Chapter 1: Mass Communication

Media Literacy

Understanding of media’s powerful influence on the world

Mass media

The industries that create and distribute songs, novels, newspapers, movies, internet services, TV shows, magazines, and other products to large number of people

Mass communication

creation and use of symbols that convey info to large and diverse audience (e.g language, Morse code, binary)

Oral Era

Information and knowledge circulated via spoken traditions

Written Era

Manuscripts were transcribed by philosophers, monks, stenographer commissioned and owned by the ruling class

Print Era

Gutenberg printing press mass produced books that brought resistance to authority, new socioeconomic classes, spread of literacy, and focus on individualism

Electronic Era

Period characterized by the rise of digital communication technologies ( telegraph, radio, and television) and media during the industrial revolution

Digital Era

current period characterized by the widespread use of digital technologies and quick access to knowledge in almost every aspect of life

Digital Turn

Shift in media use and consumption from the emergence of the internet as a mass medium

Media Convergence

-Tech merging of content across dif media channels

-Consolidation of media holdings under one corporate umbrella

Media innovation

1. Development stage (inventors try to solve a particular problem)

2. Entrepreneurial Stage (inventors find a practical use for device)

3. Mass medium stage (Business plan marketing strategy)

4. Convergence stage (older media are reconfigured into new digital media)

Culture

Symbol of expression that individual, groups, and societies use to make sense of daily life and articulate their values

Linear model

Sender → Message → Mass media channel → gatekeeper → receives

-message don’t alway get to target receives and receives don’t always understand messages

Cultural Model

Recognizes that individuals bring dif meaning to messages based on gender, age, ethnicity, etc’; allows audience to affirm, interpret, refashion, or reject messages

Culture as skyscraper metaphor

High culture: good taste, higher education, fine are

Low (pop) culture: questionable taste of the masses

Culture as a map metaphor

Ongoing process that accommodates diverse taste and flattens out hierarchy

Values of modern era

(Industrial Rev.- Mid 1900s)

Working effectively

Celebrating Individuals

Believing in Rational Order

Rejecting traditions and embracing technology

Values of postmodern period

(Mid 1900s-today) celebrating populism, questioning authority, embracing tech

Requirements of being media literate

1. Description

2. Analysis

3. Interpretation

4. Evaluation

5. Engagement