media case studies

Boyle

a key feature of new media is technological convergence merging discincit techs into one- e.g. a smart phone which as notes, calucater, camera, etc on it negating the need to carry round those physcial items.

Helper (2011)

the use of internet has increased slower than other groups in the digital underclass +those with access rate their digital skills as poorer than more educated groups.

Boyle (2007)

new media is associated with young people.

Ofcom

older people are using social networking sites more now than in the past.

Borins (2008)

There are three siginfcaet changes in traditional media as new media’s influnce is now more notable:

• Citizen journalism is a part of the news cycle, using it a way to find content.

• Newspapers are held accountable (e.g. with the BBC being held accountable for they report about Israel’s bombing of Gaza).

• News values has changed from a professional and formal tone to a ‘non-professioanl’ content as it’s the only way to gain audiences and make a profit.

Li and Kirkup (2007)

Men are more likely to use email or chatrooms; also more likely to play video games on consoles e.g. the Xbox.

Royse et al (2007)

Women are more likely to play games that allow them to challenge gender norms.

OFCOM (2015)

Men are more likely to access the internet + women are more likely to use social networking sites.

Olsen et al (2008)

Men are more likely to play video games as they want to express fantasies of power and glory with many using it as a chance to work out their anger and stress.

Hartmann and Klimmt (2006)

Women dislike the violent content and preferred the social interaction side of games e.g. Sims or animal crossing.

The Internet Advertising Bureau (2014)

state that because of the rise in smartphones, women account for 52% of all gamers because of games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds that the tech of smartphones enable to exist. More appealing to women because they were free (women generally get paid less), intuitive and accessible.

Curram and Leaton (2003)

There are 2 views of new media:

1- neophillias: believe that new media is beneficial and positive

2-Cultural pessimists: those who believe that the benefits new media has, are overexgarted/ overemphasised

Herbert Marcuse

‘Bread and Circuses’:

media ownership controls the working class though a bread and circuses approach where media produces dumbed down enterminet; keeps us fed to distract us from our expolitan.

e.g. the hunger games

millibard (1973)

ownership

media directly manipulates the way we think about the world; spreads dominat ideagoloy as the truth, playing a intentional role.

IRL ex: Rupert Murdoch controlled editors and journalists and the content to enforce the ruling class and status quo.

also agrees that content produced ridicules or ignores threating groups (e.g. liberals and leftists mocked in mainstream media)

Castles and Kosack

media suits the ruling classes and portays the ethnic groups as threats (reform uk) to take attention away from the ruling classes’s failings to distract; thus, divide and conquer.

Also believes that audiences only recivers a narrow range of ‘approved’ views

Bagdikian (2014)

In the US, media is controlled by 6 companies- if all those businesses in the big ones had owners there’d be 25,000.

Disney: ABC+ Pixar

Warner Brothers (CNN+HBO)

Media Reform Coalition (2023)

3 companies (News UK, DMG Media, Reach PLC) control 90% of the UK newspaper market- hasn't changed since 2018.

Over 50% of national UK papers sold are controlled by 2 billionaires (Rupert Murdoch and Jonathan Harmsworth 4th viscount of Rothermore).

Cornford and Robins (1999)- commercialisation

Companies that sell goods engage in consumer surveillance (cookies) as they monitor and track consumers so they can target future audiences. THIS encourages us to become materialistic and promotes consumerism. ALSO creates false needs- marxist belief- as we’re told what we need securing captialsitm domination.

Cornford and Robbins (1999)- cultural pessimists

The relationship between new and tradadtional media is like old Hollywood movies and remakes. New media is isn’t new, the speed by which news can travel (people find out about major global news via social media e.g. Pope Francis’s death) and quality is better.

Interactivy has always existed e.g. agony aunt pages where people could complain existed before new media.

New media is just a extention and refinement of traditional media.

Curran: support for instrumentalic marxist approach

Murdoch supports/witholds crictisms of governments who match his interests and goals:

• 1979-92: because the economic policies benefited him- supported tories

• 1997: supported new media as they were willing to lift policies preventing cross-media ownership, facilitating economic growth for Murdoch.

• He has a ‘personalised’ style of management where he instructed editors to follow his views, sacking those who didn't comply.

