List Gladstone's 7 Biases

1. Commercial Bias

2. Bad News Bias

3. Status Quo Bias

4. Access Bias

5. Narrative Bias

6. Visual Bias

7. Fairness Bias

Media Literacy - process of interacting with and critically analyzing media content by considering its presentation, underlying message(s), and ownership/regulation issues which may affect what's presented and in what form. Being able to evolve, access and interpret, decode bias, what and why someone is communicating something...sifting through

Commercial Bias: People want new stories - Don't cover the same story twice

Bad News Bias: Makes the World seem more dangerous than it actually is

Status Quo Bias: Resist change/stay the same unless benefits are guarenteed

Access Bias: How do you take unanimous quotes - tendency to compromise transparency of the news

Narrative Bias: Make sense of the world through stories, thus changing narratives to fit your story

Fairness Bias: appear to give equal time to both sides - distortion of truth with appearance of balance

Edward R. Murrow - radio and TV journalist and announcer who set the stage

"This instrument (TV) can teach, it can illuminate, and, yes, it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it ti those ends. Otherwise it is nothing but wires and lights in a box."
"Television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us."

Gutenberg Parenthesis Model

• Pre-Parenthetical Era (Orality)

• Gutenberg Parenthesis (Literacy)

• Post-Parenthetical Era (Digitality)
  Developed by Thomas Pettitt

The First Amendment

• Religion

• Assembly

• Press

• Petition

• Speech

The PATRIOT Act

• Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act

• (2001) give up certain rights to increase security/protection

• civil liberty v. terrorism

Libel: written defamation/attack (false) on person's character which damages their reputation

Slander: Spoken Libel

New York Times v. Sullivan: Libel must involve malice - intentional and the defendant knows it is false but publishes it anyway

1. Defamation

2. Identification

3. Publication

Alien and Sedition Laws - sedition (spoken/written criticism of the US Government) was prohibited in fear of support for opposing side in time of war (passed by Federalists) included deportation power and made voting harder for immigrants

Penny Press Revolution:

• The steam-powered press increases circulation

• Benjamin Day takes advantage by sending Newsboys to sell papers for one cent

• Reaches the masses and papers begin to focus on "news" (emphasize fact over opinion) they largely ignored politics

Six values reporters use to pick the stories they report on

1. Stakes- lives on the line

2. Important to the masses

3. Timely

4. Proximity- close to you or the reader

5. Unusual/Rare "Man bites dog"

6. Human interest stories

What are the models of mass communication?

Transmission Ritual

Who is the transmission model of mass communication attributed to?

• Claude E. Shannon & Warren Weaver

• Transmission Model of Mass Communication Sender and Receiver transmission of knowledge

Who is the Ritual Model of Mass Communication attributed to?

• James W. Carey

• Ritual Model of Mass Communication Communication represents, maintains, adapts, and shares societal beliefs ~ reading the newspaper is like attending mass - a ritual where you are an observer of "contending forces" and choose a side based on your ideologies

Direct Effects Model

• Hypodermic-needle Model Media is a drug injected into a passive audience

• Messages have a profound, direct and uniform impact on individuals

Propaganda

• Regular Dissemination of a belief, doctrine, cause or information, with the intent to mold public opinion

List the four types of Communication

1. Intrapersonal

2. Interpersonal

3. Group

4. Mass

Intrapersonal Communication: Talking with/to oneself

Interpersonal Communication: One person communes/exchanges with another, speak with not at, ability to infer tone with the feedback is crucial

Group Communication: One to a few with feedback

Mass Communication: One to many, electronically transmitted message to a mixed audience, not easy to give feedback

Critical/Cultural Model: Theoretical approach broadly influenced by Marxist notions of the role of ideology, exploitation, capitalism, and the economy in understanding/ transforming society

Cultural Studies: interdisciplinary framework for studying communication that rejects the scientific approach while investigating the role of culture in creating and maintaining social relations and systems of power

Agenda Setting:

• Media may not tell you what to think, but it tells you what to think about

• Media's role in deciding what topics are important enough to cover

Paul Lazarsfeld - Uses & Gratifications

• Why people use the media they do/ what people do with media not what media does with people

Elisabeth Noelle-Newmann - Spiral of Silence

1. People are afraid of Isolation

2. Out of this fear they are unwilling to express opinions they feel are in the minority

3. "quasi-statistical organ" (6th sense) people can gauge the prevailing climate of opinion and the majority opinion of a group

George Gerbner - Cultivation Theory

• TV cultivates in audiences a view of reality similar to the world portrayed in TV programs "Mean World Syndrome"

  • People perceive the world to be more dangerous than it is based on viewings of media violence

