Explorations in
Mass
Communication:
Issues and
Controversies
Catherine Murray
Fall 2003
CMNS-130
C.A. Murray
Course Team
Diana Ambrozas
Doris Baltruschat
Wei Gao
Natalie Tkachev
CMNS-130
C.A. Murray
Course Objectives
To provide a map to navigate
the field
history & political economy
Popular culture & media analysis
Society and technology
Locate contemporary
controversies
CMNS-130
C.A. Murray
Course Skills
Develop the Four stages of
critical thinking:
Description
Analysis, Framing of
Arguments and Proof
Interpretation & Debate
Evaluation/Originality
CMNS-130
C.A. Murray
The Alchemy of Grades
Description
C+
Basic facts mastered and patterned
Analysis
B range
Meaning of patterns probed, knowledge applied. Hierarchy
of patterning proofs
Interpretation
High B
Comparisons and analogies. Judgement. Argument and
Illustration.
Evaluation
A-A+ range
Values. Understanding
If creative originality or thought leadership an A plus
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Course Tools
Framing arguments
Organizing proof
Writing persuasively
Developed in tutorial debates
Short essay paper
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C.A. Murray
Lecture & Tutorial Support
Notes for lectures available from TA: Friday
Lectures are audiotaped and available in library
READ before lecture
Tutorials
Attend each tutorial
Participate in debate
Essay assignments: start by week 4
EXAMS
• Mid Terms are Pop Quizzes in Tutorial
• Workshop for final exam available
CMNS-130
C.A. Murray
The Big Picture
Communication is a battleground of
power
Historically, allied with state or business
corporations ( & now entertainment
corporations)
Central to institutions of democracy and
capitalism
130 outlines how media work, how they
are shaped by and shaping the economic,
political and social worlds around us
Do the Media create critical citizens or
consumers?
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Recent Issues &
Controversies
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Key Concepts
Media & Communication defined
Mass Communication defined
Model of the Communication
Process
Mapping the Flow
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C.A. Murray
The Definition of Media
Broadly, what enables communication
to take place
May be interpersonal and one on one(
speech, writing, facial gesture) which is
beyond scope of CMNS 130
May be technical/broader in scale
Specifically, a technological
development that extends the channel,
range of speed of communication
among large groups of people
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Media of “Mass”
Communication
Print
Newspapers
Magazines
Books
Audio
Radio
Music/Sound Recording
Visual
Film
TV
Videogames
Digital
Internet
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C.A. Murray
The Definition of
Communication
From Latin Communicare
Verb: to share, impart, to make
meaning common
To give or receive information,
signals, messages in any way
Using talk, gestures, writing or
other means
Definition: Fleras page 36
“ a meaningfulCMNS-130
exchange of
C.A. Murray
Origins of Communication
Part of human search to transcend
time and space
One of the oldest of human
practices:
Essential for social survival, economic organization
Formal study rooted in classical politics from times
of Ancient Greece and Rome under a different title:
rhetoric, literary criticism, persuasion (humanities)
Development of the study of Mass Communication
allied with rise of social sciences and mass
marketing WW2
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C.A. Murray
Mass Communication
Communication from one person,
group or institution through a
transmission system or medium to
large audiences or markets
From one ( or few) to many
Implies concept of gatekeeper: controller of
transmission/message design
Implies concept of effectiveness and efficiency: is
messaging achieving what it intended?
CMNS-130
C.A. Murray
Transmission Model of
Communication
Sender….Message….Receiver
Based on Harold Lasswell’s model (
1948)
Helps identify the stages through
which communication passes so
each one can be properly studied
Modern models recognize networks are
more complex, no longer one way and
there is more interaction and feedback
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between sender C.A.
and
receiver
Murray
Transmission Model II
Central Questions:
Who says what to whom with
what effect? ( transmission model)
Useful in early study of propaganda, and
advertising ( stimulus response assumption)
Sees mass communication as a process of
transmitting intentional messages for the
purpose of social control, or marketing
Implies the study of state or government
policies, economic processes of advertising
and commodification of popular culture
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Characteristics of Mass
Communication
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Message produced in complex organizations
Message fixed in some form with information
and symbolic content ( either in digital bits or
commodity form)
Message is sent/transmitted or diffused widely
via a technological medium
Newspaper, magazine, CD or videocassette, radio,
television, satellite or Internet
Message is delivered rapidly over great space
Message reaches large groups of different people
simultaneously or within a short period of time
Message is primarily one-way, not two way
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Transformation of ‘Mass’
Communication
Arrival of computers and switched twoway interactive technology …digitization
Internet
From one to one, … from many to
many--almost infinitely
Rise of transactional media ( pay per
bit)
Resistance of media piracy:swapping
and downloading
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C.A. Murray
Nature of the Mass
Communicator/Sender
Mass communication is produced in
complex formal organizations
With multiple gatekeepers
Using a great deal of money
Increasingly in private sector
institutions in the West
Existing to make a profit
In a highly competitive market,
working to reduce risk by merging
and oligopoly
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7 Trends in
Communication
1. Compression of space and time
•
•
•
Larger and larger territories covered: networks of
networks emerging (www)
Mobile, wireless untethered access: ubiquity
Communication across borders virtually
instantaneously
2. Commodification
•
•
Spread of private and not public enterprise,
interpenetration of marketing, consumption and
media
Widespread ideology of consumption/consumer
“sovereignty”
3. Deregulation and Concentration and
Conglomeration
•
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Withdrawal of public
sector, less regulation, more role
C.A. Murray
7 Trends Cont’d
4. Globalization :
• Growth in international trade in cultural products, rise of 6 or 8 main
companies dominating markets and merging industries
• AOL Time Warner;Disney;Vivendi, Viacom, Sony, News, Bertelesmann
5.
Digitization and Convergence



