Mass Communications in Modern Society Spring 2013Exam 1 Study Guide

LECTURE 1 - MEDIA IN CONTEXT

1. Medium is derived from the Latin word for Middle

2. Communication comes from the Latin word for Common

3. What are Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft?

Gemeinschaft( mechanic solidarity) = The small community were everybody

knew each other and same cultural values that is Gemeinschaft

Gesselschaft (organic) = where you don’t have strong tides and individualism

takes precedents of collective tides.

1. What does Durkheim mean by “mechanic” as opposed to “organic” society?

 In a society exhibiting mechanical solidarity, its cohesion and integration comes from the

homogeneity of individuals—people feel connected through similar work, educational and

religious training, and lifestyle. Mechanical solidarity normally operates in "traditional" and small

scale societies.[1] In simpler societies (e.g.,tribal), solidarity is usually based on kinship ties of

familial networks. Organic solidarity comes from the interdependence that arises from

specialization of work and the complementarities between people—a development which occurs

in "modern" and "industrial" societies.[1] Definition: it is social cohesion based upon the

dependence individuals have on each other in more advanced societies. Although individuals

perform different tasks and often have different values and interest, the order and very solidarity

of society depends on their reliance on each other to perform their specified tasks

So organic could be like all though they are each separated parts they can come together and

come as whole to make the entire thing work perfectly

2. How does mass communications differ from face to face (or interpersonal)

conversations or communications (letter writing, phone call)?

Mass communication is send to the masses and is intended to be received by a mass

of people and not to mention that people don’t get to give immediate feedback after

the message is send. Sending a mass message you cannot control who you will be

able to see it.

3. “How is network media different than interpersonal or mass media?”

Interpersonal à 1 on 1 , it is a limited number

Mass àWhen you talk about mass its 1 on many.

Network à many to many

1. What are the four senses of “mediation” that Grossberg claims are embedded in

communication?

1. So the first definition of mediation is interceding or coming between.

2. Second definition à this sense applies that which has been mediated has biased or

shaped by the mediator and can be contrasted with immediate, objective information.

3. Third definition à mediation is the space between the individual subjects and

reality.

4. Fourth sense à how messages are transmitted from one person to another .

2. Why do criticisms of new culture often turn into criticism of the media that

carry them?

Because the new medias often carry the new values of culture

3. What does Grossberg mean by “We live in a world of media, but not a media

world”?

The media bring the world to us and help to shape that world, but there is still a

reality outside of the media. It is becoming harder all the time to tell the real world

from the media world, but it is essential to know the difference if diverse peoples and

nations are to live together in peace. This book about the ways in which the world and

the media make each other .

4. What is meant by the phrase “media organizations produce cultural forms”?

Media organization are driving force behind new culture and they help to set the news

trends that occur within society

5. How do Broome & Selznik define “mass” in mass society?

Collection of segregated, isolated individuals

interdependent yet lacking central unifying purpose or value

Only loosely bound together

Mass à a group of people , a big group of people. We are talking about a

large collection of isolated individuals who may reside in the same place or

going to the same place they are dependent but interdependent.

Idea of mass in modern society

People congregating together and people moved to the city people were not

tied together by bonds anymore. Life became to be ruled by rationalization,

efficiency became important particular in social relations.

Loosely bound society

1. What are the fundamental differences between the Transmission model and the

Cultural model of communication?

Transmission àMessage is transported from one person or place to others

Cultural model à draws a very close connection between the processes of social

communication and the production of a common culture. Culture becomes synomous

with the whole way of life or a society or people.

2. What is the basic Transmission model of communication and how did Berlo and

Lasswell modify it?

Transmission àMessage is transported from one person or place to others

Berlo’s Model àSource à Message à Channel à Receiver

1. What are the weaknesses of the transmission model?

It is depended on memory and can often be morphed and it required people to have

acting skills.

2. What did Osgood & Schram add to the transmission model?

There is more than sending messages and receiving messages , we have

incode messages and we have to put into speech or write it out, we have to

incode a message and we send it to the receiver and interprets and sends one

back to us.

