Intro to Comm Stu

Class Notes

Day 1

4 Levels of Communication

1.       Intrapersonal- Thoughts you have with yourself (One to Self) Ex: Reacting to A Post, Smelling Favorite Foods

2.       Interpersonal- Thoughts Between 2 people (One to One) Ex: Conversation with a peer or hugging your mother which can mean you love her.

3.       Groups- Thoughts with Multiple People, there can be someone who is leading the Group Discussion but in this setting people should be asking questions and sharing their experiences. Group communication can also lead to arguments which are normal because everyone might not have the same opinion. (One to a Group) Ex: Kendrick Lamar concert at a venue. Many Screens that show him and the audience but very little time for the audience to ask questions or share their opinion. But the audience can still create chants from booing to cheering and singing the music.

4.       Mass- Individual or institution uses technology, Message sent to a large sent audience (unknown), Replaced by social media & Online reading and viewing, Space and Time, can receive Feedback in real time. (One to Many) Ex: Politician Speeches, Presidential Elections, Celebrity Getting Arrested.

Chapter 1 NOTES

Remembering when we first heard about the Covid breakout was scary because big businesses were shutting down and leagues across the country were being shut down. MARCH 11,2020 Danilo Gallinari was readying up for a game between the OKC Thunder and Jazz, but it never began due to The Frenchman Rudy Gobert contracting the illness. Little did they know but other leagues shut down, from March Madness, CWS, American Football, Soccer, etc. This also affects little league sports as well.  With these cancellations we lost so many Jobs and entertainment due to the outbreak. Sports News were sidelined for a while and even acting jobs were very limited.

In April 2020 most of the College classes went to distance learning. From using applications like zoom and online test and quizzes.

What Is Communication? “Social Interaction through Messages”- George Gerbner

To simplify this, (How we interact with our entire world, whether through spoken words, written words, gestures, music, paintings, photographs, or even dance)

Communication never stops, it’s something that should move around. It’s a interaction between people to share ideas with one another.

Understanding Our Media World

·       More than 700 Hours of FT Films Per Year

·       More than 300 Hours of YouTube Per Min

·       More than 48 million hours of video every year globally from commercial Television

·       More than 1,500 book titles are published globally per day

What is Media Literacy?

Refers to people’s understanding of what the media are, how they operate, and how they deliver messages.

Potter describes it as “Media Literacy is a set of perspectives that we actively use to expose ourselves to the mass media to process and interpret the meaning of the messages we encounter.”

Potter’s 4 Basic Perspectives or Dimensions of Media Literacy

1.       Cognitive- Deals with the ability to intellectually process the information that’s being given by the media. Ex: The Wonder Woman, the story has gone deeper into its lore overtime. With saying they added more Greek and Roman Mythology to their stories to say if people know the ins and outs of this story then they will invest in knowing the depth to those stories.

2.       Emotional- Deals with the feelings created by the Media. These feelings can feel overwhelming. Ex: Watching A Scary Movie as A Child, Music, War Movies, Death.

3.       Aesthetic- Deals with the artistic or critical POV. How does it compare to (this) product.

4.       Moral- Deals with the values of the medium or the message. Ex: Underlying Messages, Greater Good, Hard Decisions, Fate, Overcoming

How Does One Develop Media Literacy?

1.       Learn as a baby or Toddler

2.       Acquiring Language

3.       Develop Understanding of a Narrative. (Analysis/Meaning of Stories)

4.       Develop Skepticism (Question Things, Find It’s Purpose)

5.       Intensive Development (What Do We Like? What Catches Our Eye?)

6.       Experiential Exploring (Try New Things, Find New Videos/Books/Stories)

7.       Critical Appreciation (Might Not Be A Fan but can appreciate the author or audience)

8.       Social Responsibility (How can we make the World A Better Place, Don’t BE LOGAN PAUL)

Models Of Mass Communication

1.       Transmission Model (SMCR- SENDER MESSAGE CHANNEL RECEIVER) Tends to portray mass communication as a largely one directional flow of messages from the sender to the receiver.

SENDER- Source of messages that go out through mass communication. MESSAGE- Content being transmitted by the sender and reacted to by the receiver. ENCODING- Requires Two Steps, (1) Sender idea becomes a message. Written or Tweeted. (2) Message must be prepared for transmission. (Sent Out for Everyone To See.

Channel- Medium used to Transmit the message.

Receiver- The Audience of the message.