Media Ecology - Marshall McLuhan

• The study of media environments and their effects on people and society

• "The medium is the message"

Five ways journalists can protect themselves against Libel

1. Thorough and reliable research

2. Confirm Identities

3. Use quotes/sources

4. report only facts/avoid drawing conclusions

5. Avoid bias, strive for balance

Shield laws

• law intended to protect journalists from legal challenges to their freedom to report news

• Don't need to testify/reveal confidential sources journalist protection against libel

• Truth Report: what you believe to be true journalist protection against libel

• Privilege: Statements given in a formal setting journalist protection against libel

• Opinion: Idiot v. drunk

  • Journalist protection against libel

Bruce C. Christensen Devotional (Main Points)

Look into the other group's world (Journalists of Pluto and Religious people of Kolob)

Media doesn't want to incorporate God (Just Keep Swimming instead of Primary Songs)

Pluto is democracy, Kolob Theocracy, Pluto sensational 'junkyard watchdog' and Kolob uplifting prophetic revelation.

13th articles of faith:

Pluto - seek after all that is hateful, shameful, rotten, despicable...

Kolob - seek after all that is virtuous, lovely, praiseworthy...

Chilling Effect

• Phenomenon when journalists/media don't publish stories on a topic another journalist was punished/jailed for

• Government will also try to control materials needed for printing as it causes less public outrage

Sensationalism: News that exaggerates or features lurid details/depictions of events to increase audience

Tabloidization: Transformation of news/literature/etc. into a popularized, lurid and sensational form

Focus of Early American Newspapers: Focused on opinion, not news

Current Magazine Trends:

• Targeting narrower audiences shorter articles

• Presentation matters

Pictographs

• Pictorial symbol for word or phrase

Ideographs don't have a clear definition but are used to give the impression of a clear meaning

Phonographs

• 1877 - Thomas Edison "Talking Machine"

• Tin foil cylinder that records voices from telephone conversations

• Alphabet letters or characters used to express language

Definition of Libel

1. Defamation: attack reputation

2. Identification: clear to who one is attacking

3. Publication

Paul Lazersfeld and Merton:

• Agenda Setting - Media doesn't tell you what to think, just what to think about

• More we see= more important

Blumer and Katz

• Uses and Gratifications - the idea that we use media cognitively and actively for our benefit.

• We choose what we use.

• The reasons people pick the media they use.

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann

• Spiral of Silence - When someone won't express publicly their opinion if they feel it is in the minority, for fear of ostracization or isolation.

George Gerbner

• Cultivation Theory - television cultivates in audiences a view of reality similar to the world portrayed in TV programs.

  • Mean world syndrome is when you think the world is more dangerous than it actually is.

CNN- more liberal viewers than conservative, first 24 hour news coverage channel, won't sign off till the end of the world

Development of Paper

• 3200 BC- papyrus made from reeds

• Parchment which was made from the skins of animals.

• Less fragile than papyrus 240-105 BC paper

Aristotle - The Golden Mean

• Find the middle between two extremes

Immanuel Kant - Categorical Imperative

• Moral obligations that applied to everyone at all times. These do not change based on a person's personal inclinations and goals.

John Stuart Mill - Principle of Utility

• What does the most good for the largest amount of people

John Rawls - Veil of Ignorance

• Pretend like you don't know what your role would be in any given situation, so you individual biases won't persuade your view of what's 'ethical'

• Agrees with utilitarianism, but, to better understand fairness, parties need to step behind a veil of ignorance and give up their social roles, looking to stake out an "original position"

FCC and its Duties (federal communications commission)

• The principle communications regulatory body at the federal level in the U.S.

• Regulates mass communication.

• Also responsible for licensing radio and tv stations (but not networks).909-cvbx Audio ·

Invention of the telegraph

• Heinrich Hertze discovered radio waves.

• Granville T. Woods invented the railroad telegraphy

• 1844 Samuel Morse's telegraph sent messages over wires Invention of the radio

• Invented by Guglielmo Marconi, developed wireless telegraph

Storing Sound- overcoming death, time machine, mass produce recordings

• Edison Invented the Phonograph, recorded sounds on tinfoil cylinders (1877)

• Phonograph Patented by Thomas Edison in 1877 as the talking machine.

• Used a tinfoil cylinder to record voices from telephone conversations.

• What did the gramophone do? Emile Berliner. Used a flat disk rather than a cylinder to record sound (1888)

What do new music playback technologies do?

• Like a personal musical cocoon Invention of the Walkman Social music —> personal soundtracks

• Death of "social music" Walkman, iPods can lead to "withdrawal from social connections"