They add the notion of noise à they are things that could get in the way of

our message getting received.

3 different types of noise

Semantic à the words we say maybe different, like different meaning

Mechanical à the telephone has a lot of interference, or your internet

connection not getting the message, a lot of mechanical problems could

happen.

Environmental à the background noise, (restaurant where you’re trying to

have a conversation but can’t hear other people).

The fidelity of the message weakens as the noise increases.

1. What are the 3 types of “noise” Osgood & Schram identified?

1. Semantic à the words we say maybe different, like different meaning

Mechanical à the telephone has a lot of interference, or your internet

connection not getting the message, a lot of mechanical problems could

happen.

Environmental à the background noise, (restaurant where you’re trying to

have a conversation but can’t hear other people).

LECTURE 2 – CULTURE & MEDIA LITERACY

1. What is “culture” as defined by Baran?

Culture is the world made meaningful; it is socially constructed and maintained

through communication. It limits as well as liberates us; it differentiates as well as

unites us. It defines our realities and thereby shapes the ways we think, feel, and act

2. What are some of the effects of culture?

Limits options and guides behavior

Learned through communication

Not static – open to challenge

Bounded or co-cultures

3. What are “bounded cultures”?

Co-Culture is a group whose beliefs or behaviors distinguish it from the larger culture of which

it is part of and with which it shares numerous similarities. They are smaller groups.

4. What is mass communications role in shaping culture?

• Cultural storyteller, Cultural forum

5. Describe the “Cultural Model of Communication”.

Cultural model à draws a very close connection between the processes of social

communication and the production of a common culture. Culture become synomous

with the whole way of life or a society or people.

6. What were the main points of Dewey’s consensus model in respect to the role of

mass communications?

Consensus theory is a social theory that holds that a particular political or economic

system is a fair system, and that social change should take place within the social

institutions provided by it. Consensus theory contrasts sharply with conflict theory, which

holds that social change is only achieved through conflict.

7. How do conflict theories view the role of mass communications

According to conflict theory, inequality exists because those in control of a

disproportionate share of society’s resources actively defend their advantages. The

masses are not bound to society by their shared values, but by coercion at the hands of

those in power. This perspective emphasizes social control, not consensus and conformity.

Groups and individuals advance their own interests, struggling over control of societal

resources. Those with the most resources exercise power over others with inequality and

power struggles resulting. There is great attention paid to class, race, and gender in this

perspective because they are seen as the grounds of the most pertinent and enduring

struggles in society

8. What are the elements of media literacy we discussed in class?

1. Critical thinking

2. Understanding the process

3. Awareness of impact

4. Strategies to analyze & discuss media messages

5. Media content as textual insight into our culture

6. Ability to enjoy, understand & appreciate content

7. Develop effective, responsible production skills

8. Ethical & moral obligations

9. What are the media literacy skills we discussed in class?

Ability & willingness to make effort to:

.understand content,

pay attention, and

filter out noise

Understand & respect power of media messages

Distinguish emotional from reasoned reactions when responding to content & act

accordingly

Develop heightened expectations of media content

Knowledge of genre conventions and ability to recognize when they are being mixed

Ability to think critically about media messages

Knowledge of internal language of various media and ability to understand its effects

1. What is the essence of Berger and Luckman’s Social construction of reality?

Reality is that persons and groups interacting in a social system create, over time, concepts or mental representations of each other’s actions, and that these concepts eventually become habituated into reciprocal roles played by the actors in relations to each others.

2. According to Considine, why do we need “media literacy” in the 21st century?

Technology competent and be able to access and process information. It provides

training in problem solving which American business leader say is another important

job skill in the economy of both today and tomorrow

3. What seven principles of media literacy does Considine discuss?

Aesthestic and appreciation

Production

Citizenship

Media contains values and ideologies

Audiences negotiate their own meaning

Construct reality

Medica construction have commercial purposes

4. What cultural messages are communicated by our cartoon childhood heroines?

They tell us that a woman is weak and they gave us ideas of what is beauty

5. What are some of the questions Grassian suggests we should be asking about the

source and data on websites?

