CH3028 MEDIA
PROCESSES AND
INFLUENCES
Seminar 1
Rhythma Kapoor
kapoor@eshcc.eur.nl
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Plan for Today
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
MEDIA USE SURVEY
MEDIA/SOCIETY/ORGANIZATIONS
ASSIGNMENT 1
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PRACTICAL INFORMATION
• Weekly Seminar (incl. Lecture, Discussion,
In class activities)
• Book: Media/Society (4th edition)
• Additional Readings
• Course Blog
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ASSESSMENT
• 3 Assignments
• 1 Mid-term
• 1 Term Paper
Passing grade: 5.5
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RULES OF CONDUCT
• Please be on time
• Many-to-many communication
• Attendance is compulsory
• Be prepared to present your work, ideas
• Regularly check Course Blog for news and
information
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When in doubt, have problems or any other issues….
Inform Me!
E-mail Me! kapoor@eshcc.eur.nl
Me! Me! Me! 
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TOPIC PRESENTATIONS-MEDIA
ARTIFACTS
• Due: Throughout the course
• You will be assigned one class session for which to
find media artifacts related to the day's readings.
• The kinds of artifacts that are most helpful for this
class include: news articles, critical analyses,
podcasts and interesting visual/graphical materials.
• Artifacts should also be posted on the class blog with
an accompanying short description.
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MEDIA USE SURVEY
-Handout
-Class Discussion
What are some media issues that interest you the
most?
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OVERVIEW
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Media & Socialization
The Rise of Mass Media
Structural Constraint and Human Agency
Mass communication vs. Media communication
A Model of Media and the Social World
Media professionals, organizations, and culture
Shared conventions, roles, and routines in media organizations
Structure-Agency relationship in media organizations
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RISE OF MASS MEDIA
Discuss: Milestones in Different forms of Media
-Print
-Broadcast
-Sound and Film
-Internet and New Media Technologies
didyouknow?
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_klein_photos_that_changed_the_worl
d.html
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STUDYING MASS MEDIA
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What are media?
Are all media mass media?
Are all media now within ‘new media’?
Why should we study them?
- media in socialization
STUDYING (MASS) MEDIA
Big Question:
Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What
channel (with) What effect?
(Harold Lasswell, 1948)
• production of media
• content of media
• reception of media
readers or
audience
media
message or
product
Social World
Technology
media
industry
Simplified Model of Media and the Social World
MEDIA AND SOCIAL WORLD
TODAY, MASS MEDIA SERVE A S A POWERFUL
SOCIALIZING AGENT. HOW?
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SOCIALIZATION
The main argument:
• People interact
• People develop rules of interaction
• Over time and with repetition people become
accustomed to these rules
• These rules become normalized
• People internalize these norms
• These norms create people’s social/cultural identity
“Socialization”—The process whereby we learn and
internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of our
culture and, in so doing, develop a sense of self.
Examples?
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MEDIA AND SOCIALIZATION
Today, mass media serve as a powerful socializing agent:
• Media affect how we learn about our world and interact
with one another
• Most of our political knowledge is based on mass media
• Media act as watchdogs against abuse of power
• Media constructs reality
• Teaches and influences youngsters
• Create common world views- values, ideologies,
perceptions, customs, stereotypes
Discuss: Some examples? Case studies?
‘Electronic hearth’??
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SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY
While reality exists, media users negotiate the meaning of that
reality
The same media product may mean very different things to
different people
• Example: A music video may elicit different responses from a
15-year-old fan of the band and a parent concerned about
stereotypically sexist images that may be present in the video
Some examples?
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SOCIOLOGY OF MEDIA
• Importance of Social Relations
• “Looking-glass self”
• Our sense of identity and individuality emerges from our
social interaction with others
• The Interplay Between the Social System
• Relationships between institutions
• Interaction between media industry and government
• Relationships within an institution
• Relationship between media producers and studios
• Relationship between institutions and individuals
• Relationship between media contents and audiences
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STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINT AND
HUMAN
• “Structure” and “Agency”
areAGENCY
core concepts of
sociology
• Structure
• Any recurring pattern of social behavior
• Example: family structure, educational system
• Structure limits the human agency
• Agency
• Intentional and undetermined human action
• Example: students under an educational system
• Structure limits the agency, but agency reproduces and
changes social structure
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STRUCTURE AND AGENCY IN MEDIA
• Relationships Between Media and Other Institutions
• Social, economic, and political institutions set certain limits
on the media
• how social structures affect the media industry and how the
media affect other social institutions
• Relationships Within the Media Industry
• Internal workings of mass media
• the social positions, roles, practices, and personnel of media
• Relationships Between the Media and the Public
• How the audience interacts with media products
• How media contents are interpreted by the audience
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MASS COMMUNICATION VS.
MEDIA COMMUNICATION
Mass Communication
• One to many
transmission
• Few channels
• Unified audience
• Lack of individual
control
• Typical medium-TV
• Unified, controlled
content
• Media producersPower
Media Communication
• Many-tomany,Interactive
• Many channels
• Diverse audience
• Open & individual
control
• Internet
• Diverse, open, User
generated content
• Media users
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A MODEL OF MEDIA & THE SOCIAL WORLD
• Media messages about
the movement affect
audience
• Audience interprets the
meaning and significance
of the message
Media
Message /
Product
• Industry creates
messages about the
event
• Norms of news influence
media personnel
Readers /
Audience
Social
World
Media
Industry
• Audiences use new
technology to access
media messages
• Specific formats of
technology influence
audience’s media use
Technology
• Technology affects industry
practices
• Industry makes use of new
technology to cover the
event
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MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS &
NEWS REPORTING
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MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS
PERSPECTIVE
Media professionals do not make products under
circumstances chosen by themselves, but under
circumstances directly found, given, and transmitted
from the past.