 Decoding- Translating a signal from a mass medium into a form where the receiver can understand.

Noises:

(1) Semantic Noise= Message is in another Language

 (2) Mechanical Noise= Channel has a problem transmitting the message.

 (3) Environmental Noise= Action and Sounds surrounding the receiver interfere with the reception of the message.

2.       Ritual Model- Puts audience members at the center of the equation. How and why audience receivers consume media messages. Ex: People who attend SB Parties not for football but for food, drinks, and entertainment

3.       Publicity Model- Mere fact that a topic is covered by the media can make the topic important regardless of what is being said. Ex: Family Friendly YouTube Channel ruins his image by cussing or promoting Alcohol

4.       Reception Model- How audience members derive and create meaning out of Media Content. Ex: The Receiver decodes the message based on their own experiences, feelings, and beliefs.

Evolution Of the Media World

It truly started from word to mouth conversations, then the newspaper, then to television.

Shockingly, the Roman Catholic Church used to develop the Mass Media. 12^th-14^th Century.

Printing Press or Practical Movable (1450’s)- Mass printing made it possible for major social changes around the world.

Steam Powered Printing Press (1814)

Telegraph Lune (1866)

Emile Berliner (1880’s)- Invented the Gramophone or Phonograph, played mass-produced disc containing three minutes of music.

Radio (Late 19^th Century)- No more telegraph wires and it was easier to hear the media in real time instead of waiting on a paper.

Movies in the late 1890’s and Early 1900’s- Entertainment Industries produced and distributed them worldwide.

Small Black and White Television (1939)- Television passed the radio after WWII came to an end.

The Internet 1990’s- The new computer networks were designed for two-way communication and the audience/receivers were become message providers.

Online & Mobile Media

Cable, Satellite TV, Remote Controls, and VCR’s- Gives the audience easier ways to control what they view and give people options.

Seven Secrets About The Media That “THEY” Don’t Want You To Know

1.       The media are essential components of our lives

2.       There are no mainstream media (MSM)- The Heavy Weight of Journalism (NYT)

3.       Everything from the margin moves to the center

4.       Nothing is new; EVERYTHING that happened in the past will happen again

5.       All media are social

6.       Online media are mobile media

7.       There is no “THEY”

Day 2 Notes

What is communication? = Socially interact through message/Sending ideas from one person to another

What makes Human Communication unique?

·       Writing

·       Speech

·       Art

·       Music

·       Technology

·       Dance

·       Photography

·       Body Language

What is Mass Communication?

·       Individuals or institutions use tech

·       Message sent to large, mixed audiences (unknown)

·       Replaced by social media & online reading and viewing

·       Space & Time

·       Feedback/DM’s

 Media Transformation

·       2000- only 50 percent of Americans online

·       2018- 90 percent online

·       12 percent of Americans use mobile device as a primary way to go online

·       We now assume we can be online everywhere & always

Media Messages vs Media Effects

Values and ideas promoted by the media/sender. (What gets put into the content/message.

Influences and consequences on the audience

·       Media can be considered as a companion

Day 4 Notes

Media Coverage of The Rise of #MeToo

·       If you’ve been the victim of the workplace or something all you had to do is #MeToo instead of people saying the whole thing.

·       Millions and Millions of people came out

·       In 2017, the issue of SA/SH moved from margin to center of media reports.

·       Immunity due to concern of backlash.

·       Ashley Judd- Was the first victim who was willing to attach her name to the case of Harvey Weinstein. Goes to the NYT 2 years later takes the lead.  WENT ON THE RECORD. Then everyone stepped up.

·       Two Powerful Forces in The #MeToo Movement- (Alyssa MIlaono- Takes to social media and says if anyone has experienced SA from Weinstein step up VIA TWITTER/X)

·       Originator of #metoo movement (Tarana Burke)- She listen to woman who have been SA/SH and reported it and created the #Metoo and started a revolution.

·       Terry Crews- Man grabbed and groped him and it was in front of his wife at a party. Filled with rage but since he was a black man feared the backlash. He says not only woman can experience it and he felt paralyzed. Woman felt like they were drawing the attention away from them due to him speaking out.

Why do woman keep stories of SA from being published?

-            Scared, Powerless, Rejection, Belief, Fear of Work, Abuse fear, At fault, Not believed.

Rise of A Mass Society

(Fears the media replaces church, family, and community in shaping public opinion)

·       Pre 1800’s: People in the US lived rurally

·       1800’s: Industrial Revolution- People left rural communities and moved to the city so they can live in a confined property.

