Introduction to Media Studies

Theories learnt Introduction to Media Studies + Examples of each one

Media and environment

Media is an enabling environment that provide habitats for diverse forms of life, including other media.

John Durham Peters

Media and Power

• Media are civilisational ordering devices (p.5)

  • ordering devices: influence how civilisations evolve and function

  • media can guide people’s attention (insta: what people view, think is the real world)

John Durham Peters

New Media Definition

Means of mass communication using digital technologies such as the internet (hyper immediacy and immediacy)

New Media Theory

• use of computer, distributed and exhibition, rather than production

• computerisation of media

• computerization word is too limiting, computers are also a part of storage and production

• Media being interactive, you can edit within the new media, which is independent, but you can add video and audio

• popular definition of new media identifies it with the use of computer for distribution and exhibition, rather than, with production

Lev Manovich

New Media Revolution

• Printing press → distribution of media

• photography → still images

• New media revolution affects all stages of communication, including acquisition, manipulation, storage, and distribution; also affects all types of media - text, still images, moving sounds, sound spatial constructions

Lev Manovich

New Media Principles

1. Numerical Representation

2. Modularity

3. Automation

4. Variability

5. Cultural Transcoding

New Media: Numerical Representation

Number 1

All new media objects composed of digital code;

Consequences:

1. New media objects can be described mathematically

2. New media object is subject to algorithmic manipulation

media becomes programmable

• Numerical representation occurs through digitisation of (traditional) media

• Step 1: Sampling, continuous signal → discrete signal

  • Example: Digitising music continuous sound wave → a series of discrete values

• Step 2: Quantification, sample – numerical values (binary code)

  • Examples: images - colour

New Media: Modularity

Number 2

Assemblage of discrete units

Units

• independently stored and alterable

• are assembled together into large-scale objects

• can be altered, removed, replaced, used elsewhere, etc. without compromising the whole.

• they maintain their separate identity.

Example:

• Code (same code can make different things)

New Media: Automation

Number 3

Numerical representation + modularity → automation

Algorithms: create, modify, analyse media. Database become important.

Examples:

• Google image search, photo editing tools

• Low level (ex. photoshop, Van Gogh filter)

• High level (ex. AI, machine learning)

New Media: Variability

Number 4

Many versions of the same object – not any longer all same copies

• Old media (logic of industrial mass society)

• New media (logic of personal variability)

Examples:

• Newspaper VS News website

  • Many versions of the same object - not any longer all same copies - on the same website

New Media: Cultural Transcoding

Number 5

New media has computer layers and cultural layers which influence each other

Cultural layer: What we want

Computer layer: What the computer can do

Example:

• filter-inspired cosmetic surgeries

(Double logic or) Remediation

they posit a digital paradox: using mediating technology to attempt immediacy.

the way in which one medium is seen by our culture as reforming or improving upon another

Hyper immediacy

Makes the viewer aware of the medium or media

We can see the medium, not invisible

If we have this, we have the option of engagement points and enhance interaction

Examples:

• TV news programs with multiple video streams, split-screen displays, with graphics and texts

• Netflix, HBO Max, News, etc.

Immediacy

The medium itself should disappear and leave us in the presence of the thing represented

Examples:

• VR headset, you are seeing the medium, immersing without knowing you are in the medium

• Photography, you do not see the medium, the camera, but you do see the media

Printing Press

Manuscript (6th - 15th century)

• handwritten

• unique

• hand-copied

  • time-consuming

  • expensive

• transcription mistakes

• private hands, usually upper class

Print (15th century - present)

• more durable material

• easier duplication, mass-reach

• identical, comparable copies

• standard text, without mistakes

The invention of the printing press

• “Gutenberg did not invent the book itself […] He invented a special way of duplicating the book by means of moveable type and by developing the printing press”

Wireless Communication

Use of communication without cables and connections

Radio Golden age: late 1920s

Examples:

• Titanic Distaster (1912)