Who is the intended audience?

What is the purpose of the site (e.g., news, information/factual, entertainment, social

connection, opinion, education, experimentation, research, training, sales,

marketing/advertising, recruitment, etc.)?

What sorts of information or data does it contain?

To what extent does the site fulfill its intended purpose?

How valuable or useful is the site or item?

Is the site restricted to a particular group or category (e.g., over 18, college students,

teenagers, employees of a particular company, organization or institution)?

If there are restrictions or usage regulations, how are they enforced?

What is the purpose of individual items, collections of items or areas within the site?

Do participants retain intellectual property rights over items or areas mounted or created on

the site?

Can items within the site be copied and utilized freely?

How accurate are replicas or purported representations on a site or within a particular

area?

How accurate is the information regarding the site, area, individual items or individual

participants?

Are links provided to additional information within or outside the site?

Are the links comprehensive or do they just provide a sampling?

How are the links selected?

Is there an appropriate range of links to other useful sites and help?

LECTURE 3 – NARRATIVES OF MEDIA HISTORY

1. To what extent has the history of communications fundamentally shaped the

direction of human endeavor and social life?

It has changed in all aspects of life it has spread ideas and allowed new sciences to be

able to recorded it allowed people to heard about laws and political views and it took

away power away from religion.

2. What 4 communication narratives did Grossberg analyze?

• Oral

• Writing

• Print

• Electronic

3. What is happening to the pace of change of communication narratives? And

what is the impact?

4. What is Grossberg’s “technological determinism” warning?

Technological determinism is the belief that technology is the principles , if not only, cause of historical change . Such theorist fail to adequadately consider the ways in which people make history.

5. What does Grossberg mean by “debates about power of media are debates about

the future”?

Because our opinions are highly driven and shaped by the media and our customs are

drive by it

6. What are the Space, Time, Trust, Social Relations, Power, and Cultural impacts

of Grossberg’s four cultural narratives?

7. How have the rapid developments of new communication technologies

contributed to post-modernity?

Post modernity à is generally used to describe the economic or cultural state or

condition of society which is said to exist after.

8. Explain how Gutenberg’s invention of a moveable type printing press altered

the course of European (and world) history?

1450’ Guttenberg developed moveable metal type, he could produce a lot very

quickly . The consequences of this for society are daunting.

Vernacular à society in 1400’s in Europe what was the dominant social

institution? Church, they talked in Latin, bible in Latin. Most people did not speak

Latin. Because of the spread of the printing press, things could be produce in local

languages. Martin Luther decrees where produce in other languages. This was a

huge change, because the church was no longer the end all of everything. Before

the printing press, people relied on the priest on what was on the bible and what to

believe.

Nationalism à printing press helped with nationalism.

Religious Upheaval à religious writing spread, the catholic churched tried to

burned all of martin Luther's decrees. One of his pamphlets sold 4000 in a month.

People can question what was in the bible and what was being said. Scientific

knowledge came to be . By 1500’s there was 100 more books produce in all of

history before that. Now it took a few days to produce a bible, before it was

months, it was still expensive. Penalty of death

9. What have been some of the social effects of the printing press?

It broke down the notion of government. People could read in private now and

people had time, the books were transportable. The notion of privacy didn’t exist.

Because of changes in society people had time to create new knowledge and the

process of learning became more linear. You can now compare one work with

another. This changed the notion of trust. Prior to print you had to trust people but

now that it was newspapers to institution you have to believe in the organization

or institution. Copyrights laws came into play. In terms of overall social

environment. People began to question their new knowledge. Private ownership

of words. A changed in how people viewed thins overall. Once you had books

knowledge would spread. More people across the board could have the

knowledge. We were going through a period of empire expansion. The concept

of a dictionary aroused. Literacy spread. Many governments opposed printing

press. One of the impacts it certainly helps in a secular society and a democratic

society . 1830’s new technology a instantaneous way of spreading information ,

Telegraph travels at the speed of light.