B.B.M= Big Bad Messages/Mind Control

(Brainwashing of the people)

What is propaganda- Disseminating information-facts, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or lies. Influence public opinion.

Defamation of other people who aren’t apart of where you’re from. (UNCLE SAM/MOTHER US)

·       Creator of Propaganda (EDWARD BERNAYS)

Direct Effects Model

·       Fears: No Control

·       Direct Effects: Presumes media messages are a stimulus based that leads to consistent, predictable attitudinal or behavioral effects: (HNT) Hypodermic Needle Theory

·       Indirect Effects recognizes that people have different backgrounds, needs values and this responds differently.

Limited Effects Model

·       Pauk Lazarsfeld

·       Voter decision making in 1940 presidential elections

·       Opinion Leaders- Friends and neighbors that you look to for guidance or look through. (Asking information from the people you care about)

·       Media, content, & campaign had indirect effects;

·       Interpersonal influence was stronger

Day 5 Notes

Characters: George Crell presents Wilson to use this as a War effort & Woodrow Wilson.

4 minute man: Volunteer that helped spread the unity of helping the war effort.

James Montgomery flag- Uncle Sam “I WANT YOU”

CPI- Committee on Public Information (PRO WAR)

People Choice Findings

·       Voters with strong opinions are unlikely to change them

·       Voters who pay the most attention to campaign are those with strongest views.

·       Most persuadable voters are not informed, not paying attention to campaigns, and not influenced by media coverage.

How Do Campaigns Affect Voters?

Resonance Model

A candidate’s success depends on how well his or her basic message resonates with and reinforces voters pre-existing political feelings

Competitive Models

Views the political campaign as a competition for the hearts and minds of voters. A candidate’s response to an attack is as important as the attack itself.

Castration: A slogan that resonates

Message Effects

·       How are people affected by the content of messages?

·       Cognitive Effects (Short term learning of information)

·       Attitudinal Effects (Changing people’s attitudes about a person, product, institution, or idea)

·       Behavioral Effect (Inducing people to adopt new behaviors or change existing ones. Much harder than changing attitudes.)

·       Psychological Effects (Inspiring strong feelings or arousal in audience members. People often seek feelings such as fear, joy, revulsion, happiness, or amusement.

Active Audience Effects

·       Audience members seek out and respond to the media for a variety of reasons

·       People can be segmented by geographics, demographics, or psychographics

·       Audience members are selective consumers rather than naïve victims of the media

A Few Theories Of Media & Society

·       Agenda-Setting (The Media don’t tell the public what to think, but rather what to think about. Media sets the terms of public discourse. But can media determine what people will care about?

·       Uses and gratifications

·       Social Learning

·       Spiral of Silence

·       Cultivation Analysis

Harold Lasswell 1948 “The Lasswell Formula”

·       Who

·       Says What?

·       In/On which channel?

·       To whom?

·       With what effects?

Functional Analysis

1.       Surveillance of the environment

2.       Correlation of different news stories

3.       Transmission or Socialization of culture from one generation to the next

(Status Conferral/Entertainment)

Uses and Gratifications

·       Audience members are active consumers with wants and needs

·         Media compete with other sources of gratifications

·         Audience members decide deliberately which choices they will make

·        Judgments on the media should be made based on audience’s perspective

Possible gratifications:

 – To be amused

 – To experience the beautiful

 – To have shared experiences with others

 – To find models to imitate

 – To believe in romantic love

Social Learning

• Albert Bandura: we are able to learn by observing others and the consequences they face • Steps of social learning:

– Extract key information from situations we observe

– Integrate these observations to create rules about how the world operates

 – Put these rules into practice to regulate our own behavior and predict the behavior of others

Spiral of Silence

 • People want to see themselves as part of a majority

• They will remain silent if they perceive themselves as being in a minority

 • This tends to make minority opinions appear less prevalent than they are

• But some people like having contrary opinions; others speak out because they care

Cultivation Analysis

• Watching significant amounts of television alters the way an individual views the nature of the surrounding world

• Can cultivate a response known as the Mean World Syndrome Hanson, Mass Communication: Living in a Media World

Mean World Syndrome

 • Heavy television viewers are more likely to:

 – Overestimate chance of experiencing violence

– Believe their neighborhood is unsafe

 – Say fear of crime is a serious personal problem

– Assume the crime rate is rising