MDSA10H3 - Media Studies

medius, middle

media (language)

Media

information coming to us through some indirect channel or medium. Operation between our sensory perception and meaningful understandings of the world.

Somatic

direct sensory experience

Symbolic

Any information we receive from others or anything besides our senses

Critical media literacy

Examining media to seek deeper understandings, application of theory and contextualization

Humanities

Includes philosophy, history, art, literature, religion, etc.

Social sciences

Includes sociology, anthropology, political sciences, economics, etc.

Media studies

The intersection of humanities and social sciences to develop theoretical proficiency and questioning the meanings.

Profit motive

The key driving force behind for profits and supersedes all other priorities.

oligopoly

All mass media is owned by a small number of companies.

Comcast, Walt Disney, AT&T, ViacomCBS

Big 4

Conglomeration

Corporations accumulating multiple companies and business.

Parent company

Conglomerates that own many subsidiary companies.

Integration

strategic relation of branches and subsidiaries within conglomerates

Vertical integration

owning multiple aspects of production and distribution within a single industry (i.e. retailer buys manufacturer)

Ownership of multiple aspects within a single industry

Vertical integration

Horizontal integration

One corporation dominates one stage of the production process by owning multiple media outlets or cross media ownership by controlling companies across industries. (i.e. dairy retailer buys another dairy retailer)

One corporation owns companies across industries

Horizontal integration

Logic of safety

If something was profitable once, it will be profitable again

Culture industry thesis

Using repetition (logic of safety), it will stun critical thought, creativity, and independent reflection. It only perpetuates the same norms into ‘common sense’ culture.

Homogeneous representations

stereotypes

Dog whistles

The use of euphamism or replacement words to say something else.

Industry

The arena for production.

Advertising support

When the audience is not the customer and is only indirectly the source of revenue.

Concentration of media ownership

The shrinking number of owners

Vertical integration

The combined production, distribution, exhibition, into individual companies.

Horizontal integration

The combination of different media companies into one larger company.

Legacy media companies

Old media industries established from the pre-digital era where they are known for durability, prestige, and honor.

Incumbents

The established competitors

Insurgents

Upstart competitors aiming to diminish the power of established companies.

On the surface meanings

Denotation

Meaning under the surface

Connotation

Polysemy

The diversity of meaning

Genre

Another word for kind, type, category that is widely shared and easily recognized by producers and consumers.

Intertextuality

The quality of one text owing debts to other texts through explicit references and opposes the logic of absolute originality and the idea that culture is highly individualized.

Intentional fallacy

Opposes looking to authorial intention as a justification of an interpretation.

Auteur

Means author, within discourse dignifies an artist whose signature is visible across their body of work and can be used as an organizing principle for promotion and marketing.

Hypodermic model

Theory that audiences are uncritical receptors of meaning and that they are passive, just absorbing ideas without internalizing their meaning. No critical capacity or interaction with media in subversive ways exist.

Target audience

Audience that is homogeneous, experiences media similarly, and is the intended audience.

Mass audience

Groups interpreting media in similar ways.

Interpretive communities

Groups with similar interpretations of media objects due to shared experience (lived, cultural, religious, nationalistic, subcultural).

Third person effect

The idea that we are frequently biased and assume that other people are gullible while we ourselves are critical thinkers.

Stuart Hall

Created the three interpretive modes: dominant, oppositional, negotiated

Dominant mode

Interpreting the way the media was intended by the creators.

Oppositional mode

Critiquing the media object in a way that differs from the creator’s intentions

Tricia E Logan

Metis scholar who believed history always comes to us through a channel/medium. It is a deeply mediated category.

Prosumer

The dynamic of producing and consuming media on the same platform.

Lurking

When people go on social media just to look, listen, and read.

Passivity audience

Audiences that are easily programmed. Media is made to persuade a mass audience to subscribe to a powerful group’s agenda.

Active audience

Audiences that are busy with meaning making where media requires a higher level of process of understanding.

Overton window

The range of policies that are considered generally politically acceptable in mainstream population, moving frequently (aka the window of discourse)

Social construction of reality

The production of ideas about the real world and the people who live there.

Tokenism

Some differences are sprinkled in when anticipating criticism to deflect attention.