10. According to Grossberg, what are the differences between “modernity” and

“postmodernity”?

Modernism à refers to the cultural forms, discourses, practices and relations

both elite and popular, both commercial and folk with which people attempted to

make sense of, represent, judge, rail against.

Modernizationà describes the broad spectrum of interralated historical forces

that radically changed the world since the beginning of the industrial revolution,

capitalism, and colonialism in Europe and in America.

Modernity à refers to the changing structure and nature of the lived social

realities to which modernism and modernization responded and which were

themselves shaped by both modernism and modernization

11. What are the features of postmodernity described by Jameson?

LECTURE 4 – ONE STEP, TWO STEP AND THE MAGIC BULLET

1. When did the feeling of “mass society’ arise in America and why?

Arose in early 1900s, what was happening in American society around this time?

Convergence of “mass society” with new communication technologies and need to

generate mass messages à propaganda

1914’s world war one à all these things coming together at the same time, a government

in a desperate need of getting their society to come together with a single purpose, to go

to war and defeat the enemy. This is the birth of propaganda the need to have people

support the war. Recruiting troops

2. Magic bullet theory à if you can craft a message or a stimulus to reach everyone

in society. A message that is so powerful that everyone perceives that messaged in the

same matter, we all have a uniform reaction to it. It shows omnipotent to be able to

craft a message and show it to everyone , You can get this message out , American

very much supported world war .Survivor of the fittest common theme in psychology

3. What is the Magic Bullet Theory and when did it develop?

Everyone receives messages the same and everyone will interpret it the same

way. , during World War I.

4. What social forces led to the development of the Magic Bullet Theory?

1900’s America was a fast changing place , massive immigration from Europe,

industrial revolution, urbanization, at the same time . Child labor laws came to take

place. Universal education came to play, came in to disrupt old traditional social

relations to a industrialized homogenous society.

5. What were prevalent psychological and sociological beliefs and assumptions at

the time that led to the development of the Magic Bullet theory?

The government needed support from the American people,. Darwinian influence &

instinct psychology. Breakdown of strong social ties.WWI propaganda was effective.

What events are still “magic bullet moments”? What makes them such?

6. What led to the challenge of the Magic Bullet Theory?

Late 1920s, early 1930s

a. No longer felt society as disjointed as earlier thought

b. No longer believed behavior is primarily genetic

c. Greater emphasis on role of social and cultural factors that influence

behavior

7. What is the Two-Step Flow of Communication theory?

Is that they will aim their messages towards the leaders of society in the hopes

that After WWII – notion of “opinion leaders”

Ideas flow from media to opinion leaders who:

– Interpret

– Contextualize

– Pass on to less active sections of population

Differentiated, mediated message reaches general populace – compared to Magic

Bullet direct message

They will guide the behavior of the people who will listen to them .

8. What did the large surveys done in the 40’s and early 50’s – show about

communication patterns in America?

Impact of personal influence

Flow of personal influence

Opinion leaders vary by subject matter

Influence related to:

Personification

Competence

Strategic social location

Accessibility

9. From a media perspective, why was the notion of a two-step communication

process important?

Because it told people to focus in on the leaders and try to get their votes instead

of trying to reach the masses.

10. What is the One-Step Flow of Communication proposed by Bennett &

Mannheim?

11. In what ways do Bennett & Mannheim claim that society, communication

technologies and individual communication habits have changed fundamentally

in past 50 years?

12. What are assumptions about the social structure inhabited by individuals that

are made by the Two-Step and One-Step models?

One step model à that everyone will get the same message if you send it to the

masses and the message is very clear

Two step model à because everyone listen to their leaders and learn everything

from them you should send your media messages to the leaders and they will tell all

the people about the ideas that they got through your message.

