PPC Ch2 (Part 2) Psychological-Transgression theories

• A radio broadcast of a docudrama based on H.G. Wells's novel about interplanetary invasion wherein many listeners believed that it was real, despite periodic announcements that it was merely a fictional dramatization

  war of the worlds
• War of the Worlds is a novel by?

  H.G. Wells
• research projects on media effects

  Cantril Study
• who headed the Cantril Study?

  Hadley Cantril
• In this study, the researchers wanted to find out why some believed the fake reports and others did not

  Cantril Study
• HNT meaning

  Hypodermic needle theory
• the studies claimed that the media directly sway minds in the same way

  that a hypodermic needle modifies bodily processes.

  Hypothermic Needle Theory
• In this study, a team of researchers found that the media had little ability to

  change people's minds about how they would vote in an election.

  The People's Choice
• Who led The People's Choice?

  Paul Lazarsfeld
• these are the ones who mediate how the other members interpret content.

  opinionleaders
• Hypodermic needle theory is what type of flow?

  one step flow
• The People's Choice is what type of flow?

  two step flow
• one step flow structure

  content > mass audience
• two-step flow structure

  content > leader > specific group
• People who heard the debate on radio maintained that Nixon had won it, coming across as the better candidate; those who saw it on television claimed the opposite. Nixon looked disheveled and worried; Kennedy looked confident and came across as a young, idealistic, and vibrant "president of the future."

  Kennedy-Nixon TV debate
• AR meaning

  Audience Research
• it posits that interpretation is a variable phenomenon, not a static one as assumed by many early researchers; that audiences negotiate the

  interpretation of a media text according to their backgrounds and life experiences, not passively.

  reception theory
• this term was used by Aristotle to explain the effect that tragic dramas have on an audience, allowing for the release of pent-up emotions, and thus cleansing them

  catharsis
• In partnership with George Gerbner, he initiated a series of sociological

  studies, showing that popular media representations had a conservative social function, not a disruptive one.

  Paul Lazarsfeld
• he claimed that media representations "cultivate," not threaten, the status

  quo.

  George Gerbner
• found that audiences use the media for their own purposes and gratification.

  Research headed by Elihu Katz
• Katz maintained that media content does nothing to people; rather, people use the media for satisfying their own desires.

  uses and gratification theory
• This theory suggests, above all else, that television (and other popular media) are vehicles for escapism from the problems of everyday life.

  uses and gratification theory
• who coined the term alienation?

  Marx
• describe a sensed estrangement from other people, society, or work.

  alienation
• Sociologists define this as a blocking or dissociation of a person's feelings.

  alienation
• suggested that alienation stemmed from a loss of religious traditions.

  Emile Durkheim
• who used the term anomie?

  Emile Durkheim
• refer to the sense of purposelessness experienced from a lack of moral standards and values

  anomie
• argues, the media landscape in which we all live has tapped into the essential outline structure of the brain, allowing us to step outside the linearity of the rational brain and to see, feel, and hear more.

  Derrick de Kerckhove
• describe how our bodies process information with as much, if not more speed and accuracy than our minds

  felt-meaning
• who invented the notion of felt-meaning?

  Eugene Gendlin
• Semiotic Approaches

  • Opposition theory
  • structuralism
  • post-structuralism
  • Mythology theory
  • representations
  • Code theory
  • Textuality
• 5 rudimentary semiotic notions that have become widespread in pop culture study today

  opposition, mythology, representation, code, textuality
• implies that we do not perceive the meaning of something in an absolute way, but in differential ways.

  opposition
• opposition theory example

  day and night
• claims that popular texts, performances, and spectacles are linked to each other through a chain of mythic (ancient) oppositions, such as good versus evil and male versus female, that are recycled in new textual and performative ways.

  mythology theory
• refers to the view that any text or spectacle stands for something that is not immediately obvious in it. It defers to "something else" instead of referring to it directly.

  representation
• systems of notions and beliefs that are channeled into representational structures and enacted in cultural ways.

  social codes
• who are the founders of semiotics?

  Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles S. Peirce