Week 5 Notes: Media Histories, Fragmentation, and Encoding-Decoding

Week 5 Resources and Announcements

• Watch the 15-minute video in the additional resources folder for week five (Duke and Gorge) before tutorials; transcript is available too. If pressed for time, you can watch at 2x speed (2 imes ext{speed}).
• Location: Learn → Week 5 → Additional resources → Duke and Gorge. A transcript is provided.
• The video is essential for depth of understanding; snippets in tutorials are not sufficient for full participation.
• There are other resources on the page, but you do not need to inspect them in depth unless you want to.
• Informal check-in in week five: share what’s going well or what’s not; the course can adapt. Ways to give feedback:
  • After class
  • End of tutorials
  • Anonymous or named discussion board posts
  • Email (address provided in slides/email)
  • Drop-in hours for face-to-face discussion
• Exam has been posted and will be part of the tutorial assessment: “Critical Media Response.” The questions will not change, except possibly for spelling mistakes.
• Closer to the exam date, a video of the lecturer going through the exam with a sample stimulus will be posted to show expected length and quality of answers. The aim is to reduce fear and provide clarity; the stimulus will be provided on the exam day itself.
• Do not ask exam questions via email; use in-person questions or the dedicated discussion forum (a post is available for this topic). The lecturer checks the forum daily and will respond.
• Reminder: the exam is in week nine during tutorials; you should prepare accordingly.
• The lecturer emphasizes that the exam is not meant to terrify students; many emails indicated anxiety, and steps are being taken to make it more approachable.
• The lecturer will not go into exam details in class; you’re welcome to ask tutors questions about the exam during the week.

Acknowledgement and Course Context

• The lecturer begins with acknowledgement of the traditional lands and pays respect to elders past, present, and emerging.
• The course will quickly review prior weeks and then move toward media fragmentation and the encoding/decoding model, with a focus on how media histories connect to present contexts.

Quick Review: From Mass Media to Individualized Media

• Reminder of previous distinctions from Kittler:
  • Symbolic media: created by humans using their bodies to materialize information through symbols (e.g., writing, images).
  • Medium vs media: media are external, codified means for communication (e.g., television, papyrus, radio, books); not the act of telling a story itself.
  • Symbolic media lead to technical media: human-created media that are stored/transmitted by technology, enabling mass cultural production by translating messages into alternatives like electromagnetic waves (radio waves, TV signals).
• Claude Shannon’s model (transmission of a message through a medium): ext{Source} ightarrow ext{Encoder} ightarrow ext{Channel} ightarrow ext{Decoder} ightarrow ext{Destination}
  • The message can be broadcast without limitation once translated into a medium, enabling mass access.
• Consequences of mass access: the “industrialisation of meaning making” – mass-produced content creates a shared semiotic context; audiences become more homogeneous in their cultural references.
• Emergence of professional communicators (journalists, advertisers, marketers) who control narratives; connects to the concept of agenda setting (not telling people what to think, but what to think about).
• Agenda setting: influential in guiding public discourse; foundational figures include Walter Lippmann and Bernard Cohen.
• Historical models of communication and audience behavior:
  • Laswell model: one-way, top-down flow; the receiver is passive.
  • Shannon model: similar structure but with emphasis on encoding/decoding and channels; the feedback loop is recognized via dotted lines illustrating two-way influence (receivers can influence communicators within media industries).
• Literacy and mass production: the printing press enabled widespread reading and literacy, contributing to mass culture and professional content production.

Media and Cultural Industries: Frankfurt School and the Culture Industry

• Key figures: Max Horkheimer (left) and Theodor Adorno (right); both associated with the Frankfurt School.
• Historical context: 1920s–1940s Europe; rise of capitalism, fascism, and political turmoil; two major critiques of media used for domination.
• Core idea of the culture industry: culture and media are organized to reproduce and sustain power structures; they pacify the masses and suppress genuine emancipation.
• The aim of the Frankfurt School: human emancipation through art and culture; critical of how media systems manipulate rather than liberate.
• The Dialectic of Enlightenment: critical work on how culture is used to oppress masses through media and entertainment.
• Notion of “illusion of choice”: audiences feel they have agency, but their choices are constrained by the cultural industries and the structures that shape them; this ties to agenda setting and the coercive power of media representations.
• Notable quote from Horkheimer and Adorno (1940s): ext{“Personality means hardly more than dazzling white teeth and freedom from body odor and emotions. That is the triumph of advertising in the culture industry. The compulsive imitation by consumers of cultural commodities which at the same time they recognize as false.”}
  • This highlights how media produces aspirational identities that are performative and often inauthentic.
• Contemporary relevance: the culture industry critique remains relevant in understanding how media shapes desire, norms, and perceived realities today.
• Practical example: today’s dating shows (e.g., Married at First Sight, Farmer Wants a Wife, Love Island Australia, Love on the Spectrum) superficially appear different, but at their core they are about coupling, drama, conflict, and reconciliation; they illustrate how surface differences mask similar underlying messages about social norms, relationships, and performance.
• The Hall-reading connection: certain semiotic contexts and messages pervade media; even if surface-level formats differ, core messages persist and reinforce a cultural status quo.
• Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique also discusses the public’s complicity in consuming representations of reality that are constructed and potentially misleading.
• The “culture industry” section ends by linking to a broader discussion of how media representations influence social perceptions, power, and cultural practice.