Gramsci

audiences may experince dual-class consciousness (so will not blindly believe everything shown in the media)

GUMG: social and ethnic background of journalists

journalists are overwhelmingly white and have a middle class background

GUMG: consensus views

Journalists share similar ‘consenus views’ with anything outside of this mc status being considered exterme so is either not included in media, or is riduclded.

Sutton trust (2016)

50% of top 100 journalists were privately educated- only 7% of UK privately educated

GUMG : agenda setting

the media decides what issues should be discussed by society and what should be included. they will espically promote views that align with capitalism or meritorctay.

• gate keeping is when they choose to not show us things.

Curran

instrumentalist marxist

• evidence of subtle (or not) control/influnence the owners have on media content

Strinti (1995)

idendity’s defined more by consumption patterns (what you buy and the media you chose to consume) rather than class or gender.

Media provides our social reality- defining our lifestyles and identity.

Image/idendity more important than content as we buy brands/labels rather than the goods themselves- links to Baudillard’s sign objects.

Baudrillad (1998)

media has created a ‘hyperreality’ (for the audiences) as diffulct to draw a line between real life and the media’s version of reality

• e.g. Love Island or Made In Chelsea

Trowler (1998)

media messages are polysemic (media that’s open to multiple interpretations). Just because the media is out there doesn’t mean the consumer will automatically absorb and/or interiaze the message.

Levene

choice and diversity makes it easier to challenge meta-narratives from the powerful. Now media can be used to defeat corporate giants.

Ofcom (2024): Trust and popularity of the news

• the internet is trusted by 71%, TV is trusted 70%, and social media 52%.

• Circulation of national newspapers down, only being trusted by 41% of UK adults.

• PBS (public broadcasting services) most trusted news source.

McQuail (1992)

not all events will be reported in the news because of the sheer volume of it. So, the news is socially constructed as it’s selected by the gatekeepers who decide what’s important enough to be covered and what to not put in.

Spencer-Thomas (2003)

What determines if something is newsworthy is if it passes certain criteria, and how much prominence its given.

Galtung and Ruge: news values

Sociologists in Norway.

Determined criteria that would factor in to if a new story should be included.

Notable ones include Unambiguaty (very clear story e.g. there’s a new royal baby), personalisation (events that can be presented in terms or actions of an individual e.g. Andrew is a nonce), Continuity (events with a continied impact and have appeared before e.g. Angela Rayner not paying her stamp tax) and composition (events that balance news coverage e.g. Met gala and genocide).

Others include: Extradites, threshold, elite people and nations, frequency and negativity.

Harrup and O’Neill (2001)

Updated Galtung and Ruge by making it applicable to british newspapers.

• Power elite

• celebrity

• entertainment

• surpine

• bad news

• good news

• magnitude

• follow ups

• media agenda- UK thing only

Brighton and Fay

Newsvalues assumes that there is a consensus amongst journalists and audiences as to what is newsworthy

What makes something newsworthy varies between cournty to cournty.

Davies

‘churnalists” simply churn out facts and stories given to them without question- 80% of all tabloid newspapers

Phillips

journalists often asked to re-write stories that have appeared in other newspaper’s websites

McChesney (2002)

News values are a idealogical myth to present corporate media monopoly as natural.

Owners influence the news though their editorial approach e.g. Rupert Murdoch is choosing his heir out of his 3 kids based on ‘the most conservative one’.

Herman and Chomsty (2002)

power of ads as they support the elite as the news’s filtered to ensure it supports capitalism.

Hall (1973)

The news supports capitalists intrrests cos the powerful have better access to the the media

There is a hierarchy of creditability with the views of primary definers (politicians, business leaders, police, etc) being considred more important than the views of normal people. E.g. Nigel Farage told the daily mail that “The left tried to silence my friend” in relation to Charlie Kirk’s shooting.

Stanley Cohen (1972)

a moral panic is the consequence of out of proportion reporting and the ancxiety it causes the population.

Wrote ‘Folk devils (the people at the heart of the moral panic) and moral panic’.

Media reaction to youth distribution (the mods and pods- youth subculutres) in 1964 blew small-scale scuffles out of porption calling it a ‘day of terror’ and a ‘battle’ when it was just 2 groups who were a threat to the social order.

