COM107 EXAM 1

Regional Editions

Communications

creations and use of symbols that convey info and meaning

Culture

Symbols of expression that individual groups and societies use to make sense of daily life and articulate value

Mass Media

cultural industries

Mass Communication

Process of designing cultural messages and stories and delivering them to large & diverse audience through media channels

Digital Communication

Images, texts, and sounds are converted into electronic signals that are then resembled as a precise reproduction of a TV picture, a magazine article, a song, or a telephone voice

Selective Exposure

seek messages and produce meanings that correspond to their own cultural benefits, values, and interests

Convergence

all the changes that have occurred over the past decade and are still occurring

Cross Platform

business model that involves consolidating various media holdings

Narrative

Storytelling

High Culture

"good taste" associates with fine arts

Low Culture

"taste of the masses" junk

Modern Period

Beginning with the industrial revolution to the mid-twentieth century

Progressive Era

period of political and social reform that lasted roughly from the 1890's to the 1920's

Postmodern Period

mid-twentieth century to today

Media Literacy

attaining and understanding mass media and how they construct meaning

Critical Process

descriptive, analysis, interpretation, evaluations, and engagement

Description

The first step in the critical process, it involves paying close attention, taking notes, and researching the cultural product to be studied

Analysis

The second step in the critical process, it involves discovering significant patterns that emerge from the description stage

Interpretation

The third step in the critical process, it asks and answers the "What does this mean?" and "So what?" questions about ones finding

Evaluation

The fourth step in the critical process, it involves arriving at a judgement about whether a cultural product is good, bad, or mediocre; this requires subordinating one's personal taste to the critical assessment resulting from the first 3 stages

Engagement

The fifth step in the critical process, it involves actively working to create a media world that best serves democracy

Linear model of communication

Communication is a one way process where the sender is the only one who sends message and the receiver doesn't give feedback or response

Culture as a skyscraper

Parasocial Relationship

One-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other's existence

Major Eras in communication

Oral - harder to expand knowledge to others, stories change with oral communications, stories die with the person, can't build on the knowledge because you are limited to what a human brain can hold and remember

Written - record knowledge that people have and easily share ideas/stories

Print

Electronic - telegraph (instantaneous over distance), photography (share images, see what something looks like without artist interstation), radio (send messages without wire, messages from anywhere), TV (moving pictures in homes)

Digital - ARPAnet

Social changes brought on by Printing Press

Helped spread knowledge

Challenges authority of Papacy (95 Theses and Protestant Reformation)

Growth of nationalism

Spread vernacular languages

Authoritarian Model

Model of journalism and speech that tolerates little public dissent/criticism of gov.

Holds that the public needs guidance from an elite and educated class

Communist/State Model

Press is controlled by the gov.

State leaders believe the press should serve gov. goals

Social Responsibility Model

Privately owned

US follows this model

Fourth Estate

Unofficial branch of the gov. that monitors the other 3 for abuses of power and provides info necessary for for self governance

Libertarian Model

Encourages vigorous gov. criticism and supports the highest degree of individual and press freedoms

Prior Restraint

Prohibits courts and gov from blocking any publication/speech before it actually occurs

Copyright

legally protects right of authors and producers to their published/unpublished writing, music, lyrics, TV, movies, or graphic designs

Public Domain

gives the public free access to the work

Libel

Deformation of a character in written or broadcast form

Slander

Spoken language that defames a person's character

Actual Malice

A reckless disregard for the truth, such as when a reporter or an editor knows that a statement is false and prints or airs it anyway

Qualified Privilege

A legal right allowing journalists to report judicial or legislative proceedings even though the public statements being reported may be libelous

Opinion and Fair Comment

A defense against libel that states that libel applies only to intentional misstatements of factual information rather than to statements of opinion

Obscenity

Expression that is not protected as speech if these three legal tests are all met:

The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the material as a whole appeals to prurient interest

The material depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way

The material, as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

Right to Privacy

Addresses a persons right to be left alone, without his/her name, image, or daily activities becoming public property

Gag Orders

Legal restrictions prohibiting the press from releasing preliminary info that might prejudice jury selection

Shield Laws

Laws protecting the confidentiality of key interview subjects and reporters' rights not to reveal the sources of controversial information used in news stories

Indecency

An issue related to appropriate broadcast content; the government may punish broadcasters for indecency or profanity after the fact, and over the years a handful of radio stations have had thier licenses suspended or denied over indecent programming.

Section 315

Part of the 1934 Communications Act; it mandates that during elections, broadcast stations must provide equal

Fairness Doctrine

Repealed in 1987, this FCC rule required broadcast stations to both air and engage in controversial issue programs that affected their communities and, when offering such programming, to provide competing points of view

John Milton

Areopagitica (1644)

Hutchins Commission

Commission on Freedom of the Press

The commission was established as a response to criticism from the public and government over media ownership

Pentagon Papers

A secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam

Motion Picture Production Code

Set of industry moral guidelines that was applied to most United States motion pictures released by major studios

NY Times V. Sullivan

For average person to prove libel, they must show:

Public statement was false

Damages occurred

Publisher was negligent

Public figures have harder time showing libel

Must show actual malice (the intention or desire to do evil; ill will)

Knew statement was false & published it anyway, or they acted in reckless disregard of truth

Miller V. California

Community standards; whole work lacks political, scientific, artistic or educational value

Red Lion Case

The parties in two separate cases sought review of the constitutionality of the fairness doctrine and component rules by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC's position was upheld as constitutional in one case and the rules were held unconstitutional in the other.

Hays Office

Motion Picture Production Code

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn3dCIJ91Nw

PICAN Standards

Public Interest Convenience and Necessity

Radio Act of 1927/Communications Act of 1934

News

The process of gathering info and making narrative reports - edited by individuals on a news organization - that create selected frames of reference and help the public make sense of prominent people, important events, and unusual happenings in everyday life

Newsworthiness

The often unstated criteria that journalists use to determine which events and issues should become news reports, including timeliness, proximity, conflict, prominence, human interest, consequence, usefulness, novelty, and deviance

Ethnocentrism

An underlying value held by many US journalists and citizens, it involves judging other countries and cultures and cultures according to how they live up to or imitate American practices/ideals

Responsible Capitalism

An underlying value held by many US journalists and citizens, it assumes that business people should complete with one another not primarily to maximize profits but to increase prosperity for all