Kaarten: Critical thinking in Communication Science | Quizlet

Mainstream theory

-social sciences like natural sciences

-one and one only true theory

Critical Theory

-associated with Marxism

-science is not neutral

-science must be a critique

Positivism

Based on sociologism, empiricism, scientism, progressivism and naturalism

Interpretivism

-Focus on how people make sense of the social world

-truth is constructed and there is no fixed reality

-observable world is dominated by underlying structures

-divides in social constructivism and critical realism

Social constructivism

-there is no truth, all knowledge is constructed and

Critical realism

-objective world exist but we cannot see it due to our bias

-un observable structures cause observable events

Political economy

-Focus on structure, production and distribution of media from an economic pov

-linked to critical realism

-repression thesis, manipulation theory, commodity thesis

Cultural studies

-focus on domination within culture and on how people make sense

-linked to social constructivism

-emancipation thesis, alternative media thesis, reception thesis

Dual meaning of political economy

-political economy as economic policy (governmental intervention)

-political economy as political aspects of economy (Marxist tradition)

Classical economy

Smith, free market can regulate itself, capitalism is good

Neoclassical economy

Laws of supply and demand (if price goes down, demand goes up)

marginalist model

There is an intersection between supply and demand, which is the market equilibrium

Marginal cost

the cost of producing one more unit of a good

Marginal utility

Value of buying one more unit of a good

Market equilibrium

a situation in which quantity demanded equals quantity supplied, best economic outcomes

Critical economy

Relations of production are relations of power because labour value is appropriated by the capitalist

Commodification

Good that is turned into something to sell

Commodification of content

Production of content just to sell it

Commodification of attention

Production of content just to attract advertisers

Commodification of labour

Treating labor as a market commodity, the user becomes producer of content that will be resold

Hegemony

Tool to persuade the masses with dominant ideology

Frankfurter schule

First to produce critical studies on mass communication, content is commodified, standardised and massified to reproduce the dominant ideology and legitimise elements in society

Their analysis is btw too reductionist, pessimistic and classist

French school

Structuralist theory: the world is artificial but there is a universal structure of signification regardless of the origins of the theory

Linguistic turn

Language is constructed by signifiers that are connected with each other and have a loose relationship to reality. Society can be studied just as a language. However, social structures are not as malleable as a language

British school

Critique to FS: culture is full of antagonisms, it can be either something to dominate or emancipate

There is no high/low culture, it's elitist

Technology studies

The focus is mostly on technological devices

Technological determinism

Technology shapes society

2 types of TD

1. Optimist, tech brings progress

2. Pessimistic, tech brings disruption

Social determinism

It's society that shapes technology

Reductionism

Way of thinking of causality that attributes causes of everything to one entity

Domestication process

1. Acceptance (how tech entrance is managed)

2. Objectification (how is physically used)

3. Incorporation (how tech is fit into routines)

4. Acceptance (how tech is displayed by user to others)

Interpretative flexibility

Different groups in society can perceive a technology in a different way until a dominant meaning appears

Radical innovation

Discontinuous event that causes a new kind of economic activity

Technological revolution

Introduction of a new technological paradigm, this will inevitably bring change in society

Kondratiev waves

Kondratiev waves are cycles of economic growth and decline, each about 50 years long.

Peaks are high consumes of technology, down turns are saturation of market, high turns are innovations

Why doesn't the neoclassical model work?

1. Buyers and sellers will always do the most rational choice BUT bounded rationality

2. Buyers and sellers are fully informed on the market BUT strategic deception and problematic market transparency

3. Economic actors strive for profit maximisation BUT dumping

4. No single actor can determine prices BUT predatory pricing

5. All products are homogeneous BUT diversification and differentiation strategies

6. Cost of production is supported by buyers BUT market externalities

7. Exit and entry cost is cost less BUT sunk costs

Economy of scale

Price of production will drop as production increases

Economy of scope

Price of production will drop as production happens in the same facilities

Customer lock in

User is dependable on a service because there is an "exit cost"

Network externalities

Value of a platform increases as number of users increases

Vertical integration

Raw material-intermediaries-distribution

Horizontal integration

Aggregation of many sources

Two sided market

Profits come from selling and advertising, producer must find balance between profit and quality

Participatory culture

Culture created by social media in which users are fans

5 elements of participatory culture

1. Low entrance barriers

2. Culture of sharing

3. Informal mentorship

4. Feeling of contribution

5. Members form a community

4 dimensional model of social media

-power relations: who owns the platform

-affordances: potential of social media, problem of algorithms and dualisation

-practices: what people do with social media

-discourse: which discourses are more dominant?

Commodification of user in social media through

-targeted adv

-market monitoring

-prosumption

4 elements of public sphere

-accessible to every member of society

-protected realm for critical debate

-site for debate

-opinions originated from PS must be seen legitimate by government

Democratic potential of the internet wasted because

-unequal access to participation

-unreflexive communication

-fragmentation of discourse

-potential censorship

Colonisation of cyber space

-platformisation of access

-monitoring

-customisation of content

Pamphlets

First character of struggle for democracy, introduced a non-violent way to fight for the public sphere

Quality journalism

Features public affairs, rational approach, author is detached, proper journalism

Popular journalism

Features private affairs, emotional approach, author is involved, bad journalism

Paradox of critical theory

Criticise rational choice theories but come up with the same conclusions

Monitorial citizens

Citizen who scans its surroundings and collects just enough information rather than being fully informed on everything

3 functions of the media

-watchdog

-information

-representation

Not possible because of the market

Solution to fix the market

Market regulations and stimulation, mix of internal and external diversity, public service and arm's length of the government, mass media under surveillance, education

Celebrity politicians

Politicians who collide politics with entertainment using celebrity techniques

Entertainer who engages in politics

Celebrity who claims to have a role in representing a cause

2 meanings of popular culture

Culture shared by the majority/low brow culture

Romantic novels

Recurrent format, used for escapism and identification, can be a site of contested meaning

Problems with objectivity

Selectivity of sources, lack of contextualisation, implicit commercialisation

Hard news

Proper news, public affairs, gives contribution to society, good citizenship

Soft news

Gossip, domestic interest, commercial value only, bad citizenship. Its value is mistaken because it still has a value for emancipation or hegemony

Structuration theory

points to the regularities of human relationships that act as rules and resources drawn on to enable or constrain social interaction. Structure produces agency and agency produces structure. Power does not automatically mean dominance, dominance happens through practical consciousness

Practical consciousness

Humans commit actions that end up reproducing the structure

4 types of capital

economic, cultural, social, symbolic

Tension field

Scheme to situate people based on capital ownership

Habitus

Mental schemes given by position in the tension field to structure people's perceptions and attitudes.

-habitus as structuring structure or structured structure

Schemata

Mental structures consisting of information categories and connections between them

-schemas help navigate the world according to the principle of resonance

Culture

Aggregation of individual schemes, outcome of a structuration process

Structuration in communication

1. Institutional information

2. Interpersonal information

3. Situational information