communications

Communication midterm chapters 1-6 CMSTA03

communication

The act of making a message
common to one or more people, a form of “social” action

communication process

sender, encoding message, message channel, decoding message, receiver

Katz and Lazarsfeld’s 2 step flow theory of mass communication

opinion leader (big dots), individuals in social contact with an opinion leader (branching off dots)

communication satisfies

a range of our social needs: pleasure, affection, inclusion, escape, relaxation, and control

Shannon and Weaver’s mathematical model of communication

source, message 1, channel, message 2, receiver

mathematical model of communication

Does not consider the social context
of communication, social variables (language, culture, individual traits) influence the way
communication takes place

social model of communication (encoding, encoded, medium, etc)

Emphasizes social and media-
related variables that inform the process of communication, sees communication as both
structured by and contingent on some shared social element or space

mass media

Vehicles through which mass communication takes place, one form of mass media can involve multiple types of media

example of mass media

for example, a YouTube video of someone singing a song consists of the language of the song, the singer’s voice, the instruments used, the video
itself, and the Internet

new/emerging media

Emerged in the 90s; technologies, practices, and institutions designed to facilitate broad participation in communication on a mass scale, extends traditional mass media, narrow, specific and driven by technology

society

The body of institutions and relationships within which people live, the conditions in which such
relationships are formed

culture

The process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic
development, the works and practices that arise from this development, a particular way of life

media

Allows us to share in and understand society and culture, threat: foreign media will overtake local media, leading to a loss of local culture

some social roles of media

political, economic, individual

political role

Media offers places for debate and discussion, also provides information on issues and events, media is not politically neutral, does media ownership grant permission to control editorial perspective? government may control media directly, freedom of information vs. privacy concern

politics

The process through which people make collective decisions, often preceded by public discussion

economic role

Major industries: directly promotes consumerism and capitalism
through advertising and the promotion of consumer
culture, companies control their public images through the media, development of information communication technology (ICT) has spurred economic development in industrializing and industrialized countries

individual role

We construct our identities through social
interactions, media allows us to explore the world and our relationships to it, does media encourage consumerist values?

beginning of modern media

progression of press ownership

perspectives on the media

libertarian theory, social responsibility theory, mass society thesis, political economy and Marx

libertarian theory

Sees the mass media as an extension of the individual’s right to freedom of expression and, hence, as independent voices that help to make government responsible to the people

social responsibility theory

Essential that the press be free and should be untainted by other interests, in Canada and Europe it is possible to limit free speech based on a consideration of its consequences, for example, a reporter limiting crime details to ensure accused gets fair trial

mass society thesis

Media are seen as a unifying force in society, a means of conjoining minds in common cause and action, although not necessarily toward positive ends

political economy and Marx

Industrial society is organized around the reproduction of capital, generally serves the interests of the capitalists while workers are
exploited by the capitalists

media and Canadian culture

Canada’s cultural (media) industries: how we come to know and share our culture, modern communication system historically rooted in transportation networks and efforts to link the country through rail, mail, and telegraph, one of the main points of concern has been competition
from US media products

Canadian governments provide subsidies and enact
legislations to protect Canadian media products, but

Reluctant to impose heavy restrictions on private enterprise or restrict ability of foreigners to do business in Canada, as the internet continues to provide expanding choice of foreign news and entertainment, proportion of Canadian alternatives continues to shrink, only in Quebec is the regional culture thoroughly reflected in the media

information society

A society where ICTs are key to the creation of wealth and defining the direction of social
development, ICTs play a key role in this shift in labour processes, provide a vital link between the newly industrialized countries where these goods are now produced, and the markets in old industrialized centres where they are consumed

Moses Znaimer’s Ten Commandments of television

1.Television is the triumph of the image over the printed word

2. print created illiteracy, TV is democratic, everybody gets it

3. the true nature of television is flow, not show; process, not conclusion

4. as worldwide television expands, the demand for local programming increases 5.The best TV tells me what happened to me, today.

