Explorations in Mass Communication: Issues and Controversies€¦ · Communication: Issues and...

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Explorations in Mass

Communication: Issues and

Controversies

Catherine Murray

Fall 2003


Course Team

Diana Ambrozas

Doris Baltruschat

Wei Gao

Natalie Tkachev


Course Objectives

To provide a map to navigate the field

history & political economy

Popular culture & media analysis

Society and technology

Locate contemporary

controversies


Course Skills

Develop the Four stages of critical thinking:

Description

Analysis, Framing of

Arguments and Proof

Interpretation & Debate

Evaluation/Originality


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


Course Tools

Framing arguments

Organizing proof

Writing persuasively

Developed in tutorial debates

Short essay paper


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


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?


Recent Issues & Controversies


Key Concepts

Media & Communication defined

Mass Communication defined

Model of the Communication Process

Mapping the Flow


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


Media of “Mass” Communication

Print Newspapers

Magazines Books

Audio Radio Music/Sound Recording

Visual Film

TV Videogames

Digital Internet


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 meaningful exchange of

information”


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


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?


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

between sender and receiver


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


Characteristics of Mass Communication

1. Message produced in complex organizations 2. Message fixed in some form with information

and symbolic content ( either in digital bits or commodity form)

3. Message is sent/transmitted or diffused widely via a technological medium

Newspaper, magazine, CD or videocassette, radio, television, satellite or Internet

4. Message is delivered rapidly over great space 5. Message reaches large groups of different people

simultaneously or within a short period of time 6. Message is primarily one-way, not two way


Transformation of ‘Mass’ Communication

Arrival of computers and switched two-way 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


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


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 • Withdrawal of public sector, less regulation, more role

for market


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 � 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 re-purposing or storage of information on unprecedented scale

6. Specialization ( part of “demassification”) � Narrowly “casting’ or “targeting” communication to particular interests…

shrinking share of general interest TV

7. Personalization � The “daily me”: personal tailoring of media diet/media products

� Ideal type: MP3 downloading of custom music


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.


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


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.


Next Week: Media and Modernity

Read Fleras

Tutorial: Introduction to the Media

BACK TO LECTURE NOTES

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Explorations in Mass Communication: Issues and Controversies€¦ · Communication: Issues and...

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