Media Paper 2

• new media


  - Digital technology that allows for a two way interaction between audience and producer
• What does Lister et al say?


  - Main differences are:

  1. Digitality

  2. Interactivity

  3. Hypertextuality

  4. Dispersal

  5. Virtuality
• What is the digital underclass?


  - Anyone who cannot access new media
• What is churnalism?

  - Where journalists buy stories from news agencies without fact checking to churn out news as fast as possible
• What do neophiliacs believe?

  - Gives increased consumer choice

  - Revitalised democracy

  - Allowed for political engagement

  - Allows more access to all kinds of information

  - Led to increased cultural diversity and understanding
• What do cultural pessimists say?


  - The New media allows for fake news

  - New media creates cultural and media imperialism

  - Ownership and control is by companies that act as gatekeepers

  - New media allows for censorship

  - There is a lack of regulation

  - There is an increased surveillance in everyday life

  - There is limited consumer choice and a decline in quality

  - New media undermines human relationships
• What is a conglomerate?


  - An organization that owns large numbers of companies in various mass media
• What is concentration?

  - The result of smaller media companies merging or being bought by larger companies
• What does Bagdikian say?


  - Media ownership is concentrated in 7 corporations
• How is the media formally controlled?

  - The Law

  - Ofcom

  - IPSO

  - The BBC

  - Watershed

  - Film certification
• How do governments influence and control media output

  - Press conferences, e.g Covid updates

  - Leaks and off the record briefings, e.g Wagatha case

  - Journalists who portray the government in a positive light get better treatment, e.g Susanna Reid

  - Spin Doctors, e.g. The Guardian

  - Control of computer software to use as surveillance, e.g internal tracking on WhatsApp
• Marxist perspective?

  - Miliband=owners of media control the content and interfere to ensure capitalism survives. Owners share cultural capital as they have the same social networks

  -Marcuse=convinced by media that capitalism is fair and consumerism becomes meaning of life, as we are encouraged to but false needs. Poverty porn TV shows and quizzes give the illusion that social mobility is achievable, and makes it seem that life can be worse. Content is dumbed down and journalists must censor themselves otherwise they will lose their job

  - Althusser=Media is an ISA to control the working class and send id illogical messages to persuade them into a state of false class consciousness.
• Neo-marxist perspective?


  - Philo=owners may be powerful but don't have control of day to day running, and the white, middle class male journalists run the media, and generally support the dominant ideology. The media presents these beliefs of the dominant ideology as normal, enabling hegemony. Media may be critical of the dominant ideology to attract audiences. The media gate keep and agenda set.
• Pluralist perspective?


  - Harrison=no dominant class but many competing groups either different interests that are all represented in the media. Media is driven by the public due to consumer demand

  -Whale=concentration of ownership has happened due to economic reasons and don't have time to run day to day media content. Audiences can pick n mix what they watch. No deliberate bias.
• Practical factors?

  - The news diary

  - Financial costs

  - Breaking stories

  - Advertising

  - Political influence

  - Competition

  - Deadlines
• Creation of moral panics:


  - Cohen = Mods and Rockers

  - Hall = Black mugger
• What are the news values?

  - Immediacy

  - Dramatization

  - Personalisation

  - Higher status people

  - Novelty
• What does polysemic mean?

  - The media can be interpreted in different ways
• Hypodermic syringe model (Marxism)

  - Audience is passive and cannot resist the ideological messages of the capitalists, so audience reacts immediately in a similar way

  + Bandura=children imitated violence

  +Copycat violence, e.g Jamie Bulger

  + advertisers spend millions on advertising so it must have some impact on the audience

  - Basic

  - studies look at short term effects
• Two step flow model (Pluralism)

  - Lazarsfeld and Katz='opinion leaders' are selected by the mass audience to interpret messages of media and influence more passive members of their social group. Acts as a filter.

  +Lazarsfeld found people were more affected by friends and family than the media

  + Can be applied to contemporary society

  - Person may have serversl opinion leaders who have conflicting views
• Uses and gratifications (functionalism)


  - Blumer and Katz= audience use media to satisfy their own wants and needs and we control how we use it. May use for surveillance, personal relationships, diversion, in the background or to affirm personal identity

  +McQuail found that soaps and daytime TV meets social need of companionship

  -sees media as powerless

  -ignores dysfunctional nature of the media
• Cultural effects (Neo-marxists)


  - Philo=audience is diverse, so some members accept media messages, and others understand the biased messages so reject them. The media contains dominant ideological messages but some don't accept, dependent on their cultural background and experience. Continual exposure will shape assumptions and ideas (drip drip effect)

  +War of the Worlds

  + Media effect is not immediate

  -Audience is not that active
• Postmodernists


  - Baudrillard =media saturated society in which media images distort how we see the world. Live in a hyper reality as media presents 'simulacra
• Globalization and popular culture


  - Ritzer=McDonaldisation

  - Marcuse=mass culture maintains ideological hegemony

  - Media imperialism

  - Flew=advances in multi media technology means can all access same products
• Media Representations: Ethnicity


  1. Criminal and a threat - Hall

  2. Abnormal - Poole, cultural practices are portrayed as abnelmal

  3. Symbolic annihilation - Malik

  4. Dependent - Pambazuka, overemphasizes African corruption and reluctance to discuss the Western role in keeping Africa poor
• Media Representations: Gender


  1. Women defined by femininity - Tuchman, domestic and the sexual

  2. Hegemonic masculinity - Connell, alpha male

  3. Male gaze - Mulvey, objectify women

  4. Moral panics - Cohen and Hall, men are violent
• Media Representations: Class


  Upper class - Nairn = U/C characterized by honor and good breeding, and as eccentric; Royal Family representations reinforce sense of national identity

  Middle Class - Jones = differences in responses to Madeleine McCann and Shannon Matthew's

  Working Class - Newman = label them as problems or trouble, e.g strikes, drug addicts, which cause moral panics -> Hall

  Underclass - Shildrick and Macdonald = defined as social scum which neutralizes public feelings of sympathy
• Sexuality


  Craig = homosexuality presented stereotypically as having amusing or negative psychological or social characteristics

  Gauntlet - symbolically annihilated gay men, 5x as likely to be portrayed negatively

  Gill = sanitisation of portrayal

  Bachelor = heterosexuality seen as the norm
• Age

  Teenage: Cohen – moral panics.

  Middle Age: Presented as the ideal age as

  this is the age of most media producers.

  (Mulvey – Media Gaze)

  Old Age: Cuddy and Fiske – old people

  presented in negative ways. Forgetful,

  difficult, figures of fun.

  White - double standards, men can be old,

  but women can’t.
• disability


  Cumberbatch – make up 2.5% of tv characters - symbolic annihilation.

  Barnes – negative stereotypes of

  disability: disability is associated

  with evil or danger, often in horror

  films.

  Shakespeare – disability is a social

  construction, it is created by social

  attitudes towards people that

  don’t fit the ‘normal’ body.

  Philo – mental health portrayed

  negatively. A threat to others or

  someone to laugh at.