• World War I (1914-1918): Military communication

  • millions into research - helped advance the industry

• Ham radio

  • the use of radio frequency spectrum for non-commercial purposes

Radio

Tribes (oral cultures) → Print media → detribalisation → electronic media → re-tribalization

• demands attention

• can stir emotions (orality)

• collective consciousness

• same emotions

  • feel the same when listening to news

• bring together nations

  • sense of belonging

• shared national identity, collective experience

The War of the Worlds (Orswon Welles, 1938)

• Sound media

• Was broadcasted like the news, so they thought it was real and thought war were invading

• so intense, orality, believed it, immediacy

• radio, source, credibility

Edison’s kinetoscope (1891)

• Screen media

• forerunner of the motion-picture film projector

• The kinetoscope enabled one person at a time to view moving pictures.

The Roundhay Garden Scene

First moving picture

Lumière cinématographe

Cinema’s Golden Age

• Early and Mid 1930s

• “Golden Age of Hollywood”

• During the 1930s and the 1940s, cinema was the principal form of popular entertainment

Aura and Authenticity

• unique existence in time and space

• Aura - experience

• mechanical reproduction destroys it

Walter Benjamin

Democratization of Art

• accessibility but comes with the loss of aura

Walter Benjamin

Film

A revolutionary art form -can present reality in ways that the human eye cannot perceive

Cult Value VS Exhibition Value

• Mystery VS Art for the masses

Walter Benjamin

Concentrated VS Distracted Consumption

• Art demands a deep contemplative focus VS Audiences absorb the artwork in a state of distraction

Walter Benjamin

Capitalism (in art)

• Art becomes commodified - determined by market forces

Walter Benjamin

Politics (in art)

• Fascists used art to produce certain reactions in the masses

• Communists use art to produce knowledge

Walter Benjamin

“Media as a shaper” approach

Media influences Society

“Media as a mirror” approach

Society influences Media

Uses and Gratification Theory

• Low Impact: audience controls media use

• Medium for individual purposes

• People not passive, actively use media for gratification

• What they do for people, not can do to people

Multiple Step flow Model

• Media effects are indirect

• Shows role of personal influence in changing human attitudes and behaviour

• Opinion leader: a person who is (or considered) an expert in a field can spread information to others (Opinion leader is impacted and spreads the message)

Agenda setting theory

• Between Low and High Impact

• ability to influence the importance placed on the topics of the public agenda: media structures what we care about

Basic assumptions:

1. Press and the media filter and shape reality; They do not make it

2. Media concentration on subjects leads to the public to perceive these issues as more important

• The Third-Person Effect: individuals will perceive media messages to have more effect on other people than themselves

• Spiral of Silence Theory: Don’t speak up because individual is scared that others may disagree

• About cognition (what) not direct attitude or opinion (how)

  • Ubiquity: media everywhere so messages are accessible by all in most contexts

  • Cumulation: repetition of certain perspectives, topics, trends or themes have a cumulative effect

  • Consonance: convergence of opinions or viewpoints given in diverse media outlets

  • All 3 make powerful in shaping public opinion

Hypodermic needle theory

• High impact: audience directly controlled by media

• Media directly shape audience opinions/actions, media messages are irresistible

  • “The media said it therefore it must be true”

• Developed in 1930s

• Discredited today

  • People have agency

Propoganda vs. Persuasion

Persuasion: Open, interactive and transparent exchange of ideas seeking voluntary change

Propaganda: Deliberate yet disguised intent of manipulation, systemic plan to achieve a purpose

Propoganda (Defintion + examples)

the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the creator

ethical criteria: deceptive in its aims, does not tell the whole truth

Examples:

• Political -> political campaigns, public relations

• Commercial -> advertisements

• Religious -> proselytism

Propaganda Characteristics

• Well-being of audience is secondary (at best)

• Promotes intention of propagandist

• Eliminates nuance in perspective

• Often conceals purpose

• May conceal or mis-state identity (of creator; information sources)

Propoganda Forms

White

• Comes from a source that is identified correctly. The information in the message tends to be accurate (maybe on-side of the argument)

Gray

• The source may or may not be correctly identified, and the accuracy of the information is uncertain

Black

• When the source is concealed or credited to a false authority and spreads lies, fabrications, deceptions.

