MCM 733: Communication Theory Chapters 8, 9. Ch 7:Emergence of Critical Cultural Theories… Limited effects and functionalism was criticized by Europeans

MCM 733:Communication Theory

Chapters 8, 9

Ch 7:Emergence of Critical Cultural Theories…

• Limited effects and functionalism was criticized by Europeans who alleged that they favoured the status quo

• Children and adults grew up in a mediascape– They watched more TV, were socialized by TV and

books.– This led to the idea that Mass Comm was educating

them and giving them models for living and identity– Culture seemed to become more important: culture

being defined as a set of learned behaviours for members of a social group

– Mass comm is privileging global voices over local ones

Ch 7: Emergence of Critical Cultural Theories…

• Cultural Studies: focus on use of media to create forms of culture that structure everyday life

• Hegemonic Culture: culture imposed from above or outside that serves the interests of those in dominant social positions

• Political economy theories: focus on socila elites’ use of economic power to exploit media institutions


• Microscopic interpretive theories: focus on how individuals and social groups use media to create and foster forms of culture that structure everyday life (critical)

• Macroscopic theories: how media institutions are structured within capitalist economies. Examine how social elites operate media to earn profits and exercise influence in society (political economy)


• Our experience of everyday life, including reality itself is a social construction

• Mass media help shape this construction• They see themselves as agents of disruption…

changing the political order by shirking “received opinion” and “making the familiar seem unfamiliar”


• Critical Cultural Theory: these theorists espouse a specific axiology which licenses them to espouse specific values and use them to evaluate and criticise the status quo

• Critical theorists say that media tends to reinforce the status quo because it is controlled by power elites who wish to maintain power and order – to the exclusion of disempowered groups


• Critical Theories are concerned with:– Countercultures– Pedagogy of the oppressed– Struggle against authority– Subversion of the known authority– Revolution– They refuse to promote a “solution” outside of

constant revolution because anytime that a social structure is made, a power structure is put in place and struggle and resistance must continue, but with different actors.


• Marxist Theory– Inspired by Hegel but reacted against Hegel’s idealism

(German Idealism)– Marx promoted a “scientific material” view of society,

based on economics and the study of capital distribution among classes.

– Ideology for Marx was a set of thoughts, beliefs and metaphors so engrained that they become subconscious: a means for maintaining the social dominance of the upper class

– A superstructure (upper class) dominate a substructure (proletarian) group mostly through ideology and persuasion


• Neo Marxism– British cultural studies is based on the concept of neo-

Marxism– Neo Marxists focus on the culture and ideology of the

superstructure. – They think that by subverting cultural norms that

oppress and exclude group, they can destabilize the superstructure. This is due to their belief in linguistic determinism.

– Linguistic determinism: the belief that reality is entirely constructed through language and discourse.

– They favour subversion over violent revolution


• Textual Analysis and Literary Criticism– Humanists have specialized in analyzing texts

since the renaissance. – The developed the “cannon” and the concept of

high culture – modern critical theory is identity-based and rejects all concept of high culture, privileging popular culture

– Now critical theory is divided between purely hermeneutic (understanding-based) approaches and neo-Marxist ones.


• Frankfurt School: a group of mostly Jewish neo-Marxist scholars at the U of Frankfurt.

• Were humanists and used neo-Marxist methods to analyze cultural products

• Celebrated high culture and denigrated popular culture as being the product of

• Culture industries: mass media that turn high culture and folk culture into commodities for profit

• Most humanists analyzed the culture itself, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer focused on the industries that produced it.

• Frankfurt School had a big effect in the USA because they emigrated to the USA during WWII


• Neo-Marxist Thoery in Britain– British cultural studies combined neo-Marxist theory with

methods from linguistics, anthropology, history and literary criticism.

– Was focused on the domination of minorities and identity-based oppressed groups (gender, race, class, sexuality, subculture) by elites through culture.

– Hermeneutic attention is shifted from the cultural products themselves toward the “lived culture” of minority groups

– Raymond Williams denigrated high culture and privileged folk culture and he argued that mass media posed a threat to worthwhile cultural development because of its origins in marketing for capitalist oppressors


• Stuart Hall: understood ideology as “those images, concepts and premises which provide frameworks through which we represent, interpret, understand and make sense of some aspect of social existence.”

