Explorations in Mass Communication: Issues and Controversies

Catherine Murray Fall 2003

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Course Team
Diana Ambrozas Doris Baltruschat Wei Gao Natalie Tkachev

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Course Objectives
To provide a map to navigate the field
history & political economy Popular culture & media analysis Society and technology

Locate contemporary controversies

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Course Skills
Develop the Four stages of critical thinking: Description Analysis, Framing of Arguments and Proof Interpretation & Debate Evaluation/Originality
CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

The Alchemy of Grades

Description C+ Basic facts mastered and patterned Analysis B range Meaning of patterns probed, knowledge applied. Hierarchy of patterning proofs Interpretation High B Comparisons and analogies. Judgement. Argument and Illustration. Evaluation
A-A+ range Values. Understanding If creative originality or thought leadership an A plus

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Course Tools
Framing arguments Organizing proof Writing persuasively
Developed in tutorial debates Short essay paper

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Lecture & Tutorial Support

Notes for lectures available from TA: Friday
Lectures are audiotaped and available in library READ before lecture

Tutorials
Attend each tutorial Participate in debate Essay assignments: start by week 4 EXAMS
Mid Terms are Pop Quizzes in Tutorial Workshop for final exam available

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

The Big Picture

Communication is a battleground of power Historically, allied with state or business corporations ( & now entertainment corporations) Central to institutions of democracy and capitalism 130 outlines how media work, how they are shaped by and shaping the economic, political and social worlds around us Do the Media create critical citizens or consumers?

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Recent Issues & Controversies

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Key Concepts
Media & Communication defined Mass Communication defined Model of the Communication Process Mapping the Flow

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

The Definition of Media

Broadly, what enables communication to take place May be interpersonal and one on one( speech, writing, facial gesture) which is beyond scope of CMNS 130 May be technical/broader in scale Specifically, a technological development that extends the channel, range of speed of communication among large groups of people

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Media of Mass Communication

Print Audio
Newspapers Magazines Books Radio Music/Sound Recording Film TV Videogames

Visual

Digital

Internet

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

The Definition of Communication

From Latin Communicare Verb: to share, impart, to make meaning common To give or receive information, signals, messages in any way Using talk, gestures, writing or other means Definition: Fleras page 36
a meaningfulCMNS-130 exchange of
C.A. Murray

Origins of Communication
Part of human search to transcend time and space One of the oldest of human practices:
Essential for social survival, economic organization Formal study rooted in classical politics from times of Ancient Greece and Rome under a different title: rhetoric, literary criticism, persuasion (humanities) Development of the study of Mass Communication allied with rise of social sciences and mass marketing WW2

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Mass Communication
Communication from one person, group or institution through a transmission system or medium to large audiences or markets From one ( or few) to many
Implies concept of gatekeeper: controller of transmission/message design Implies concept of effectiveness and efficiency: is messaging achieving what it intended?

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Transmission Model of Communication

Sender.Message.Receiver Based on Harold Lasswells model ( 1948) Helps identify the stages through which communication passes so each one can be properly studied
Modern models recognize networks are more complex, no longer one way and there is more interaction and feedback CMNS-130 between sender C.A. Murray and receiver

Transmission Model II
Central Questions:

Who says what to whom with what effect? ( transmission model)

Useful in early study of propaganda, and advertising ( stimulus response assumption) Sees mass communication as a process of transmitting intentional messages for the purpose of social control, or marketing Implies the study of state or government policies, economic processes of advertising and commodification of popular culture

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Characteristics of Mass Communication

1. 2. 3. Message produced in complex organizations Message fixed in some form with information and symbolic content ( either in digital bits or commodity form) Message is sent/transmitted or diffused widely via a technological medium Message is delivered rapidly over great space Message reaches large groups of different people simultaneously or within a short period of time Message is primarily one-way, not two way
Newspaper, magazine, CD or videocassette, radio, television, satellite or Internet

4. 5. 6.

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Transformation of Mass Communication

Arrival of computers and switched twoway interactive technology digitization Internet From one to one, from many to many--almost infinitely Rise of transactional media ( pay per bit) Resistance of media piracy:swapping and downloading
CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Nature of the Mass Communicator/Sender

Mass communication is produced in complex formal organizations With multiple gatekeepers Using a great deal of money Increasingly in private sector institutions in the West Existing to make a profit In a highly competitive market, working to reduce risk by merging and oligopoly
CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

7 Trends in Communication
1. Compression of space and time
Larger and larger territories covered: networks of networks emerging (www) Mobile, wireless untethered access: ubiquity Communication across borders virtually instantaneously

2. Commodification
Spread of private and not public enterprise, interpenetration of marketing, consumption and media Widespread ideology of consumption/consumer sovereignty

3. Deregulation and Concentration and Conglomeration

CMNS-130 Withdrawal of publicMurray sector, less regulation, more role C.A.

7 Trends Contd
4. Globalization :
Growth in international trade in cultural products, rise of 6 or 8 main companies dominating markets and merging industries AOL Time Warner;Disney;Vivendi, Viacom, Sony, News, Bertelesmann

5.

Digitization and Convergence

Conversion of sound pictures and text into computer readable formats by representing them as strings of zeros and ones Now, telecommunication providers involved in TV and cable Digitization enables the production, circulation, manipulation and repurposing or storage of information on unprecedented scale

6. 7.

Specialization ( part of demassification)

Narrowly casting or targeting communication to particular interests shrinking share of general interest TV

Personalization

The daily me: personal tailoring of media diet/media products Ideal type: MP3 downloading of custom music

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

A Different Approach: the Cultural Model

Encode meaning-----decode meaning Involves Creation of the Text, design of the sign. symbol or codes and signification or interpretation Fleras, p. 36:
Communication is much more than message exchange.. The enrichment that communication brings in terms of culture, cohesion and connectedness is widely acknowledged.

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

Cultural Model II
Central Question:
How does communication construct a map of meaning for people in everyday life? (cultural model) How do people negotiate common meaning and are bound by it Starts from the assumption that:

Embraces ideology/belief systems and ritual: mass communication is the representation of shared beliefs where reality is produced maintained, repaired and transformed

Any attempt to understand the power of the media requires us first to understand how these products are located within and work to construct meaning in everyday life (Grossberg et al, p. 237).

CMNS-130 C.A. Murray

CMNS 130
Looks at issues of policy and political economy Interaction of technology, organization of cultural industries and cultural power Text: Augie Fleras, Mass Media and Communication in Canada Fleras a sociologist
His agenda: This text intends to out the mainstream media as a persuasive dynamic that manipulates and conceals even as it enlightens and informs. Contradictions prevail: to the one side the media reflect, reinforce and advance the interests of the powerful. To the other side, there are sufficient openings for oppositional forces to transform the mediavii.
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Next Week: Media and Modernity

Read Fleras Tutorial: Introduction to the Media

BACK TO LECTURE NOTES

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CMNS-130 C.A. Murray