6.
Specialization ( part of “demassification”)

7.
Conversion of sound pictures and text into computer readable formats by
representing them as strings of zeros and ones
Now, telecommunication providers involved in TV and cable
Digitization enables the production, circulation, manipulation and repurposing or storage of information on unprecedented scale
Narrowly “casting’ or “targeting” communication to particular interests…
shrinking share of general interest TV
Personalization


The “daily me”: personal tailoring of media diet/media products
Ideal type: MP3 downloading of custom music
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A Different Approach: the
Cultural Model
Encode meaning-----decode meaning
Involves Creation of the Text, design of
the sign. symbol or codes and
signification or interpretation
Fleras, p. 36:
Communication is much more than
message exchange.. The enrichment that
communication brings in terms of culture,
cohesion and connectedness is widely
acknowledged.
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Cultural Model II
Central Question:
How does communication construct a map of
meaning for people in everyday life? (cultural
model)
How do people negotiate common meaning and are
bound by it
Starts from the assumption that:
Any attempt to understand the power of the media
requires us first to understand how these products are
located within and work to construct meaning in
everyday life (Grossberg et al, p. 237).
Embraces ideology/belief systems and ritual: mass
communication is the representation of shared
beliefs where ‘reality’ is produced maintained,
repaired and transformed
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CMNS 130
Looks at issues of policy and political economy
Interaction of technology, organization of
cultural industries and cultural power
Text: Augie Fleras, Mass Media and
Communication in Canada
Fleras a sociologist
His agenda: This text intends to “out” the
mainstream media as a persuasive dynamic that
manipulates and conceals even as it enlightens and
informs. Contradictions prevail: to the one side the
media reflect, reinforce and advance the interests of
the powerful. To the other side, there are sufficient
“openings” for oppositional forces to transform the
media…vii.
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Next Week: Media and
Modernity
Read Fleras
Tutorial: Introduction to the Media
BACK TO LECTURE NOTES
BACK TO INDEX
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