• Mass media were a pluralistic public forum which provides a “site” in which various forces struggle to define social existence. Social reality was defined in the mass media.


• The activism of British Cultural Studies was both its strength and its downfall.

• They are accused of strong bias and turning academic research into a program for “cause advocacy”.

• Their work has also been accused of creating a nihilistic “culture of resentment” which only leads to division and bitterness among different social groups.

• It has also been argued that that their focus on the group belonging and identity is a regressive factor away from liberalism.


• Cultural studies in America: Transmission versus ritual perspectives– Functionalist and limited effects theories have

taken a “transmissional perspective” – Cultural studies is focused on our everyday rituals

that structure and shape our reality– Ritual perspective: view of mass comm as the

representation of shared belief where reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transformed


• American Popular Culture Research– Strongly influenced by Marshall McLuhan: unlike

British critical theorists, they are not activist and share McLuhan’s optimism

• Some major findings:– TV shows have multiple layers of meaning which

are put there on purpose– Audience interpretations of content are very

diverse


• Harold Innis: The Bias of Communication– Different empires were based on communication

technologies that privileged types of knowledge– Empire expansion relied more on messaging from the

centre than military might– New comms techs create struggles between types of

knowledge– Space-binding vs. time-binding techs– The Bias of communication: new techs also tended to

centralize power– Theory of the periphery and the centre


• McLuhan– The Medium is the Message: focused on popular

culture– Change in comm techs bring about change in culture

and social order– McLuhan was not critical: he was not a member of

revolutionary groups or – McLuhan was cognitivist: communication

technologies are extensions of the mind and the body– Technological determinist


• McLuhan thought that comms techs could transform our sensory experiences

• The medium is the message: new forms of media transform our experience of ourselves and our society and this influence is ultimately more important than the content of the specific messages. The content of a medium is another medium

• Global village: a new form of social organization emerging as instantaneous electronic media tie the entire world into one great social-political-psychological network.


• The extensions of Man: media literally extend sight, hearing and tough through time and space

• Aural vs. visual space: linear, alphabetic, visual cultural changed social cognition and constrained it. Aural culture freed the mind and brought back stories, myths and retribalized socieyt

• Hot and cool media: hot is high def and cool is low-def


• McLuhan was wildly popular in the communications industry

• Dismissed by empirical researchers• Dismissed by critical theorists for his optimism and

cognitivism and lack of desire for bloody revolution or sneaky subversion of the elites. McLuhan thought subversion was profoundly dishonest and could lead to no good.

• McLuhan was the popcultural and mass comm guru but personally disliked technology and mass culture – he was scholarly, contemplative, a dandy, and very religious (Catholic).

Ch 9: Audience Theories: Uses, Reception and Effects

• Source dominated to active audience theory:– Uses and gratifications theory was the first to give

the audience credit. Herzog’s soap opera study identified three major means of gratification• Listening was a means of emotional release• Opportunities for wishful thinking• Advice on life

– U&G : the uses to which people put media and gratifications they seek from it.


• Revival of U&G– U&G offered three tantalizing characteristics of

computer-mediated mass comm:• Interactivity – strengthens the concept of the active

user• Demassification – individuals can tailor content to their

needs• Asynchroneity: individuals can receive messages in a

staggered fashion.


• The Active Audience Revisited:– Blumler (1979) identified several meanings for the

term activity:• Utility: media have uses for people and people can put

media to those uses• Intentionality: consumption of media content can be

directed by people’s prior motivations• Selectivity: people’s use of media might reflect their existing

interests and preferences• Imperviousness to influence: audience members are often

obstinate: they might not want to be controlled by anyone or anything, even mass media. Audience members actively avoid certain types of media influence.


