Mass Media

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Chapter 1

• Mass Media
• and Culture
• A Critical Approach

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What is CULTURE?

• defined as the symbols that individuals, groups
  and societies use to make sense of daily life and
  to articulate their values
• includes both products and processes
• communicates the values of a society through
  products or meaning-making forms

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What are MASS MEDIA?

• Mass Media are the culture industries that
  mass-produce and distribute cultural products,
  which can include songs, novels, newspapers,
  movies, online services, magazines, comic books,
  DVDs, video games, textbooks, radio programs,
  cable TV, advertising, sports events, and so on
• Mass Communication is the process of designing
  and delivering cultural messages and stories to
  large and diverse audiences through media channels

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FIVE HISTORICAL ERAS of media and communication

• Oral
• Written
• Print
• Electronic
• Digital

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Pre-Industrial Cultures

• Oral
• Meanings are specific and local
• Knowledge is passed by showing and telling
• Memory is crucial
• Elders are repositories of knowledge, as are
  storytellers
• Myth and history are intertwined

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Pre-Industrial Cultures

• Written (c. 3000 BC)
• Ideogrammatic alphabets (Egyptian, Sumerian,
  Chinese) give way to syllabic sound based
  alphabets (originally from Sumerian cuneiform)
• Developed to enhance business record keeping
• Effects of Literacy
• Meaning and language became more uniform
• Communication could occur over great distances
  and long periods of time
• Memories, history and mythology could be recorded
  on first papyrus, then parchment,

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Industrial and Post-Industrial Cultures

• Print
• Invention of the Printing Press in China
• Block presses invented in 600 AD, with movable
  clay type by 1000 AD
• Invention of the Printing Press in Europe
• Johannes Gutenberg (1397-1468, Germany)
• studied metallurgy, sold trinkets to religious
  pilgrims
• invented movable metal type printing
• first printed Indulgences for Catholic Church
• printed 200 copies of two-volume Gutenberg Bible

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Impact of Print

• Wider availability of written material led to
  higher need for literacy among middle and working
  classes
• Increased interest in education to empower the
  middle classes to compete with heredity
  aristocracies
• Broader distribution of ideas and information led
  to increased technological progress
• Printing served as model for industrial mass
  production
• Increased literacy led to both democratic
  self-expression as well as interest in censorship
• Reading also triggered emphasis on nationalism
  and individualism
• After industrialization, more need for books both
  to entertain and to inform

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Industrial and Post-Industrial Cultures

• Development of Telegraph (1840s)
• separated communication from transportation
• transformed information into a commodity
• coordinated commercial and military operations
• Forerunner of electronic communication
• Electronic and Digital Communication create mass
  market for information and entertainment

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Social and cultural changes with advent of mass
media

• democratization of knowledge and literacy
• nourishing ideal of individualism
• facilitation of large social movements

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LINEAR MODEL OF COMMUNICATION

• sender
• message
• channel
• receivers
• gatekeepers
• feedback
• senders--gtmessages--gtreceivers

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Alternative model

• based on belief that audiences are NOT merely
  passive receptacles of message
• audience members can can interpret the meanings
  of media messages differently based on their own
  values and viewpoints

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Mass media and public perception

• mass media can alter a societys perception of
  events and attitudes
• For instance
• news coverage of civil rights movement (example
  the murder of Emmett Till)
• Hill-Thomas hearings sexual harassment
• News coverage of Bush-Gore in Florida and doubts
  about voting systems in US

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Public debates about media

• Ancient Greece art and drama
• early 20th century America working class popular
  culture
• ongoing concerns about childrens exposure to sex
  and violence in media

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Concerns about media today

• fragmentation of media audience
• perceived lack of quality, family values
• overabundance of information
• dangers of cyberspace for youth
• sex and violence in media
• loss of face-to-face community

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Developing a CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

• DESCRIPTION
• Outline content
• Note structure
• Identify characters, conflicts, themes,ideas
• Research
• ANALYSIS
• Focus
• Isolate and analyze patterns
• Define area of analysis

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Developing a CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

• INTERPRETATION
• Determine meanings of patterns
• Answer so what? (significance)
• EVALUATION
• Make an informed judgment based on previous
  steps, not on personal reaction
• Conclude, perhaps with a recommendation