media ethics

part 1

media are

means of mass communication

print media

any media disseminated through physical publications (Gutenberg’s press)

motion picture + sound

distributable, physical records featuring audio and\or video.

evolvement of music recording and film; shared experience.

broadcast media

audiovisual media distributed via public airwaves.

allows info to travel and watched X in one place.

new media

distributable via digital computer technology

symbolically

second-hand

somatically

first-hand

media characteristics

1. social & technological (text - post, tech - phone)

2. involves senders & receivers

3. ALWAYS open to interpretation

4. is everywhere (X such thing as unmediated communication)

convergence - key traits

1. mobility → across space & time

2. fragmentation → mass aud. is splitter by interest, data etc.

3. globalisation → cross cultural comm across geopolitical boundaries.

4. simulation → m distorts reality (news go through layers of editing etc. before you see it on fyp).

critical cultural studies

requires us to be skeptical of m m narratives and to craft
media that helps us build a better world.

medium theory

tech \ individual comm medium is equally \ more important than the message.

“the medium is the message”

time bias

durable, lasting w\out modifications

limited audience

creation & interpretation - open to selected few

stability, community, tradition

space bias

flexible, travel & change

many audiences

creation & interpretation - more democratic, everyone

rapid change, individualism, less hierarchy

medium theorists divide society into three civilisations

oral - speech, multi sensory, f2f, local + small audience, knwldg preservation, communal

literate - paper, visual, medium (tied to transp), distant + mass aud, discovery of new knwldg, segmented + individualistic

electronic - light+sound, visual+aural, instantaneous (waves, wires), decentered + niche aud, access to + retrieval of knwldg, connected.

hot media

extends senses in ⬆ definition

⬆clarity, depth

“satiate senses”

defined, little participation and interpretation

cold media

extends senses in ⬇ definition

⬇clarity, depth

audience needs to fill in gaps

open to participation + interpretation

McLuhan’s media tetrad

Media:

EXTENDS - human property, sense, ability;

OBSOLESCES - previous medium;

REVERSES - its properties when taken to an extreme;

RETRIEVES - makes reference to a much older medium.

rhetoric

– the use of symbols (a kind of sign) to influence people

semiotics

- the study of the role of signs in social life

sign

anything that conveys meaning.

signifier

things that give meaning - physical\material, such as word, image etc.

signified

what is evoked in the mind - the mental concept

Arbitrary

no necessary INHERIT relationship between the signifier and signified;

it is acquired - e.g. different languages - diff words

types of signs

icon, index\indeces, symbol

icon

logic of =similarity;

DIRECTLY MIRRORS WHAT IS REPRESENTS (picture of an apple - apple)

index\indeces

signifier and signified
linked by cause or association.

symbol

linked by social conventions\agreement,

SMTH WE LEARNED

denotation

literate, dictionary definition.

connotation

the implied, associated meaning.

rhetoric structures

CLUSTER - how signs associate\disassoc w each other.

GENRE - makes us expect certain things about the product.

NARRATIVE - makes us expect certain things about the product.

FORM - how it develops, what part are most important.

affect

any emotional intensity registered by the body besides those evoked by signs.

triggered by: music, tone, movements, expressions, light.

“material turn”

shift in humanities + social science research away from just words, culture, and ideas,

and toward the importance of physical objects and "things"

culture (definition)

the collection of artefacts, practices, and beliefs,

of a particular group of people

at a particular historical moment

supported by symbolic systems

+directed by ideology.

culture is

physical

social (habits)

attitudinal (how culture think broadly ab some issues)

collective

rhetorical

historical

ideological

ideology definition

system of ideas that unconsciously shapes our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours.

ideology - what it does

limits, normalizes, privileges, intepellates

hegemony

when powerful institutions assert dominant ideas over subordinate;  

→ we learn only one version of events

myth

the stories we tell about our world.

doxa

the ideas we take for granted,

«common sense»

structures of feeling

about how affect works in ideology;

the way we feel about culture contributes to our acceptance of ideology.