Normative

Functions as an unspoken social norm. Opposes ‘the Othered.’

civil rights groups

GLAAD, NHMC, NAACP

civil rights

Groups engaging in public efforts centered on evaluation of the communities they represent to publically honor positive representations.

Regime of representation

The web of meaning where power to represent is in the hands of corporate entities (i.e. media conglomerates)

Iconographies

Symbolic imagery associated with particular genres

Ideology

A system of ideas that many members of a society share (i.e. beliefs, opinions, values)

Ideology

A set of political ideas that serve to justify and perpetuate the prevailing power relations in society.

Ideology critique

The study and analyzing of media texts in relation to society. Often implies a negative judgement.

False consciousness

A Marxist concept that derives from the idea that ideology was a form of deception keeping the proletarian class from rising up and seizing control of political/economic power from the ruling class.

Ideological formations

The links between particular economic, political, legal, and social inequality with systems of ideas that perpetuate them (i.e. white supremacy, patriarchy, etc.)

Neoliberalism

A philosophy favoring unconstrained market and individual choice. Laissez faire and distinction between different class positions.

Hegemony

Different groups struggle to assert its dominance in a terrain of ideas. A Bloc secures its dominance. An idea that opposes false consciousness.

Incorporation

The process where mainstream media poaches alternative form and styles, stripping away their critical hard edge, and packing them as commodities.

Limits, normalizes, privileges, interpellates

What does ideology do?

Interpellation

The process in which ideologies, embodies in social and political institutions constitutes an individual’s identity through the process of hailing them through social interactions.

Hailing

The process of recognizing and responding to an ideology, allowing it to represent oneself.

Hegemonic ideology

Dominant ideology

Antonio Gramsi

Who coined cultural hegemony?

Cultural hegemony

The idea that numerous ideologies will co exist, but some will become dominant. The idea that the power struggle over meanings shows the appearance of resistance, but only strengthens the hegemonic ideology.

Counter hegemony

Functions as the antithesis to the hegemony thesis, where it challenges the status quo and established political/economic structures.

Policies

Formal decisions intended to balance rights and responsibilities.

Internal regulation

Within media industry regulation

External regulation

Set of bodies outside of media industries regulating (usually legally binding).

Media ownership regulation

The government controls corporate structures to offset excessive control of media ownership.

Antitrust laws

Legal policies intended to ensure no company monopolizes an industry. The repercussions are often financial.

Media content regulation

The government and industry based constraints that manage profane and distasteful content and to avoid forms of public outcry or censorship.

Obscenity and Public Decency laws

Laws that dictate what is and isn’t acceptable for general public based on social norms.

ESRB

Regulatory body within video game industry implored to avoid boycotts and protests concerning video game content.

Regulation of infrastructure

Government controls media technologies, communications transmission, and information network access.

Common carriage

A government requirement where certain technologies must treat all lines of communication the same.

Regulatory capture

The instance where industry achieves power to dictate the terms of its own regulation by the state.

Copyright

A form of regulation that restrains free expression for the common good, giving author the exclusive right to produce their work until the end of the contractual term.

Localism

The promotion of media and circulation of local content.

Public service media

Media that is provided by the state.

Cancon

Canadian content that is a set of rules about what music can be played on the radio and is a product of a nationalist cultural policy to protect Canadian identity.

Public Sphere

A space for citizens to share opinions that exists outside of governmental control as sometimes it critiques the state.

Jurgen Habermas

Who coined intersubjectivity and the public sphere?

Intersubjectivity

The idea that we are created through social interactions with others and that humans are neither fully subjective or fully objective.

Journalism

The practice of gathering and publishing news as a product.

Press

Comprises of institutions of journalistic work.

Satire

Exposes the folly and vice of powerful people and institutions, ridiculing them with criticism. Often present in satirical news programs and late night talk shows.

Participatory culture

Audience members also potentially become collaborators in media, taking a part in it rather than just witnessing.

Democratizing

The process of expanding access and participation to more people, leveling off distinctions between elites and other groups with less power.

Networked counterpublic

A public opposing the dominant public, positioning itself to a more powerful public and contesting its dominance.

Thomas Baratt

Who is the father of modern advertising?

Aspirational values

The association of ideal qualities of a product with an ideal kind of person to commodify.

Conspicuous consumption

The consumption of elite, high price, and exclusive products to show that you can afford it. The intention of being seen.