Upload
czavisca
View
1.177
Download
1
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Mass Media and Society
Chapter 1: Media and Culture
Jan. 17, 2014
Chapter 1:Media and Culture
• Mass communication and mass media
• How culture affects media, and media affect culture
• The roles played by media in society
Chapter 1:Media and Culture
• Convergence• Free speech• Popular culture• Media literacy
Understanding Media and Culture
• What is culture?• “A particular way of life
and how that life is acted out each day in works, practices and activities”
Defining culture
• “The expressed and shared values, attitudes, beliefs, and practices of a social group, organization or institution”
• “Culture should not be easy to define”
Marshall McLuhan
• “The medium is the message”
• 1950s to 1980• Media themselves are
more important than any content they carry
Marshall McLuhan
• Media influence how the brain works and processes information, creating new patterns of thought and behavior
• Dominant media shape society
Mass communication
• Communication transmitted to large segments of society
Media
• The word media is plural!• A medium is simply an
instrument or means of communication
• Mass media: means of transmission designed to reach a wide audience
Mass media
• Radio, film, newspapers, magazines, books, video games, websites, blogs, podcasts, video sharing
The evolutionof media
• Gutenberg’s 15th century invention of the printing press made the mass production of print media possible.
Newspapers
• As the United States developed, print newspapers helped give expression to developing American culture.
• Helped create an “imagined community”
Radio and rise of television
• 17,000 TVs in 1946; within 7 years, in 1 of 3 U.S. households
• Cable television spreads in 1980s and 1990s
What do media do for us?
• Inform and entertain• Serve as public forum• Monitor government and
institutions• Watergate• N.J. bridge scandal:
Bergen Record
Convergence
• Process by which previously distinct technologies come to share content, tasks and resources
• Smartphones; news stories appearing on multiple platforms
Jenkins: Types of convergence
• Economic• Organic• Cultural• Global• Technological
Media shape culture and vice versa
• Free speech, obscenity, copyright law
• Persuasion and propaganda
• Gatekeepers
Mass media and popular culture
• Pop culture: The media products and attitudes that are part of the mainstream of a culture and the everyday life of common people
• Tastemakers and crowdsourcing
Media Literacy
• The ability to access, analyze, and communicate information.
• Skeptically examine the media messages we receive.
5 core concepts of media literacy
• Messages constructed• Using own language• Different experiences• Embedded
values/viewpoint• Organized to gain
profit/power