13. What media and social changes do Bennett & Mannheim claim have occurred

that have fundamentally changed how mass communications messages are

received?

14. What is the “filter bubble”?

When your searches get filtered through algorithims and you no longers get to see

different points of views because it is only showing you things that you will be interested

hearing about .

LECTURE 5 – MEDIA PEOPLE, ORGANIZATIONS AND MONEY

1. How is media content shaped by organizational and cultural forces?

2. Why is important to consider the level of analysis when we examine mass

communications?

3. What does an examination of the people involved in the production of mass

media have to consider?

4. When new media is introduced, such as when TV replaced radio or web

replaced newspapers, why do we generally find that at least at first new media

follows patterns of old media?

Because that order is already established and there is already common rules to be

used so it easier to start with something that is already known.

5. What roles do journalists commonly see themselves playing and in what

circumstances do they tend to become more investigative than neutral?

They were not producing news but rather propaganda.

Looking at journalism à they view their role as interpreter of events

New media journalist roles à authenticator, sense maker, navigator, forum leader

They validating what is reporting and help the audience make sense of all the

information and derived some money of what is going, they help them navigate.

The role of the journalism is beginning to change. This is creating some chances of

journalism.

Journalism is shifting from being a product to a service. And with this a new outlet

shift from being a final destination to a new network

6. How have the roles of journalists changed with new media?

They were not producing news but rather propaganda.

Looking at journalism à they view their role as interpreter of events

New media journalist roles à authenticator, sense maker, navigator, forum leader

They validating what is reporting and help the audience make sense of all the

information and derived some money of what is going, they help them navigate.

The role of the journalism is beginning to change. This is creating some chances of

journalism.

Journalism is shifting from being a product to a service. And with this a new outlet

shift from being a final destination to a new network

7. What did Anne Kornblut see wrong in the journalism practiced by Armstrong

Williams, Maggie Gallagher, and Michael McManus?

Kornblut à that journals were being paid to portray the stories of the government.

8. What role do the media have in educating our populace?

Some of it can be educational and some is important but it is a main source of learning.

9. What role do the media have in contributing to healthcare?

People self diagnose themselves

10. What role do the media have in law enforcement?

11. What is the CSI effect on juries?

When jury expects people to have DNA evidence to convict people.

12. Which are the largest media companies?

Sony , Walt Disney, News Corp, Vivendi, Time Warner, Bertelsman

13. What are some of the most notable characteristics of media created outside

traditional media organizations?

14. How have Matt Drudge and others like him that have been characterized as

promoting “journalism of assertion” changed the public trust of the press?

15. What federal law established “freedom of the press”?

16. What is the concern Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and others have

expressed about the consolidation of media?

LECTURE 6 – MEANING AND INTERPRETATION OF MEANING

1. How does the Magic Bullet Theory believe meaning is conveyed?

You can send a message but it doesn’t get the same meaning,

Magic bullet if you could create a good stimuli massive deliver you will get a

mass effect

Contrast that with content theory à they are complex structures they can embody

many different feelings depending on who the recipient is.

2. What did Content Theory find to dispute the Magic Bullet Theory’s

understanding of meaning?

Contrast that with content theory à they are complex structures they can embody many different feelings depending on who the recipient is.

3. What is semiotics?

Semiotics àThe discipline that studies the nature of any system of meaning. That

studies the nature of sign language and shit like that.

4. How does encoding and decoding fit into the transfer of meaning from a

sender to a receiver?

Representation à it points to a real object. Dog, house, chair.

Conceptual à justice, love, honesty. You cant point to an object.

Communication is more than information it involves emotional content that is

behind it and it creates some sort of origin.

Private experiencesà because we live in a culture and because we live in a

society where they are common codes and ideas, we have an understanding of

what it means in a culture. The word we speak.

If you don’t understand our culture, you can’t understand the language.

We have multiple meanings and cultures.

How does the Cultural model focus on the meaning and interpretation of

meaning?