Propaganda Techniques

• Use of images and certain words (ex. glittering generalities, bandwagon, etc.)

• Controlling the flow of information (media <-> society)

Propaganda Today

• Algorithms + data

• Algorithmic Power

  1. Black Box

     1. Receive an input, process in a way we don’t know, and then produce an output

     2. low opacity

     3. technical opacity

     4. When the process is not transparent, we cannot control algorithms

  2. Necessary and natural mediators

     1. Example: Google, an impartial search engine, playful and neutral to make it so that everyone thinks that they can reach all information, which is not neutral and does not invite critical thinking

Cambridge Analytica

Used facebook likes to infer people’s personalities and interests.

• to identify issues that people would support

• to identify the way in which relevant arguments should be presented

Use Value

Used in advertising

• Relates to the utility a product or service provides to a user.

Symbolic Value

Used in advertising

• What products might mean and say about their consumers

• Advertising products to produce symbolic value that signals to what group one belongs, or to what sub-culture etc.

Advertising in the digital world

Shift from traditional spot advertisement (print media, television, radio) to digital media

Surveillance capatlaism

• economic system based on data

• our private human experience is the raw material for behavioural data

• predictive data about us but not for us

The aim is profit through targeted advertising

What does representation have to do with culture and meaning?

• How something is presented to an audience

• Meaning is constructed and produced through the process of representation and exchanged between members of a culture

• It does involve the idea of language of signs and images which stand for or represent things. But this is a far from simple or straightforward process…

• It does involve the use of language, of signs and images which stand for or represent things. But this is a far from simple or straightforward process

How does the concept of representation connect meaning and language to culture?

1. The reflective: relation between representation and thing being represented

2. The intentional: connects meaning and language to culture by emphasising role of the creator’s intentions and cultural connect, shaping representations

3. The constructionist: representation not direct reflections of reality but are created through cultural and social processes

Stuart Hall’s concept of representation

Representation as Reflection of Reality → Representation as Constitutive (*representations play an active role in constructing and giving meaning to realities)

• shaped by forces of culture and power

Signs

• Iconic signs

• Indexical signs

• Symbolic signs

How we understand and communicate about the world through signs and symbols

Iconic signs

Physically resembles what it stands for

Indexical signs

There is a causal relation between the sign and that for which it stands

• Related to other senses: smell, sound, etc.

Symbolic signs

Symbolic signs rely on conventions, agreements, and shared cultural meanings

Arbitrary: no similarity or cause-effect

Signs: Saussure (Example of apple)

Signifier

• the physical form (word, sound, image)

  Example: apple

Signified

• the concept or mental image

  Example: fruit, freshness, healthy, etc. Brand? Original sin?

Signs: Semiotics

the study of signs, symbols and their interpretation

Signs are not only words or images but objects themselves as well!

Examples:

• Clothes operate as signs of taste, status...

• Having a MacBook → status

Denotation

literal meaning / basic, surface-level meaning

Connotation

emotional, cultural associations / Additional layers of meaning

Systems of representation: Concept, Signs, Codes

1. Conceptual system: Concepts in our head

2. Shared language/language system: organised system of signs that carry and express meaning

• Relation between the two is secured by codes

• Codes are historical and cultural: they are not stable - meaning is unstable

The “code” in semiotics refers to a system of conventions, and rules that govern how signs are used and interpreted within a particular cultural or social context

Examples:

• Red light means stop

• a tree we recognise as a tree in our language

Why should we care about semiotics and representation?

• Provide insight how meaning is created, conveyed, and interpreted in human communication.

