Understanding Media and Culture
By Jack Lule
© 2012, published by Flat World Knowledge
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Chapter 1
Media and Culture
© 2012, published by Flat World Knowledge
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Chapter 1
Section 1:
Intersection of American Media and Culture
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Mass Communication and Mass Media
• Mass Communication
– Information transmitted to large segments of the
population
• Mass Media
– The means of communication that is designed to
reach a wide audience
• Mass communication is possible through the use
of mass media such as the Internet.
• The Intersection
– The Lost Cellphone
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/nyregion/21sidekick.html?_r=0
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The Medium is The Message
• Marshall McLuhan, “Understanding Media” –
highly influential book in media studies
• In midst if the 20th century and the rise of TV as a
mass medium, McLuhan foresaw how profoundly
media would shape human lives
• 1977 lecture The Medium is the Message
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImaH51F4HBw
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The Medium is The Message
• Became an international celebrity but was often
dismissed in academia due to his outlandish style
and broad and sweeping declarations
– Media themselves are far more important than any
content they carry
– Each medium physically affects the human central
nervous system in a certain way
– Media influences the way the brain works and how it
processes information
– Media creates new patterns of thought and behavior
– The medium is the message
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Key Points in American Media and Culture
• An intersection of cultural events driven by and
driving the use of technology.
• CNN/YouTube collaboration in 2007 at a
presidential debate
– Users recorded and uploaded questions to YouTube
– Moderators reviewed and selected questions
– Candidates answered questions after viewing directly
– Allowed for unprecedented voter participation in the
debates
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Culture
• The shared values, attitudes, beliefs, and practices
that characterize a social group, organization, or
institution
• Throughout American history, evolving media
technologies have changed the way we relate socially,
economically and politically
• 1960 Kennedy/Nixon debate
• Ever since, presidential hopefuls have had to be increasingly
television ready and media savvy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g1O7c4j0YU
• Evolving technology has helped change what the American public
wants of its leaders (for better or for worse)
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Media and Culture
• The two are interrelated
– What we learn through the media affects how we
live our lives
– How we live our lives affects what we expect from
our media experience
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Chapter 1
.
Section 2:
The Evolution of Media
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The Four Roles of Media in Society
1. Entertaining and providing an outlet for the
imagination
2. Educating and informing
3. Serving as a public forum for the discussion of
important issues
4. Acting as a watchdog for government,
business, and other institutions
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Events that Affected Mass Media
• Invention of printing press by Gutenberg (1450)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZN_X6gPjEc
• Steam-powered presses by Koenig
– United regions of the US in the early 1880s by
creating an ‘imagined community’
• Wide availability of radio
– Encouraged a unified sense of American lifestyle
• Calvin Coolidge’s pre-election speech reached more than
20 million people
– Advertisers could reach wide audiences
• Consumerism led to Great Depression
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Events that Affected Mass Media
• Ready access to television
– Three major networks in the mid 1900s
– Some feared TV fostered a homogenous,
conformist culture but also contributed to
counterculture and protests of the Vietnam War
• Proliferation of cable channels 1980s and 90s
– Share of three major networks dropped from 93%
to 28%
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Technological Transitions Shape Media
New media technologies both spring from
and cause social changes.
• Steam engine
-- meant books could be mass produced
• Electricity
– removed reliance on sunrise/sunset time frame
• Wireless communication
– collapsed distances
• Internet
– revolutionized how we store and retrieve data
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The Medium is The Message
• McLuhan emphasized that each medium delivers
information in a different way and that content is
fundamentally shaped by that medium
– TV offers live coverage and video, making a story come
vividly alive, it is also faster paced. It will have less
information and less history and context than the same
story in a monthly magazine
– A person’s view of the world is shaped not just by
content but also by the medium
– Each medium has a special way of representing ideas
that emphasize particular ways of thinking and deemphasize others (Alan Kay, computer scientist)
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Chapter 1
Section 3:
Convergence
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Five Types of Convergence
• Media convergence is the process by which previously distinct
technologies come to share tasks and resources
– e.g., , a cell phone that takes pictures, plays video, and receives email.
• Media theorist Henry Jenkins breaks convergence down into
five categories
– Economic
--A company controls several products/services within same industry;
Murdoch
– Organic
--watching TV while on the phone and listening to music
– Cultural
--A book becomes a TV show during which viewers can call in and participate
or upload their comments; cultural imperialism
– Global
--India’s Bollywood mimics the U.S. Hollywood
– Technological
--Watching TV shows on sites like Hulu
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How Media Effects Culture and Society
• Some say increased media exposure is making
us smarter because we can interact with the
information we are taking in.
