Ch. 10
Audience Perspectives
People put specific media and specific media content to specific use in the hopes of having some specific need or set of needs gratified.
Active audience theories (audience centered)
Not what media does to people but what people do with media.
Descriptive in nature.
Uses and Gratifications
Functions:
1. surveillance of the environment
2. correlation of the parts of society in responding to the environment
3. transmission of the social heritage from one generation to the next
4. entertainment
media aims (goals)/audience aims (goals) not the same
don't confuse functions with effects
intended message vs
audience actively imposing meaning or constructing new meaning
sought vs. obtained
Fraction of selection:
Expectation of reward
Effort required
A conscious choice?
Interactive nature of new media?
1. social and psychological origins of needs
2. which generate expectations of the media (or other sources of content)
3. which lead to differential patterns of media exposure
4. resulting in need gratifications and other consequences
(many of which are unintended)
5. which influences subsequent patterns of media exposure depending on whether our expectations/needs were met
Media as a mediating factor that makes effects more or less likely.
Media system dependency (Ch. 11, p. 320)
the more a person depends on having needs gratified by media use, the more important the media's role will be in the person's life
Ch. 11
McLuhan:
Influence on how we see the relationship between media and culture/society.
Changes in communication technology inevitably produce profound changes in both culture and social order (technological determinism).
Postman - Technopoly
Innis:
Bias of media: newer forms of communication technology will make centralization of power inevitable.
is this true?
context
New forms of media transform our experiences of ourselves and our society and their influence is ultimately more important than the content that is transmitted in its specific messages.
Agenda setting
Media is very good at telling us what to think about, but not what to think.
Priming (media emphasis on certain stories)Framing (setting the parameters for the discussion)
Spiral of Silence
Media can keep people from expressing contrary views to what the media is saying.
Role of new media technologies.
Implications for society.
George Gerbner
Cultivation Analysis
An attempt to understand and explain the dynamics of TV as a distinctive feature of our age (consequences of growing up with TV).
TV - the source of broadly shared images, messages and culture.
TV cultivates thoughts and attitudes that used to be cultivated elsewhere.
Pattern that counts is the total pattern of programming to which communities are exposed to over long periods of time. Thus, exposure to a particular program is not the focus of cultivation research.
Cultivation differentials
Difference between light and heavy viewers response patterns.
TV or real world answers?
TV or real reality?
Mainstreaming
To the extent that TV dominates as a source of information, continued exposure to its messages is likely to confirm and nourish (cultivate) values and perspectives of TV itself.
Resonance
When day to day experience is congruent with TV messages
What is it that TV is cultivating?
Ex. Mean World Syndrome
"Turn the TV off" is not a solution!
Role of pop culture
Creativity - salability vs. quality
consumption vs. production
heroes/role models
Ch. 12
A given - communication technological development
ubiquity and portability
scale
processing power
convergence
The future of media research?
Box 12a, p. 350-351
Globalization
(for communication purposes)
the growth and development of media conglomerates that cross geographic, political and cultural boundaries
Issues
Information Flow
Cultural Imperialism
Information Gap
Biology?