Metaconcepts of the Electronic Media

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Metaconcepts of the Electronic Media
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Transportation Model of Communication

• Green is the environment, Blue is the
  sender/speaker, Red is the receiver/listener,
  Orange is the speakers resources (Prep Work,
  Common Sense, and Bias), Lt. Purple is the
  medium, Purple is the message, Grey is the
  static there are three types Mechanical (Ears
  dont work), Environmental (Noisy Room),
  Personal Listener think the Speaker know what
  theyre talking about) ,Black is the feedback
  there are two types Verbal Non-Verbal

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Gatekeeping

• There are several gates or means of control
  that can prevent news stories from reaching an
  audience.
• The media will always have a bias toward the
  information it presents and doesnt present.
• Some gatekeeping has an institutional or an
  ideological bias.

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Agenda Setting

• The overall use of gatekeeping has lead to the
  media setting the agenda of the social debate.
• Media may not tell us what to think, they do tell
  us what to think about.
• Status conferral refers to the fact that the very
  appearance of an item, issue or event on the air
  gives it importance.

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News as Information

• Media relaying information
• Surveillance of the environment  (news function)
  
• Correlation of the parts  (editorial function)
• Transmission of social heritage  (educational
  function)

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The news functionSurveillance of the
environment

• News as a sample of reality
• Random
• Representative
• Biased

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Selection Bias

• Economic bias - propaganda model (chomsky
  Herman)
• Political bias e.g. alleged liberal bias of US
  journalism
• Professional bias

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Ritual Model of Communication
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Ritual Model of Communication

• News media represent, create and maintain
  communities
• News is constructed reality (media makes news)
• Media as cue-givers
• Functional redundancy of news

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Developing Effects Research

• People have long assumed that spending so much
  time with electronic media simply had to have
  some impact, good or bad.
• Early media research focused on the impact of
  mass propaganda efforts used during WWI, which
  led to the magic bullet theory of communication.

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Developing Effects Research

• However, the magic bullets was found to be too
  simplistic, as it didnt take into consideration
  intervening variables.
• The idea of opinion leaders suggested that the
  news gets digested through the community before
  it is dissolved into the individual.

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Developing Effects Research

• Selective perception is the interpretation of
  messages based on their opinions and attitudes
  rather than receiving them passively.
• Boomerang effect is when people with strong
  beliefs tend to misinterpret messages with which
  they disagree.
• The reading of the text populist view,
  oppositional view the third-way view.