• Critically analyse media messages → hidden meanings and biases

• Understanding representation helps us recognise and challenge stereotypes and misrepresentations

• The media theorists job is to find the ideology expose it and critique it

• Marketing and advertising: representation and semiotics play vital role in shaping consumer behaviour

• Art and Aesthetics: how artists use symbols and signs to convey their artistic visions.

Media content

Mass media as a site for struggle over meaning

Media products/texts

Semiotic constructs: specific ways of seeing the world

Ideological: shape our perception of the world

Concealed coding

Representations become “common sense”

• Culture

• Learned at an early age

• Media

make ideological representation look objective, natural audiences no longer question or challenge them

they are presented as “common sense”

Example:

• Avengers all posing, no one notices how sexualised the woman is posed

Encoding/Decoding Model

The Dominant Position

• Agree and accept what the media encodes

• the “preferred reading”

The Negotiated Position

• Readers partially agree with the encoded messages

• Readers accepts preferred reading but sometimes resists and modifies, reflect personal interests and experiences, local/regional readings, etc.

The Oppositional Position

• Reader understands the preferred reading

• They reject this reading

• They decode the text differently

Notes on Encoding/Decoding Model

! The codes of encoding and decoding may not be perfectly symmetrical

Hegemonic code:

• try to define meanings

• 'natural', 'inevitable’

! The dominant group - advantages

Ideology actively intervenes in the meaning making

• without excluding the resistance of the audience

• deconstruct the 'naturalness' of representation to reveal the ideological

• constructions

Ideology: Marx

Media as purveyors of dominant ideology

• Bourgeoisie/the ruling class VS Proletariat/working class

• Dominant ways of thinking/ideology: reflect the interests of the ruling class emerged from capitalist relations

• “False consciousness”: people in a capitalist societies accept the system, even though the ideological messages contradict their actual living conditions

  • they present the world as it is (ie the subordination of the lower class) as natural, there fore as correct and acceptable

Ideology: Frankfurt School

The ideological role of consumerism and mass media

Culture industry and art → mass commodity (under capitalism)

• content: standardised, predictable

• consumption: simple, repetitive, effortless

content of culture industry is superficial and fake uniqueness and individuality → impression of freedom of choices and originality of meaning

• Art: become a mass commodity

• “false needs”: provide motivation to work even harder for the system, while distracting people from their true needs

• Pseudo-individualisation: standardised commodity objects presented as “different”

  • eg. “unexpected” twists within standardised plots

• Distraction: free time → easy and effortless entertainment

  • pacify the masses

  • eg. candy crush during breaks at work to distract people from critical thinking

• Standardisation of consumers

Main critique of Frankfurt School: Overgeneralisation

Cultural Appropriation

The dominant system would respond and adapt in the face of challenges

Example: Punk

• Originated in the US and UK

• Aimed to challenged mainstream culture

• Advocating for political and social change

Political Economy

emphasis upon the commercial structures of media ownership and control

• ownership and profit orientation: media are controlled by a small number of highly powerful corporate industries

• media consolidation

• imperative to attract and retain advertisers

• extensive influence on media of a range of other wealthy and powerful groups

Cultural imperialism

the globalisation of culture as a highly unequal process dominated by powerful capitalist interests based in wealthy countries

involves systematic exploitation and cultural domination of small countries by powerful transnational companies based in wealthy parts of the world

• the whole world → market

• unable to compete

• money is transferred out of such countries

• Homogenisation: loss of national and local identity

• and the threat of the local culture's extinction

• Global spread of capitalism/ideology

• National productions but with foreign formal elements

Critiques:

• Εmergence of international mediums in countries outside the West (e.g., China, India, Brazil, Turkey)

• Local appropriation/the role of agenct: how is the meaning of the programs decoded?

• Comparison, and criticism of the dominant way of life?