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AGENCY VS. STRUCTURE IN MEDIA
ORGANIZATIONS
• “Agency”: human individuals
• “Structure”: organizations, traditions, culture,
conventions (and economics and politics)
• Every media occupation (agency) requires
socialization into roles and group culture
(structure)
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NEWS ROUTINES AND
CONVENTIONS
• The organization of news work
• News organizations need to know when
and where the required amount of news
will happen every day
• Before anything even takes place, news
organizations already make decisions
about where to look for news
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NEWS ROUTINES AND CONVENTIONS
• Front-page news story selection
• Technical, rule-based selection
• Newsworthiness criteria
• Convention-based selection
• What’s happening in editorial meeting
• Collective discussion of editors
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NEWS ROUTINES AND CONVENTIONS
• The conventions of “Beats” and “Rounds”
• Beats—sites where news is likely to take place
• Rounds—schedule for visiting locations and talking
to sources
• Beats and rounds are work routines that define what
reporter is exposed to
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MEDIA ORGANIZATION
AOL Time
Warner
Warner Bros
Pictures
Time, People,
Enter. Weekly
AOL Online
Services
Warner Music
Group
Moviefone
Cable
Networks
QUESTION
• So many people involved; how do these people cooperate and
produce a media product??
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daily fresh start?
agreements?
conventions?
social roles?
CONVENTIONS
• widely used practice or technique in a field
• identifying conventions
• explaining conventions
• conventions are constructed by human beings
• convention are not static but dynamic
• media professionals: conventions are the result of routines
ROUTINES
• Where do we find news?
What is newsworthy?
ROUTINES
• Where do we find news?
• news networks
• beats
• rounds
• Routines define newsworthiness
ROUTINES - EXAMPLE
• What is the news?
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large scale
close to home
clarity
time scale
relevance
consonance
Personification
• negativity
• significance
• drama and action
EXAMPLES?
source: McQuail, 2005: 310
ROUTINES - GATEKEEPING
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process of selection
pass through the gate into the news channel
also: literary agents, publishers, tv networks, et cetera
related to media access
ROUTINES-OBJECTIVITY
Objectivity:
"The belief in objectivity is a faith in 'facts', a
distrust of 'values', and a commitment tot
their segregation."
(Croteau & Hoynes, p. 132)
ROUTINES
• Objectivity
• a media practice
• strict separation of fact and value
objectivity
factuality
truth
relevance
informativeness
source: Westerstahl 1983, in:
McQuail, 2005: 202
impartiality
Balance
Neutrality
ROUTINES-OBJECTIVITY
6 key practices:
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maintaining political neutrality
decency and good taste
documentary reporting practices
standardized formats
training reporters as generalists
editorial reviews
• How do these interact with routines?
ROUTINES
Consequences of objectivity principle:
• similarity in news accounts
• socially constructed
• reflection of relative power
• some people are more newsworthy than others
• news net excludes events as well as includes
ROUTINES
• limits of objectivity:
• new and less obvious forms of bias
• news is at best reflection of small part
• claims of media freedom
• no distinction between true and false expression
• diversity
• objects reflected are not passive
SOCIALIZATION & ROLES
• "Roles can be thought of as the bundles of expectations that
are associated with different social positions." (Croteau &
Hoynes, 2003: 136)
• socially constructed
• internalized
• not rigid
• dynamic
• learned through socialization
JOURNALIST'S ROLES
• informative disseminator
• mirror or channel
• interpretative investigator
• interpreting and investigating complex questions, government claims
• adversary
• fourth estate
• watchdog
NEWS ROUTINES AND
CONVENTIONS
• Have You Ever Wondered Why
• News reports are remarkably same across the media
• There is so much news on the activities of official institutions
Charlie Brooker
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RISE OF USER-GENERATED CONTENT
• Users and mainstream media
• Audience comments and contributions
• Example: CNN iReport
• Pro-Am efforts
• Professional and amateur collaboration
• Example: The Guardian, blogs
• Collaborative creation
• All amateur
• Example: Wikinews
• Citizen journalism
• Every citizen can be a news reporter
• Examples: OhMyNews, Current TV
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GROUP ASSIGNMENT 1: THE PRACTICE OF
OBJECTIVITY
• Form groups of 4
• Write a news story about an event (e.g. campus event,
neighborhood, local event etc.).
• Observe the norms of objectivity—maintaining balance, avoiding
highly charged language, attributing opinions to sources, keep
your own personal views out of the story.
• Max 500 words.
• Give suitable title etc.
• Post the story on the course blog by Sunday, 25.11.2012, 5pm.
• Read the stories posted on our CB and comment on at least 2
stories. (Not your own!)
• Preferably: Try not to comment blindly, follow the given comment
and reply to it.
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ASSIGNMENTS
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Hand in on time, otherwise not graded
Bring paper copy to class
Upload on BB & Course Blog
Email me if you have problems
Write name, student no, word count, page no.,
staple pages etc.
TOPIC PRESENTATIONS
• Groups
MINUTE MEMO FOR YOUR BLOG
What is the most important
concept or idea you have learnt
about today?
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