6.TV is as much about the people bringing you the story as the story itself

7. In the past, TV’s chief operating skill was political. In the future it will be mastery of the craft itself

8. TV creates immediate consensus, subject to immediate change

9. There was never a mass audience, except by compulsion

10.Television is not a problem to be managed, but an instrument to be played

Distinctive Characteristics of the Canadian State

Vastness of the country, small size of Canada’s population, Canada’s regionalism, nation of two official languages, multicultural country

Representation

act of putting ideas into words, visuals, audio, simplifies, interprets the object or event being described, receiver must decode or interpret the communication to understand the idea

Signification/Signified

using signs to make meaning

Signs

anything with meaning (words, images, sounds, objects)

Symbols

a sign that has no direct resemblance to the object it
represents (e.g. name: the actual person)

signifIER

the aspect of a a sign we experience

signiFIED

the idea or mental concept drawn from the signifier

icon

a sign that looks like the object it represents (map:city)

index

the sign that is related to the object it represents (smoke:fire)

intertexuality

Our interpretation of a sign depends on the meanings we have drawn from other sets of signs, example: SUV and “family vehicle”

polysemic

Signs have more than one meaning and are open to a variety of interpretations, example: Apple – fruit or computer

Intertextuality, Polysemy, and the Indeterminacy of Representation

Each type of media has a different way of creating meaning, systems of representation can overlap, but never fully encompass another, Communication studies, concerned with rhetoric (how things are said) and hermeneutics (how things are interpreted)

social theory

A set of ideas about how the world is organized and functions; a representation of the social world “The purpose of social theory is not simply to understand the world but to change it” —Marx

Communication theory

Attempts to understand the forces that give form and context to human communication

relationship between agency and structure

are people able to create ideas and messages freely, or does society determine the range and character of the ideas and messages we create?

literary criticism

Explores the different ways that texts can be
analyzed and understood, draws our attention to the various ways meaning might be drawn from texts (e.g., intentions of the author, influence of culture and society, personal history of the reader

structuralism

Discovering the underlying patterns that shape texts and genres

Post-structuralism

Meaning comes from the decoder, meaning is never fixed; it changes from reader to reader

discourse analysis

Examines language and the perspective or “position” it gives us in the social world

Modes of analysis:

How do patterns and conventions of language use shape our experience of the world, and how we act in it? (e.g. fireman vs. firefighter), how does media structure and format influence our perception of an event? How do ways of thinking about the world become the rules and regulations that control our lives?

critical political economy

Media appears to serve the audience/public but in reality it serves its owners, Herman and Chomsky’s Five “filters” controlling the news

five filters controlling the news

1. Structures of media ownership
2. Media dependence on ad revenue
3. Media dependence on info from government and business
4. Possible consequences for negative reporting on investors
5. The belief that the market will satisfy the public

genre or media form

the news story

criteria for newsworthiness

1. Simplification

2. Dramatization

3. Personalization

4. Themes and continuity

5. Consonance

6. The unexpected

media seeks

audiences to inform, enlighten, entertain, and sell to
advertisers or pay a fee for the receipt of content

scholars and social scientists seek

to understand the nature of the interaction between the media and their audiences

members of the industry want to know

demographic characteristics so they can pinpoint the
characteristics of the audience or “product” they are selling to advertisers and marketers

audience members have

their own agendas

digitalization and media convergence have been used to

break down the distance between media production and consumption

audience fragmentation presents

serious challenge to broadcasters, as it leads to a
lowering of the advertising rates they can charge

interactive media technologies allow

companies and governments to track the movements and interests of media consumers

six academic approaches to the audience

1.Effects research
2. Uses and gratification research
3. Marxist analysis and the Frankfurt School
4. British cultural studies
5. Feminist research
6. Reception analysis

inoculation theory of communication

Built on the idea that media could inject ideas into people’s heads

who made the cultivation theory (mean world syndrome)

George Gerbner

Effects analysis

Abstracts the process of communication from its social context and tries to draw a straight line between sender and receiver, human agency is reduced to a simple reaction to content without consideration of social characteristics and forces (ex. Age, gender)

generally use media for

(1) Diversion: escape from routine or problems; emotional release

(2) Personal relationships: companionship; social utility

(3) Personal identity: self reference; reality exploration; value reinforces

(4) Surveillance (forms of information seeking)

agenda setting theory who made it

McCoombs and Shaw

audience

a collection of people experiencing some form of media as a group

what question did James Hay ask

Under what conditions is one not an audience?

what did Philip Napoli and Steve Voorhees say

“At its core, audience studies research is focused on providing insights into the nature of the relationship between media audiences and the media content, organizations, and technologies with which they engage.