• Local Adaptation

Media, Ideology, and Representations of Race →

• Reflect hegemonic ideologies

• invite consumers to accept whiteness as the norm

Media, Ideology, and Representations of Race

1. Exclusion (under-representation)

2. Stereotypical representation

3. Assimilation

4. “Othering”

Gender, Race, Sexuality: Exclusion

the process by which various cultural groups are “written out of history”

Example:

Latinos in the USA (50.5 million in 2010 or 16% of the total US population)

• but their presence in the media is small (especially as lead characters)

• Even main characters who are supposed to be Latino are not played by Latino actors

the lives and issues of Latin American people are largely absent

Gender, Race, Sexuality: Stereotypical representation

Misleading representations – define members of a group by a small number of characteristics

• positive racial stereotypes

  • Example: the “smart Asian”

• negative

  • Example: “Arab terrorist”

Gender, Race, Sexuality: Assimilation

Visibility - overlooks the cultural identities of minorities and their real-life conditions.

Representations (sitcoms, family shows): family, professional, or romantic issues but ignore matters of social power and oppression

Superficial diversity: Multiracial casting that gives the impression of acknowledging diversity

Example:

“success is open to all those who are talented and hard-working“, related to The Cosby Show

Gender, Race, Sexuality: “Othering“

the process of marginalising minorities by defining them in relationship to the (white) majority (the norm or the natural order)

Example:

“black comedians”

A generic “comedian” is assumed to be white

Gender

culturally constructed differences

Feminism

is a political project that explores the diverse ways women are socially empowered or disempowered

Dominant gender representations (Masculinity vs. Femininity) / Stereotypes

stereotypes of masculinity: power, significance, agency, social influence

stereotypes of femininity: powerlessness, insignificance, passiveness, limited control

Postfeminism

• Feminism had “done its job,” “equal” place in society

• Any remaining feminist project should turn attention to women’s “individualism”

• the body and attractiveness can be used as a tool for empowerment

  • Applicable to:

  • Beautiful, white, and successful media personalities

  • Privileged wealthy groups

  • Consumerism

For example:

#StrongIsTheNewSkinny

• Feminist, postfeminist, and anti-feminist at the same time

Algorithmic Identities: Profiling and Personalization

The statistical management of user data to infer and assign to users categories of identity, based on profiles that are created for them by collecting and combining information

• personalised content

• targeted advertisements

Black Box and Gender bias

When the process is not transparent, bias cannot be detected.

Algorithmic Identity

losing control in defining who we are online, or more specifically we are losing ownership over the meaning of the categories that constitute our identities

Algorithmic Identity in respect to gender

Bucher (2017):

• experience and make sense of algorithms

• “ads for wrinkle cream and fat loss” reflects the stereotypical assumptions about how the typical middle-aged woman is like.

Datta & Tschantz & Datta (2015)

• biased ad content that perpetuates gender inequality

• fewer ads related to high paying jobs shown to female users

Living within media

Paradoxes:

• Visible and invisible

• Media everywhere and nowhere [Deuze]

• Together and alone

• Being free and mediated

• Humans and computers

Private / Public

difficult to keep things private

Impose power and control – without making guard’s presence apparent.

• The Panopticon Effect: we are always

  being watched – proper behaviour

• The “threat of invisibility”

  • The problem is not the possibility of constantly being observed, but the possibility of disappearing, of not being considered important enough.

Metrics

[Numbers showing on media platforms (made this definition up because not shown, but keep the term in mind)]

Media Everywhere and Nowhere

Media becomes invisible (used to naturally that it becomes seamless)

Example:

• (Possibly) Facebook

• Lightbulb

Media as everyday practices

• Adapt everyday routines

  • Example: Cooking a meal to post on Instagram

• Users as producers

  • Example: Influencers, people taking photos and posting them, etc.

Mark Deuze suggests an ontological turn

• How we can live within media

• Not make media all-powerful nor decenter media

“Network Society” and globalisation

network society is globalisation

Alienation

• Technology isolates.

• Technology leads to destruction of jobs.

• Surveillance is getting out of hand.

• Etc.

