CMNS 110 Final Fall 2025

The Medium is the Message

McLuhan stated that the medium changes how we live and think more than the content inside it.

Ritual View of Communication

Carey believes communication is a ritual that builds community, not just a means of transferring information.

Bridge and Chasm/Dualism

Communication is imagined as a perfect bridge between people, but Peters says there is always a gap; we can never fully share the same mind.

Power/Knowledge

Foucault says that power decides what counts as truth, and these "truths" help keep power in place.

Discipline

a form of power that controls people through rules, routines, and surveillance, so they start monitoring and correcting themselves, becoming docile.

Dark Sousveillance

To Browne, these are practices where black people and other marginalized groups watch back, document, and resist systems that surveil them.

Interpellation

Althusser argues that ideology "calls" people into identities, and they recognize themselves in those roles.

ISA/RSA

ISA shapes beliefs through culture; RSA enforce order through force or threat.

Technologies of Gender

De Lauretis argues that media and cultural systems produce and shape gender norms, and they teach us what gender should look like.

Identification

Burkes says that rhetoric creates a feeling of shared identification between people.

Constitutive Rhetoric

Charland states that rhetoric forms a people by telling them who they are through shared stories.

Myths

Barthes states that they are the second layer of meaning that make cultural ideas feel natural or "common sense."

Signifier/ Signified

The signifier is what you see or hear; the signified is the idea it represents.

Anchorage

When text (a caption or slogan) limits or "anchors" the possible meaning of an image.

Relay

When a text and image work together to create a more complex meaning.

Encoding

Producers encode messages using cultural codes.

Decoding

Audiences decode these encoded messages in different ways based on their own experiences

Ethnoscapes

Appadurai describes this term as the flow of people, such as migrants, tourists, refugees, and diasporas, across borders.

Technoscapes

The flow of technologies, machines, and technical expertise between countries and regions.

Finanscape

The flow of money, capital, and financial markets around the world.

Mediascape

The global circulation of media content, images, and platforms that shapes how people imagine the world.

Ideoscape

The flow of political ideas, values, and ideologies (like democracy, nationalism, human rights).

Deterritorialization

When culture travels beyond its original place, like K-pop fans living in Canada or Mexican food becoming popular worldwide.

Hybridity

Kraidy describes this term as the mixing of cultural forms (local + global), where new hybrid cultures emerge, but they are always within unequal power relations.

Media Rituals

Couldry states that this term is regular media practices (like big broadcasts or events that make media seem like the natural centre of social life).

Myth of the Mediated Centre

The belief that the media represents the central place where society happens and that we must look to them to see what really matters.

Pre-Propaganda

Soft messaging that shapes people's beliefs so that future propaganda is easier to accept.

Propaganda

media designed to influence people toward a political or ideological goal

Public Sphere

Habermas describes this phrase as a space where people discuss issues and form public opinion.

Subaltern Counter-publics

alternative spaces where marginalized groups create their own discussions and viewpoints.

Strong Publics

Strong = can influence decisions

Weak publics

Weak = can only talk, not decide