Contemporary Communication Theories

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Contemporary Communication Theories

• A. Goldrick-Jones
• Centre for Academic Writing
• 786-9324 rm 3G08

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Week 11 Mass Media

• George Gerbner (b. 1919 fled from Hungary in
  1939) cultivation theory

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Week 11 Mass Media

• George Gerbner quick links
• Biographies (U of Texas journalism students)
• Cultivation theory (analysis by D. Chandler, U of
  Wales, Aberystwyth)
• Reclaiming Our Cultural Mythology by Gerbner
  himself

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Week 11 Mass Media

• George Gerbners cultivation theory
• Its all about TV the cumulative process by
  which television fosters beliefs about social
  reality (Wood, p. 244).
• Television has long-term effects which are
  small, gradual, indirect but cumulative and
  significant (Chandler).

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Week 11 Mass Media

• Assumptions of cultivation theory
• TV constructs synthetic reality through

mainstreaming
resonance
(Wood pp. 248-9)
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Week 11 Mass Media

• Mainstreaming When groups who are initially
  divergent in their worldviews come to hold
  similar views with greater television exposure
  (Harrison, 2003).

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Week 11 Mass Media

• Resonance when a symbolic portrayal is
  repeated on a regular basis, and in turn, the
  viewer replays real-life experience in his/her
  mind over and over again (Sarin, 1996).

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Week 11 Mass Media

• Assumptions of cultivation theory
• TV is
• uniquely accessible/ubiquitous
• cultivates broad assumptions
• is a conservative socializing agent
• extended/expanded by new technologies
• engenders a mean world view.

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Week 11 Mass Media

• The mean world syndrome a perception of the
  world as an overly dangerous place (Wood, p. 251).

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Week 11 Mass Media

• The mean world syndrome Gerbner
• comments in this video preview on the

relationship between violence and the
media. (Click on the image RealPlayer
required.)
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Week 11 Mass Media

• Some major criticisms of cultivation theory
• oversimplification
• faulty cause-and-effect assumptions
• wrong variables used as controls
• viewer estimations as crude measures
• does not consider different viewer
  interpretations (Chandler, 1995)

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Mass Media Computers

• Neil Postman (1931-2003) on technopoly

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Mass Media Computers

• Neil Postman
• Amusing Ourselves to Death (1987)

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Mass Media Computers

• Neil Postman Technopoly (1993) a critical review

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Mass Media Computers

• Neil Postman
• Neil Postman Ponders High Tech (1996) there is
  a limit to the promise of new technology. . .it
  cannot be a substitute for human values.

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Mass Media Computers

• Neil Postman
• Informing Ourselves to Death (1990)
• . . . There can be no disputing that the
  computer has increased the power of large-scale
  organizations like military establishments or
  airline companies or banks or tax collecting
  agencies. But to what extent has computer
  technology been an advantage to the masses of
  people?

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Mass Media Computers

• One last thought should online teaching
  displace/replace/supplement face-to-face
  teaching? Click on the photo for a recent
  assessment from the U of Edinburgh