Technological Utopia

• Technology helps us connect.

• Technology helps us work more efficiently.

• Technology makes us safer.

• Etc.

Networked Publics

Ethnographic analysis

• Publics that rely on network technologies and network people → communities

• Teens engage in social media and other technologies in a way of engaging with their broader social world

To BE Public and to be IN public

• Persistence: online expressions are automatically recorded and archived (accessible)

• Visibility: information shared in networked publics can potentially reach a wide audience (makes interaction public by default)

• Spreadability: viral nature of content, the ease with which content can be shared (low bar for creating and duplicating)

• Searchability: the ability to find content

Positive aspects

• Magnify teens voices

• Gather Audiences

• Connect

• Protests

Agency with Technology

Technology corners people to do what we want them to do

Example:

Use sounds to tell people to wear seatbelts, or use shock advertising to convince people to wear seatbelts

affordances

high-level affordances

• dynamics and conditions enabled by technical devices, platforms and media

  • connectivity, visibility, persistence, accessibility, social feedback

low-level affordances.

• typically located in the materiality of the medium, in specific features, buttons, screens and platforms

suggest, enable and constrain users’ actions

• affordances exist in the environment to demarcate the possibilities of action, to constrain and control behavior and not to cause a specific one

• Ideal User

affordances as a text

Designers/Developers/Producers highlight the desirable actions and downplay the undesirable ones

Users can “read” them in their own unique way the possibility for negotiation and resistance on the part of users.

Analyzing an interface

• why does a specific feature appear and not another?

• on what beliefs/norms is it based?

• who is the Ideal User that is shaped?

• what are the consequences of these design choices?

Functional: possibilities, what a user can do with a site/app

Cognitive: how users know what they can do with a site/app

Sensory: close to an aesthetic analysis of the interface

The passive recipient of content

1. Endless and constantly renewed content – trigger prolong consumption

• endless opportunities to come across new images

• interfaces displaying unseen images and videos

• new content: stories, posts and personalized advertisements

• posts - active links leading to new sources of fresh content.

• older images are replaced by recent ones

• it is very difficult to come across a certain image again (*users’ action is required)

• timestamps are present in all content (see Grosser, 2014)

2. Content for passive consumption - repetitive, brief view of images

• small size of photographs

• story: lasts only for a few seconds

• users cannot save images in their mobile devices.

• zoom - restricted

3. “Trained” towards a repetitive and instinctive use: specific gestures

• hidden affordances (location stamp, filters-story)

• passive and standardized actions are promoted

• “Like”: a quick double-tap on an image

• comments: accompanied by predetermined responses

Example:

Netflix

• continuous consumption

  • Example: Resume, or next episode, button

• Provides data and consume

  • Example: Dislike, like and love button

• the interface reinforces the continuous consumption of new, trends (mainstream, easy to consume content)

  • Example: “Trending Now”, “Most Liked”, “Top 10 TV Shows ___”

Filter bubble

Algorithmic selection (filtering) based on usage history news/information is automatically filtered out

• Passive Formation

Echo chamber

We are overexposed to news we like or agree with e.x. forum

• Active Participation. Individuals actively seek out and engage with viewpoints like their own.

Personalisation

From the user

explicit personalisation or self-selected personalisation

From the system

implicit personalisation or pre-selected personalisation

Filter Bubbles and Politics

• Ferguson protest on Twitter vs ice bucket challenge on Facebook

Twitter – chronological order

Positive aspects

• Filters help us make sense of the vast amount of information available

• Case Study

  • ‘Filter bubbles’ provide shelter for Chinese LGBTQ communities on social media

  • visibility to conventionally underrepresented LGBTQ individuals

The capacities of social movements

1. Narrative capacity

2. Electoral capacity

3. Disruptive capacity

Social Movements: Narrative capacity

The ability of the movement to frame its story in its own terms, to spread its worldview

• persuade people

• “legitimacy”

Example: Black Lives Matter movement