Media attempted to impose control demanding more policing and severe punishment- but instead suggestied that it was fun and normal to young people.

Galtung and Ruge

moral panics are newsworthy events e.g. the 2011 London riots were both negative and extradoniy- both newsworthy values

Stanley Cohen

moral panics can generate more profit for businesses

Stuart Hall

• a marxist

moral panics were invented to divide the working class and divert their attention away from the problems at hand- the mismangamnet of capitalism.

Jewkes (2015)

Moral panics have flaws because:

• the levels of delincancy differ amongst different panics e.g. mods and rockers had mimial violence whereas the London riots in 2011 had cars on fire

• Not all fault devils (the group at the centre of the moral panic) are fairly critiqued. E.g. in the 90s people were concerned about the media leading to their children being groomed whereas there was also a panic about buying tons of loo roll and petrol in 2020 and 2021.

• Moral panics are deterministic as it assumes that the public will passively trust the media.

McRobbie and Thornton (1995)

new media undermines moral panics by the frequency in which they appear, meaning the audience is now desensitised. Audiences are also savvy, critical of the media and are exposed to diversity.

McLuhan (1962): global village

developments in the electronic mass media and communications insfracture means that the world feels smaller, having been transformed into 1 global village with information being instantly transmitted 24/7 across the globe.

e.g. TikTok

Scott and Marshall (2009)

culture defined by what’s transmitted socially- everything we learn from others such as norms, values and tradidtions.

Strianti (1995)

the distinciation between high and low culture has been blurred because of how essential globisaltion is because of its effect on the increased amounts of consumption choices- which have inevitability changed our lifestyle and idendity.

Muthy (2013)

new media esp twitter critical for increasing political awanress and co-ordination of mass political responses to issues

• e.g. Boycotts against Starbucks, the role of Facebook in spreading the news about the Arab spring around and George Floyd murder video posted online.

Marcuse: how pop culture and capitalist ideagoly interact

global mass culture indoctrinates consumers into capitalist ideagoly

Marcuse: how pop culture encourages conformity

though 3 avenues:

1- Commodity fetishism: pop culture products have the power to enhance your life’s quality e.g. new iPods or iPhone.

2- False needs: consumers are persuaded into buying products that are ‘essential’ to their lifestyle and identity e.g. Microtrends such as barbiecore in July 2023

3- Conspicuous consumption: the need to be seen with the ‘right’ cultural products e.g. iPhones are deslibatu engineed to degrade in quality over time to force you to buy the next one. 

Flew (2007): Americanisation

Globisation is a misnomer for americanisation e.g. cocacolonsation: when non-americas cultures worship American products neglceting their own.

US imports media products and pop culture to less powerful nations; transmit the American way of life in the process

McChensey

Americanisation is the result of increased concentration of media ownership

Fuchs

TNCs dominate trade in pop culture; has an sig influence over the governments e.g. may try to appease companies such as Amazon or Unilever in order to ensure the employment won’t leave with them.

Ritzer (2008): McDonaldisation

increasingly cultural products are derived per the American population cultural model

Turkle

Americanisation has caused civic disengagement as involvement in communities has decreased.

Held et al (2003)

The idea of cultural imperialism suggests that the flow of culture is only one way and fails to acknowledge cultural flows- e.g. chicken tikka being very popular in the UK, with the prevalence of not- British food being common. 

Cohen and Kennedy

idea of cultural imperialism undermines the strength of local cultures as they can enjoy the global culture without sacrificing or neglecting their own. 

Thompson

cultural hybridisation can occur as a result of cultural imperialism as the local culture can adapt to the global cluture e.g. Kpop or Bollywood.

Connell (2002)

The feminine identity is still the product of hegemonic (trad and dominant widely accepted ideas) how the sexes should be socialised and behave as adults.

Tuchman et al

symbolic annilition also describes how women’s achievements are a) condemned and b) trivialised

Turnstall’s ideas about how women are represented in media

women are depicted in 4 ways

1. The sexual object- links to the sexy lamp test so Amy pond in her first season of doctor who

2. housewives- Molly Weasley 

3. Content mother- loralai Gilmore

4. eager consumer- London Tipton

Newbold (2002)

what little coverage women do get in sports, sexualisation, trivialities and the devaluing of women’s sporting achievements often follow. 