• Basic Assumptions of the U&G Model– The audience is active and its media use is goal-oriented– The initiative in linking need gratification to a specific

media choice rests with the audience member– The media compete with other sources of need

satisfaction– People are aware enough of their own media use,

interests, and motives to be able to provide researchers with an accurate picture of that use

– Value judgements regarding the audience’s lining its needs to specific media or content should be suspended


• Types of Social Situations in which U&G apply– Social situations can produce tensions and conflicts leading to

pressure for their easement through media consumption– Social situations can create an awareness f problems that

demand attention, info about which might be sought in media– Social situations can impoverish real-life opportunities to satisfy

certain needs, and the media can serve as substitutes or supplements.

– Social situations often elicit specific values and their affirmation and reinforcement can be facilitated by the consumption of related media materials.

– Social Situations can provide realms of expectations of familiarity with media, which must be met to sustain membership in specific social groups


• Reception Studies: Decoding and Sense-making– Reception studies: audience-centered theory that focuses on

how various types of audience members make sense of specific forms of content

– Polysemic: the characteristic of media texts as fundamentally ambiguous and legitimately interpretable in different ways.

– Preferred reading: in critical theory: the producer-intended meaning of a piece of content; assumed to reinforce the status quo

– Negotiated meaning: when an audience member creates a personally meaningful interpretation of content that differs from the preferred reading in important ways.

– Oppositional decoding: when an audience member develops interpretations of content that are in direct opposition to a dominant reading


• Feminist Reception studies:– Radway (1986) found that many women read in book

clubs, romance novels, in silent rebellion against male domination. The books were an escape from housework and liked men who were strong but gentle and women who controlled their own destinies

– Steiner (1988) studied 10 yrs of the “no comment” feature of Ms. magazine. She argued that Ms. readers engaged in oppositional decoding of stories of male domination

– McRobbie (1984) did a similar reading of Flashdance. Girls liked it more because of the dream of physical autonomy it presented than any simple acceptance of male domination


• New Directions in Audience Effects Research: The Rise of Moderate Effects Theories– Information Processing theory: mechanistic analogies

to describe and interpret how people deal with all the stimuli they receive

– Entertainment theory: conceptualizes and explicates key psychological mechanisms underlying audience use and enjoyment of entertainment oriented media content

– Social marketing theory: collection of middle-range theories concerned with promoting socially valuable information


• Information-Processing Theory: CogSci– Humans as information processing biological

machines– Our mind/brain helps us navigate the flow of

information, we avoid and filter more than we seek out

– Big difference between cognition (passive) and consciousness (active)

– Consciousness does not always give us an accurate picture of reality


• Cognition is the product of human evolution: it is biological and genetic/epigenetic

• We use these cognitive mechanisms to read the thousands of pieces of non-verbal information we are surrounded by everyday

• Cogsci provides insight into the mechanisms active when we interact with media/language/art/text/music/taste/smell


• Cognitive science recognizes the limits of consciousness: we associate consciousness and rationality, but neuroscience is showing the power of affect (Scientific American Mind)

• We have limited cognitive resources• We prioritize visual information• Poorly structured news stories were hard to

understand even though the audience tried hard


• Processing Television News– We approach TV news passively– We are distracted by many other things while we watch– We depend on visual and auditory cues to draw our

attention to particular stories– Schemas: more or less highly structured sets of categories

or plans– The average newscast is so complicated to be “biased

against understanding”– Human interest stories with compelling plotlines were well

understood– Stories with unrelated visuals or jargon were hard to

understand.


• Entertainment theory– Studies the psychological processes associated

with entertainment

• Mood Management Theory:– The main reason we use media is to regulate,

change and control our moods


• Social Marketing Theory– Methods for inducing awareness of campaign topics or themes– Methods for targeting message at audiences more susceptible

to receiving them– Methods for reinforcing messages within targeted segments

and for encouraging people to influence others through face-to-face

– Methods for cultivating images of people, products and services– Methods for stimulating interest and inducing information

seeking by audience members– Methods for inducing desired decision making or positioning– Methods for activating audience segments, especially those

who have been targeted by the campaign


• Hierarchy of Effects: practical theory calling for the differentiation of persuasion effects relative to the time and effect necessary for their accomplishment

• Digital Divide: lack of access to communication technologies for certain communities (rural, racial, poor)

Documents

MCM 733: Communication Theory Chapters 8, 9. Ch 7:Emergence of Critical Cultural Theories… Limited effects and functionalism was criticized by Europeans