Media and Culture Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key definitions, key figures, historical periods, types of convergence, and media effects theories from the provided lecture transcript.

"The Medium is the Message"

A concept emphasized by Marshall McLuhan stating that the way information is delivered has a bigger impact on people and society than the actual information being delivered.

Marshall McLuhan

A professor who wrote the 1964 book 'Understanding Media', coined the phrase 'The medium is the message', and emphasized studying the medium of communication rather than just its content.

Mass communication

Information transmitted to large segments of the population.

Media

Means of communication and transmission; as the plural of medium, it refers to print, digital, and electronic media.

Mass media

The means of communication designed to reach a wide audience, including radio, newspapers, magazines, books, video games, and Internet media.

Culture

The expressed and shared values, attitudes, beliefs, and practices that characterize a social group, organization, or institution.

Modern Age

A cultural period from the 1400s to the early 1900s that began with the invention of the printing press, grew into the Industrial Revolution, and focused on the individual and rational thought.

Postmodern Era

A cultural period from the 1950s to the present characterized by digitalization, which questions truth, reason, and grand narratives while focusing on contingency, context, and diversity.

Economic convergence

A type of media convergence where a single company has interests across many kinds of media.

Organic convergence

A type of media convergence involving multi-tasking, such as watching TV while on the phone and listening to music.

Cultural convergence

A type of media convergence where media crosses platforms and invites audience participation, such as a book becoming a TV show where viewers can call in or upload comments.

Global convergence

A type of media convergence where geographically distant cultures influence each other, such as India's Bollywood copying U.S. Hollywood.

Technological convergence

A type of media convergence where different kinds of technology merge, such as watching movies on a smartphone.

Popular culture

The media, products, and attitudes in the mainstream for common people.

Tastemakers

People who shape the way others think, eat, listen, drink, dress, and more, such as restaurant reviewers or hosts of shows like American Idol.

Influencers

People who can affect others in purchasing, voting, eating, traveling, and playing, typically working in social media spaces like Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Gatekeeper

An entity or individual that influences culture by deciding which stories are considered newsworthy and promoting social values either consciously or subconsciously.

Media literacy

The skill of being able to decode and process the messages and symbols transmitted via media, including discerning bias, spin, and misinformation.

Disinformation

A deliberate lie meant to mislead.

Misinformation

An honest mistake in communication.

Propaganda

A basic form of communication dating back to mass media use in World War 1 that is used to influence public perceptions in war and politics.

Direct effects theory

A media effects theory proposing that users passively accept media messages; largely discredited by 1940.

Two-step flow theory

A media effects theory stating that users who consume media share it with others.

Agenda-setting theory

A media effects theory proposing that media defines what people think about.

Uses and gratifications theory

A media effects theory proposing that people use media to satisfy specific needs or desires.

Symbolic interactionism

A media effects theory that gives media the power, through advertising, to create shared cultural symbolism.

Spiral of silence

A media effects theory proposing that users with a minority opinion silence themselves.

Media logic

A media effects theory stating that common media formats create a shared understanding.

Cultivation Analysis

A media effects theory that shows how media influences consumers' perceptions of reality.