission Model CMNS is a “process of transmission of a fixed quantity of information” between senders and receivers. It is simple, linear, and direct. (McQuail, p.17) This is usually, but not always linear: – Some senders are also receivers – they act as relays (the “two step” model) – Some receivers provide feedback to senders (nonlinear dynamics) Criticism: this model assumes much agency (=free choice) on the part of people, and that information in a free market media system are representative of citizens’ interests  Ritual/Expressive Model The ritual model examines CMNS for its potential in creating shared understandings of the world. Communication is somewhat restricted by the structures of language, imagery, sound, and cultural conventions Often, privileged actors in society (the State, media corporations, advertising companies, or public figures and celebrities) have greater influence over meanings Examples: religion, commercial journalism, state propaganda, Hollywood films  Attention/Publicity Model This model argues that much of the mass communication that goes on in the modern world revolves solely around attention. Therefore, media do not transfer information nor provide a space where meanings are co created. Meanings are irrelevant; only attention matters. Attention often works to provide a foundation for other activities – political or commercial persuasion. Examples: many people engage with media as a diversion, as escapism, or as a way to pass time.  Reception Model audiences are seen as active participants in assigning meanings to media texts Producers/audiences both encode/decode messages according to their mental frameworks (culture and ideology) This helps explain: – How different audience members interpret media in different ways (according to gender, race, social class, disability, and many other criteria) – How groups who have privileged access to media (states and corporations) have outsized power to influence how messages are conveyed and understood Focus: Ritual and Reception models Ritual model: what shared meanings arise, and what social institutions (family, politics, economic relations, religion, culture) depend on these shared meanings? Reception model: what divergent meanings arise, and how do these reflect social divisions or inequalities in a society? Encoding/Decoding  Encoding/decoding the meaning of a television program, for Hall, is understood through various codes, which are ideological and cultural in origin dominant/preferred code: the official, or intended reading of a text negotiated code: localized interpretations of a text that read it differently but in a way that is compatible with the dominant code oppositional code: readings of a text that are incompatible with the dominant/intended reading of a text. Encoding/Decoding  Applying concepts: Frameworks of Knowledge We’ll watch a clip from a well-known American TV show Complete the handout as we watch this case study...  Never Have I Ever as a media text As we're watching this, try to think about how you are making sense of it. Complete the handout, and take notes: – What images, characters, or dialogue don't you understand? – What jokes do you ‘get’? – Would your parents understand it?  Discussion: Frameworks of Knowledge/”Decoding” discuss the differences (and commonalities) in what we perceived or “got” in this show here... what background information (or 'cultural referents') do you need to know about to decode the show's messages? Where does your “framework of knowledge” (As Stuart Hall calls it) come from? Education? Culture? Other media texts? Where else?  Next up.. The Culture Industry Read: – 1. Adorno & Horkheimer – 2. Burke – 3. Grossberg, “Ideology”