Media Studies

Chapter 1
How do we know? * Somatically – things we know through direct sensory perception of our environment * Look, smell, feel, sound or taste * Symbolically – things we know through someone or something * Parent, friend, teacher, museum, textbook, photograph, radio, film, television or internet * This type of information comes to use from an indirect channel or medium
Who are the Mass Media? * Mass media – communication technologies that have the potential to reach a large audience in remote locations * Print Media –first mass medium * Printed materials * 19th – 20th centuries, newspaper industry experienced explosive growth * Motion Picture and Sound Recording * Thomas Edison invented: * Phonograph – recorded sound * Kinetoscope – showed short, silent films to individual viewers * Broadcast Media – media brought to you directly over public airwaves * Radio * Satellite * Television * Cable * New Media – are the cultural objects which use digital computer technology for distribution and circulation * The development of digital television, film, photography, e-books are part of new media * Internet, websites, online computer games and mobile companies.
Living in PostModernity * Convergence – the tendency of formerly diverse media to share a common, integrated platform. * Two obstacles before media convergence became a reality * Noise associated with analog signals * Bandwidth limitations prevented large data packets * Mobility * Historically, mass media have not been very mobile * Media can come to or go with us anywhere * Media are being transformed from home appliances into personal accessories

* Fragmentation * Dramatic increase in media channels and a fragmentation of output that caters to the increasing diversity of the consuming public * Internet is the most fragmented medium * Delivering a dizzying array of content * Reducing the necessity for standardization * Globalization – complex set of social, political, and economic processes in which the physical boundaries and structural policies that previously reinforced the autonomy of the nation state are collapsing in favour of instantaneous and flexible worldwide social relations. * Spread of capitalized has fuelled the rise of multinational corporations who wish to profit on “untapped” markets * Creates opportunities to bring cultural products to distant local markets * Cultural imperialism – the imposition of one set of cultural values on other cultures * Simulation - is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal * Western Societies and America are increasingly becoming characterized as simulation because the real and imaginary have imploded * Mass media are the key institutions that fuel this social phenomenon * Media no longer represent our social world; they construct a realer-than-real space that IS our social world
Why Study the Media? * Socialization – describes the process by which persons – both individually and collectively – learn, adopt, and internalize the prevailing cultural beliefs, values, and norms of a society. * Mass media – being society’s main storytellers – filter virtually every aspect of our world, shaping both what we learn and how we learn. * What we learn * Content influences what we learn * Refers to the informational component of a message, to the specific details, facts, ideas, and opinions communicated through mass media. * Fairness and accuracy are not defining attributes of information * Content of mass media matters * Media establish which social issues are considered important or unimportant * Content lacking a diversity of views and opinions is very limiting * Media content is necessarily biased * How we learn * Form describes the cognitive component of a message * Can be thought of as the way a message is packaged and delivered * Communication mediums train our conscious to think, not what to think, but how to think * “the medium is in the message” – Marshall McLuhan
Doing Critical Studies * Attitude: Skeptical * Assumption that there is more at stake in mass media than initially meets the eye * Sceptical attitude as a “hermeneutics of suspicion” * Hermeneutics describes a mode of interpretation grounded in close analysis * Approach: Humanistic * Emphasizes self-reflection, critical citizenship, and democratic principles; it involves “thinking about freedom and responsibility and the contribution that intellectual pursuit can make to the welfare of society”. * Assessment: political * Critical studies are generally concerned with determining whose interests are served by the media, how those interests contribute to domination, exploitation, and/or asymmetrical relations of power * Society as a complex network of interrelated power relations that symbolically privilege and materially benefit some individuals and groups over others * Action: Social Activism * Operate on the premise that scholarship should be action oriented, that scholars have a social responsibility not only to identify injustice, but also to confront and challenge it
Key Critical Perspectives * Theory is an explanatory and interpretive tool that simultaneously enables and limits our understanding of the particular social product, practice, or process under investigation.