Key Moments in the Last Century (selected, illustrative, non-exhaustive)

• Fordism & Taylorism (1930s): mass production and factory-style organization applied to culture and media production; monotony and standardized outputs; Henry Ford’s famous “you can have any colour you want, as long as it’s black” ethos (illustrative quote).
• 1950s newsroom (New York Journal American): more varied content, but slides show a relatively cohesive, hierarchical newsroom environment; contrast with earlier mass-production settings; hints at fragmentation beginning to emerge.
• 1979 globalization shift: US–China open door policy (Deng Xiaoping in China; Jimmy Carter in the US); globalization of manufacturing and cultural production; spread of global trade networks; consolidation of global media flows.
• 1989 Berlin Wall falls: symbolic moment of political and cultural fragmentation; global markets and media narratives diversify; different political systems converge in a global media environment.
• Advertising-era examples illustrating technology and access:
  • Shirley Temple advertisement (1930s): radio as a communal, location-bound experience; teledial concept linking family listening to radio consumption.
  • Motorola TV (1950s): shared family viewing; the idea of ‘happiness shared by all the family’ and expanding channel options.
  • Sony Walkman (1970s): portable, personal listening; fragmentation and choice; listening experiences become individualized and transportable; audiences can opt into different contexts (pool, painting, romance) on their own terms.
  • Mac LC advertisement (1990s): personal computing expands access to information; emphasizes user control over what information is accessed, when, and with whom; visual metaphor for fragmentation and individualized media environments.
• Cumulative takeaway: globalization and technological change drive fragmentation and plurality of media experiences, while some core logics of media production (e.g., shared formats and social norms) persist across eras.
• Conceptual takeaway: by the 1990s, more choice exists, but the environment remains constrained by broader cultural and economic forces. The question shifts from “what environment is created” to “what kinds of environments are created” (plural).

Encoding–Decoding: Stuart Hall

• Hall’s background: Jamaican-born academic; part of the Birmingham School; focus on semiotics and how people interpret signs and symbols within shared cultural contexts.
• Policing the Crisis: Hall analyzes how media representations of crime, policing, and social danger interact with public perceptions and legal outcomes.
• Key claim: news is not a neutral mirror of events but the result of a social process of sorting/selecting events according to a socially constructed set of categories; media representations shape perceptions, attitudes, and policy responses (e.g., sentencing).
• Power dynamics: media representations create a reciprocal relationship between consensual and coercive power; the public consents to certain norms while media and authorities foster coercive enforcement through representation.
• Coercive vs consensual power:
  • Consensual power: participants in the system comply with norms and rules out of perceived legitimacy.
  • Coercive power: authorities enforce rules through force or threat; media representations contribute to perceptions that sustain coercive actions.
• Encoding–decoding framework:
  • Producers encode meaning into media artifacts using their knowledge, relations of production, and technical infrastructure.
  • Receivers decode messages using their own knowledge, production practices, and technology; decoding is not a direct mirror of encoding.
  • The difference between encoding and decoding is shaped by context, culture, and material conditions.
• Three decoding positions (as per Hall and the educational video):
  • Dominant (magic bullet) decoding: the audience accepts the intended meaning; the decoded meaning aligns with the producer’s message.
  • Negotiated decoding: the audience accepts some aspects of the intended meaning but reinterprets others; they adapt the message to their own context.
  • Oppositional decoding: the audience understands the intended message but rejects it, often due to different cultural or political frames.
• Practical illustration (tutorial video by Nick Cara): a short explanation of encoding/decoding with a simple visual example of three decoding options.
• Contemporary example: OpenAI’s ChatGPT and AI in education
  • OpenAI launched ChatGPT (2022); later released an economic blueprint for Australia (February); aims to influence education, healthcare, and public institutions to adopt AI technologies.
  • Encoding: OpenAI encodes a vision of AI as transformative and beneficial for education; the blueprint is a cultural product aimed at persuading policymakers and institutions.
  • Decoding: three potential responses deployed by institutions:
  • Dominant: embrace and evangelize AI (e.g., supportive university staff sharing positive views).
  • Oppositional: reject or constrain AI use (e.g., UQ historically banning AI tools in assessments).
  • Negotiated: adopt a controlled, governed approach that allows AI tools but with restrictions tailored to course objectives and ethics.
  • In late terms, UQ shifted from an oppositional stance to a negotiated stance, allowing responsible AI use with course-specific restrictions.
• Relevance to the course: the encoding–decoding model helps analyze how media and cultural industries push certain tools and narratives, while receivers (students, universities) respond in varied ways depending on context and power relations.