• Others say that constant access to so much
information means that we will only gain
shallow understandings of it.
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Chapter 1
Section 4:
The Role of Social Values in Communication
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Limitations of Freedom of Speech
• The value of free speech is central to
American mass communication and has
been since the nation’s revolutionary
founding.
• The First Amendment guarantees freedom of
the press.
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Limitations of Freedom of Speech
• However, there are two limits on what kinds of
speech are legally protected
• Obscenity
• The definition of obscenity has changed as have the
community standards.
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I
understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hardcore pornography"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly
doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in
this case is not that.
Justice Potter Stewart, concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184
(1964), regarding possible obscenity in The Lovers.
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Limitations of Freedom of Speech
• Copyright law
• The length of time that certain intellectual
property can be protected has grown from 14
years to up to 120 years for some content and
the fair use exception is a frequent element in
court cases
• The Internet has led to questions on file
sharing, mash-ups and YouTube parodies
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Propaganda in Mass Media
• Cultural values shape mass media messages when
producers of media content have vested interests in
particular social goals
• Governments, corporations, nonprofits, colleges, etc
• Type of communication that intentionally attempts to
persuade its audience toward a certain outcome for
ideological, political or commercial purposes
– during wartime, caricatures of the enemy
– during election cycle, negative candidate ads
– during commercials, positive product ads
– May distort the truth, selectively present facts or use
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emotional appeal
The Gatekeeper
• Journalist A.J. Liebling - “freedom of the press is
guaranteed only to those who own one”
• Gatekeeper influences culture by deciding which stories are
considered newsworthy
– Can promote social values either consciously or
subconsciously
• Rwandan genocide poorly covered by news media; “Africa was
simply not important” Richard Dowden
• Has lost some influence to the Internet, where many
people are able to get attention for stating their
preferences
– New Gatekeepers are more anonymous (who picks featured
artists and apps on iTunes store?)
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Chapter 1
Section 5:
Cultural Periods
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Recent Cultural Periods
• Changes in cultural periods are marked by
fundamental changes in the way we perceive
and understand the world.
• Modern Age
– 1400s to early 1900s
– began with invention of printing press and grew into
Industrial Revolution
– focused on the individual and rational thought
– developed large-scale theories to explain the totality of human
experience
• Capitalism, Marxism, rationalism, fascism, etc.
• Postmodern Age
– 1950s to present
– characterized by digitalization
– questioning of reason and theories that try to explain everything at once
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Impact of the Industrial Revolution
• Changed way goods were produced
– steam power and machine tools increased production
dramatically
• Changed economy from agriculture to manufacturing
– families moved to the cities
• Urbanization, mass literacy, and new forms of mass
media contributed to a sense of mass culture that united
people across regional, social, and cultural boundaries.
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Chapter 1
Section 6:
Mass Media and Popular Culture
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Tastemakers
• Like gatekeepers, they are people who exert a strong
influence on current trends and styles of popular culture
– Ed Sullivan show
– Oprah Winfrey’s book club
• Unlike gatekeepers, their greatest influence is in small
and concentrated media markets
– They keep culture vital by introducing the public to new ideas,
music, programs, or products
• Create demand for new products
– George Eastman and Kodak: sold photography not
cameras
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Effects of Internet Culture
• Not limited by time or space, bloggers, critics, or
aspiring stars are able to potentially reach millions
without the backing of the traditional media
industry
• Accessible media has weakened the role of
traditional tastemakers
• However, individuals can still bias mass tastemaking
• Information spreads across the globe without
mass media influence
• RottenTomatoes.com Pitchfork.com
PerezHilton.com
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Chapter 1
Section 7:
Media Literacy
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Media Literacy and the Individual
• By the late 20th century, people started to believe that
reading and writing weren’t the only needed literacy
skills
– Being able to sort through and make sense of the
information we are bombarded with daily was part of this
new, media literacy
• Media literacy is the skill of being able to decode and
process the messages and symbols transmitted by
media
– Individuals are surrounded by media from an early age
– Individuals need to learn how to discern bias, spin, and
misinformation in the media
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Five Key Media Literacy Questions
• Author
-- Who is presenting the information and how are they
connected to it?
• Format
– What does the format do for/with the information?
• Audience
-- Who is watching and what is their reaction likely to be?
• Content
-- How is the content influenced by who is presenting it?
• Purpose
– What reaction is the message trying to provoke?
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Media Literacy
• Wikipedia
– The best of the Internet as everyone gets a voice
– The worst of the Internet as people who use it
take opinion for truth
– Stephen Colbert: “any user can change any entry,
and if enough other users agree with them , it
becomes true”
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