Jones (2004)

women althletes often infantilised or portrayed as emontial

Duncan and Messner (2005)

commenters- which is 97% men- refer to female athletes as ‘girls’, whereas men are rarely called ‘boys’

Sahinay (2015)

in the coverage of female politicians often negative comments on weight, dress style, family life, etc

just the woman report

women who have a level of social status are unfairly critical and humiliated- e.g. politicians

Martinson et al (2012)

there are few polticial/economic experts who are women; there are few stories about women’s experiences

e.g. men speak much more than women in best picture winning films

Cochrane (2011)

news, current affairs+ political comedy panel shows are male dominated

e.g Sandi Toksvig was payed the same as Alan Davies- the long time team captain- despite being the host of QI; it was ½ of Stephen Fry’s wage.

ALSO- in panel tv shows women are always shown to be laughing at the men’s jokes instead of being funny themselves. 

mills (2014)

news rooms are entrenched in a male dominated culture with the potent ‘bloke culture’ meaning its a off-putting environment for women to be in- means the men get the really cool or relevant story while the women don’t as this bloke culture will also extend to pubs.

Ferguson (1993)

women’s magazines between 1949-1980 organised around the ‘cult of feminity’ as it promoted a ideal where excellence is achieved by caring for others, looks and marriages- thus she concluded that they were like ‘apperinacte’s manuals’ as it taught women domestic skills. 

winship (1987)

media gives women more options with female specific problems ignored by the media

ballister (1991)

modern maganises presents constrictors messages to women- both strong and submissive

Naomi Wolf (1990)

the beauty myth- media presents a particular physcial image of what is a ideal body type for women; its not attainable for most. Thus, suggests to women that they’re bodies are like a project always in need of some improvement 

Orbson (1991)

linked images in maganises (or any thing that propagates the beauty myth) to anoxia and bulimia in young girls

barnyard (2010)

only five minutes of exposure to these beauty myth photos causes viewers to feel low-self esteem about their own bodies

muvey (1975)

films employ the male gaze where the lens essentially eyes up the female characters- providing pleasure for the men

• Megan fox in transformers

Green and Singleton (2013)

social media can empower women (both times up and metoo links to Jenkin’s partipcatry culture)

Plant (1997)

new media can destabilise the patrichary as women are able to explore, destablise or create new identities outisde of hegemonic feminity’s values/standards. Also explored how it allows women to challenge negative representation.

everyday sexism project

New Childhood (1999)

a study where 10-17 year old boys asked about what type of male character they’ve seen on screen:

1- violent and angry

2- focused on girls

3- leaders and problem solvers

4- condifndet, funny, authentic and successfull

5- rarely showing vulnerability, or crying

6-mostly at work, not at home

• over 1/3 of partipcants said that they had never seen a man do domestic work on telly

Eastthorpe (1990)

media transmits the idea that mascunlity is based on strength, violence and completion, creating a idealogical myth as not attainable for all men.

McNamara (2006)

Generally, the represeantion of men is demonised in media espailly in masculinity.

• 80% of representation was negative- violent, absent fathers, aggressive

• 20% of representation positive and featured men who were in touch with their feminine side being active fathers and emontially vulnerable 

Mort (1988)

• post modernist view

the rise in fashion magnise’s/products reflects change in social attidues of men as they are created by media such as glossy mags like GQ from the 90s onwards marketed towards middle class men. 

Edwards (1997)

• Marxist view

the rise of the heterosexual male benefits capitalism as more profit is generated form the marketing towards both men and women.

Gauntlett

• post modernist view

For heterosexual males says that it has a positive presence in media as it encourages men to be caring, stay healthy and contruibuite to the household tasks

For gender representation as a whole in media says that the absence of any straightforward messages about mascunlnity/feminity from mass media (as it’s challenging those gender sterotypes), encourages a greater diversity of masculine+ feminine ideas

Rutherford: retributive mascunlity 

attempts at reasserting masculine authority by celebrating ‘traditional masculine economy’ e.g. how they emphasise “birds, booze and football”.

Colliers (1992)

men’s magansies are contridticarty in their representation as no clear way to be a man (adolescent)