Marxists analysis and the Frankfurt school

Members of the Frankfurt School argue that capitalist methods of mass production had profound impacts on cultural life, wants and desires were both created and satisfied through
the marketplace, culture and the media serve only one master: capital. Audience members are seen as little more than cultural dupes

ideology

a coherent set of social values, beliefs, and meanings that people use to decode the world

Morley focused on 3 different audience responses

dominant, oppositional, and negotiated

3 dimensions of feminist research

1.Feminism, difference, and identity”, Focus on how media representation and social discourse override or frame particular perspectives and voices

2. “Feminism and the public sphere”, Emphasizes the role of the media in facilitating or hindering public debate; giving voice to those previously unheard (women and under-represented groups)
3. “New technologies and the body”, considers broader questions about media, technology, and the relationship of both to the bod

3 basic elements of audience research

reach, share, viewing time

ratings measure

the number of people watching/listening, but don’t provide information as to why people
choose particular media

Increasingly difficult to track people as they move between different media, especially online program distributors

true

limits to industry audience research

Demographic data offers little understanding of
the ways media engage audiences with their
social and political environments, questions industry audience research does not address

the shifting and vanishing audience

With increasingly interactive forms of media, the audience “vanishes,” drawn up into the content itself, transformation of the audience from a passive content receiver to an active content creator, particularly on social media, business models of many companies now depend on the material that audiences create, users have little or no control over how the information they post to the internet is used

Advertising does not function as both an economic system and a cultural force that persuades us to participate in the cycles of consumption

false, it does

Advertising and promotion are in constant flux as
capitalism evolves, new technologies are developed,
and corporations take up new strategies of engagement.

true

advertising

Refers to a type of message or speech with the underlying goal of promoting a specific product
A system of promotional messaging designed for and brought to the attention of the people that advertisers want to reach with the goal of increasing sales

advertisements are

ubiquitous in our society and dominate a huge amount of public space

advertisers

the brands and companies that want to promote their work

the term promotional culture articulates how

boundaries between advertising, marketing,
promotion, the media, and public relations are blurring and destabilizing

advertising as a form of discourse

A system of messaging that articulates thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and practices that advocate for the consumption of goods and service, Advertising is central to how our media systems function, has infiltrated many non-market spaces, ex. school

two things that help media systems function

Most media depend on advertising revenue, promotional messaging woven into media content

advertising in modern culture

Takes meaning from culture, re-inscribes it with new
meanings, and circulates it back through culture

2 specific impacts of advertising

economic and cultural

advertising and the economy

Animates much of the economy by creating consumer awareness and demand for products and
services Lies at the foundation of the commercial mass media, financing the production and distribution of most information and entertainment

smythe

The “audience commodity:” audiences
perform unpaid labour time that
media companies exploit when they
sell audiences to advertisers

Jhally 1987

Instead of thinking about what television and other media deliver to the home, we must think about what
they extract from the home – profits made from audience members’ time

terranova 2012

In the digital economy, online users perform the creative labour that becomes the content of the internet, most online content creators fail to get financially compensated for that time, even if companies make profits from their content, Ex. Facebook makes money from selling personal data to advertisers

advertising and culture

Advertising is a system of meaning- making that often shapes, informs, reflects, and moulds our views on social issues, the strategic work of advertising is based on constant surveillance of our
changing culture, Advertising is part of the complex
circuitry of cultural meaning making, Advertising is a form of ideology

the Frankfurt school

The triumph of advertising is that “consumers feel
compelled to buy and use its products even though
they see through them”

rapid expansion of the advertising industry was fuelled by

development of new technologies (ex. TV, the
internet), government policies protecting commercial
speech, expansion of public relations as a corporate
strategy, intensification of branding over production by contracting out production

Marxist notion of commodity fetishism

the labour and conditions of production are hidden or masked to the consumer and are replaced with new meanings that appear to be inherent in the
commodity itself, advertising’s role is to help
empty the commodity of its story of production and
replace it with carefully chosen cultural meanings

products as brands

A brand is a promise, a set of values and expectations attached to a name or logo, Branding gives products and companies human characteristics, A brand’s value is based in the
intangible: its image and
meaning (brand equity), brand licensing

brand licensing

when a brand rents out the use of its name or
logo for manufacturers to use on new products

Meehan

audience data was highly gendered and racist;
advertisers, networks, and ratings focused on white males aged 18-34

market segmentation

The organization of consumers into smaller, tighter
groups based on their demographic characteristics,
lifestyles, and social values

commercial epistemology

Industries of the marketplace – such as marketers,
advertisers, the media, and retailers – define,
demonstrate, and articulate what information
counts and what is not valuable as knowledge