• Focus on meaning and interpretation of meaning– Individuals interpret meaning by shared languages– Struggle to interpret experiences – create them thru attempts to

communicate experience– Culture as communication is process of producing new shared

meaning out of interaction of historically given shared meanings and individually created meaning.

Cultural model à Individuals tend to give meanings to their experiences, we

always try to give hidden meaning and we communication , and we begin to do

that process of understanding .

Culture as communication is the process of producing new share meaning out of

these interactions we have with new and old meanings

Every society lives, codes produces some of the maps how we get through our

days and lives and they are built all the time, and they are shared among our

culture, and every culture believes there are the right maps,

We expect the world to meet our cultural formula.

5. What is the difference between Representational meaning and Conceptual

meaning?

Conceptual à Justice, love, honesty. You can’t point to an object.

Representational meaning à like chair, book.

6. In semiotics, what is the difference between a sign and a code?

a. Signs = something standing for something, elementary unit of code.

b. Code = systematic structure or organization of signs, they can be very large like the English language of very short like the three traffic lights. ( a systematic organization or structure of signs.)

7. What is deSaussure’s process of signification and what are its elements?

De ssaur à linguist 1900’s swiss, structural linguist , he was arguing that it refers

to the way meaning is constructed in text,

Language is structured, it isn’t just the putting together, it is the way its told , or

the way things are brought together, there is a constant order relationship,

8. How does the relation between signifier and signified differ from the relation

between signifier and referent?

Connection between signifier and referent is arbitrary Relation between signifier and signified is cultural and must be learned

9. According to semiotics, how do we obtain meaning? –

Semiotics à the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.

10. Why do codes matter for a society and how people live their lives?

Without codes , we could not distinguish one sort of object from another, a man from a woman, an female mosquito, from the northern common mosquito because there would be no categories for such distinctions. We would not even be able to identify an object, because there would be no maps allowing us to distinguish an object from its background, a tree from its forest, a paint from a wall

A sign is made up of two componentsSignifier àSignified à

11. What is denotation compared to connotation?

Denotation à

a. first order of signification

b. relation of physical aspect to mental concept

c. universality

First order of signification à describes the relationship between the physical

aspect to the mental concept, the obvious straightforward does not take a lot of

cultural interpretation. Like tree,.

Connotation à second order

Associated meanings conjured up by object signified

– variable by culture

– They don’t want you to be on first level they want you on the second level of

signification.

Encoding

Mass media complexity

– Decoding

Receivers’ interpretations

12. How does semiology help us understand mass media? But what are its

limitations?

13. In narrative analysis, what is the distinction between story and discourse?

Discourse à is the way the story is told in a particular text. The same story can

be told in many different ways, depending on who is telling in and to whom.

Narrative theory, then, is primarily a way of examining how a story is told and

figuring out what is difference it makes that it is a told one way not another.

Story à The context of the text. The events and the characters involved in them.

14. How does “meaning matching” differ from “meaning construction”?

Meaning matching à we learn to read and other basic meanings of life, what a letter means , what a sound means. We begin associate sounds with meaning.

Meaning construction à when you use your skills, to incorporate new information in our existing feeling, making a new understanding for us,

15. What are the four exposure states in “information processing”?

Automatic -à we mostly run on automatic , we processed in a unconscious

matter.

At times attentional state à we are being aware of the message we are actively

thinking about the message, where corporations want you to be

Transported state à certain environment where you get engulfed in to the game

itself.

Self reflective state à the process you’re going through about the message,

you’re watching yourself watching yourself .

Signifier à any material thing that signifies. Word a page, a facial expression, an

image

Signified à the concept that a signifier refers to.

Symbolic signs à signs where the relation between the signifier and signified is

purely conventional and culturally specific.

Denotation à the most basic meaning, . like a rose meaning a rose

Connotation à the secondary cultural meaning or signs, the word rose can signify

passion.

Codes à a combination of semiotic systems, a supersystem , that function as

general maps of meaning, belief systems abou oneself and others, which imply

views and attitudes about how the world is and ought to be .