Tutorial Preparations and Readings

• For tutorials this week: answer the reading prompts before the tutorial and watch Shannon Breen’s video about the Juke and Gorge incident; failure to do so may lead to confusion in class.
• Reminder about the exam: review the week nine assessment section and the sample stimulus video; expect a certain length and quality of answer.
• The instructor emphasizes engagement, debate, and critical thinking, encouraging disagreement with scholars’ arguments while maintaining a respectful tone.

Key Terms and Concepts (glossary-style quick reference)

• Symbolic media: media created by humans using symbols and bodies (e.g., writing, images).
• Technical media: media created with technologies that store/translate messages (e.g., radio, TV signals) enabling mass distribution.
• Medium vs media: media are the external artifacts used to communicate; not the act of storytelling itself.
• Mass cultural production: large-scale creation and distribution of cultural artifacts via technical media.
• Agenda setting: media influence on what topics are salient, not necessarily what to think, but what to think about.
• Encoding–Decoding model (Hall): producers encode meanings via knowledge, production relations, and infrastructure; receivers decode meanings through their own knowledge, production, and infrastructure.
• Dominant decoding: audience accepts intended meaning.
• Negotiated decoding: audience accepts some aspects and negotiates others.
• Oppositional decoding: audience rejects the intended meaning.
• Culture industry: Frankfurt School concept that mass culture is produced to maintain social order and suppress emancipation.
• Frankfurt School: Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno; critical theorists examining culture, capitalism, and politics in the 20th century.
• Coercive vs consensual power: coercive uses force or threat; consensual relies on legitimacy and acceptance within social norms.
• Fordism: mass production system in manufacturing and cultural industries; standardized output.
• Taylorism: scientific management approach to productivity and efficiency.
• Globalization: the expansion and integration of economies and cultures across borders, affecting production and distribution of media.
• Open Door policy (China) and SEZs: pivotal moment in late 20th century economic liberalization and global production networks.
• Berlin Wall (1989): symbol of political fragmentation and subsequent cultural fragmentation in global media.
• Juke and Gorge incident: referenced as a case study in tutorial video for encoding/decoding discussion (watch the Shannon Breen video).
• Example media artifacts mentioned:
  • Shirley Temple radio advertisement (1930s)
  • Motorola TV (1950s)
  • Sony Walkman (1970s)
  • Mac LC advertisement (1990s)
  • Dating/television shows (e.g., Married at First Sight, Love Island) as exemplars of underlying cultural messages

Connections to Foundational Principles and Real-World Relevance

• The shift from mass to individualized media illustrates ongoing tensions between shared cultural experiences and personalization; this informs how contemporary platforms curate feeds and shape user behavior.
• The culture industry critique remains pertinent in discussions about influencer economies, algorithmic curation, and the sustainability of public discourse under mass entertainment.
• The encoding–decoding framework provides a robust lens to analyze contemporary AI adoption, social media campaigns, and institutional responses to technology.
• Understanding dominant/negotiated/oppositional readings helps explain why stakeholders (students, staff, administrators) interpret policy announcements, AI tools, and media messages in divergent ways.
• Ethical and practical implications: the balance between freedom of expression and safeguarding against misinformation; the duty of educators and institutions to provide clear guidance about new technologies; the role of media literacy in empowering students to critically assess messages.

Quick Reference for the Exam Prep

• Be able to describe the difference between symbolic and technical media, and how each enables or constrains mass production and distribution.
• Explain the concept of the culture industry and why Adorno and Horkheimer argued that media can manipulate rather than liberate.
• Define and illustrate the encoding–decoding model and the three decoding positions with contemporary examples (e.g., AI in education).
• Recognize key historical moments that illustrate the globalization of media production and the fragmentation of audiences (Fordism, Walkman, Berlin Wall, Open Door policy, Mac LC).
• Understand the relationship between media representations, public opinion, and policy outcomes (Hall’s policing the crisis, coercive vs consensual power).
• Be able to identify how a modern institution might adopt a negotiated approach to new technologies, with regard to policy and ethics (e.g., AI in higher education).

Final Reminders for Students

• Watch the 15-minute Duke and Gorge video (and read the transcript) before tutorials.
• Use the discussion board or drop-in hours if you have questions about the exam or course material.
• Prepare for the exam by reviewing the provided sample stimuli and the encoding/decoding framework; practice applying it to contemporary media cases.
• Remember to submit reading prompts and engage with the tutorial prompts in a timely manner to maximize understanding and performance.