More Than Meets the Eye an introdution to media studies ppt slides
- 1. Media Studies S4 BOOK 1 : More Than Meets the Eye Chapter 1 : Why Study the Media? You should have learned the following things from this chapter on reasons for studying the media. These reasons include: 1. personal interest 2. beliefs in the power and influence of the media 3. the scale on which they operate combined with the access they have to many people 4. *the great economic power of the media 5. they are our main source of information and entertainment 6. they construct many messages, which may influence our views of the world Q1 : Institutions and Influence 1. Is it the size and wealth of a given media company that matters, in terms of its potential influence? 2. Or is it the nature of the material put out by that company that matters more? Q2 : Media Study and Media Effects 1. Should one study the media because of a belief in media effects? 2. Or is it valid to study media material and media audiences even if there isn't much evidence of influence? Chapter 3 : A Basis for Media Studies:Key Words You should haw learned the following things in this chapter, as a basis for Media Studies. 1 PROCESS • All communication is a process. The media are no exception to this. • There are key factors in the process of communication through the media which one may look at; these are source, need, encoding, message content and treatment, decoding, context and feedback. • Process also involves looking at how meanings are created and taking account of the social/cultural context in which media communication takes place. 2 INSTITUTION These are organizations that have different kinds of power in society. Media institutions include advertising agencies, news gatherers and those organizations that manufacture media material. 3 TEXT • All media material, visual or otherwise, may be seen as a text to be read. This reading may involve a variety of approaches to get at the meanings in a text, including structural analysis. • There are open and closed texts, readerly and producerly texts. 4 STRUCTURALISM • All media texts have some organizing principles or structures within them. Two useful examples of these are binary oppositions and narrative structures. These help organize and produce meanings from texts. 5 CULTURE
- 2. • Texts and their meanings are very much governed by the values of their given culture. 6 REPRESENTATIONS • This refers to ways in which the media construct views of the world, and of social groups in particular. These views may be inaccurate, but we are often persuaded that they are 'naturally' true. 7 MEANINGS • Meanings are in messages, which may be overt or covert. • Meanings and messages are often about values. • The meanings we get from texts may be put there by the producers, but are also made from the text by the audience. 8 IDEOLOGY • This is about a particular view of the world based on certain value judgements. Ideologies are powerful in their influence over people's thoughts. Ideologies provide meanings about who is and who is not powerful. Ideologies work in the interests of the powerful. 9 SIGNS: SEMIOTICS • 9.1 The meanings in media communication are signalled to us through a variety of signs. We need to identify these in order to get at the meanings. Signification is the process through which we recognize many meanings that are signified. Meanings work on the levels of denotation and connotation; what is obviously meant and what is more obscure. • 9,2 These signs are organized into codes covering words and pictures. How they are organized, put together and understood depends on rules or conventions that we also need to recognize. • 9.3 There are codes within the general codes of speaking, writing and pictures.These special codes are called secondary codes. They have their own rules. They help organize categories or media material - such as genre, and treatment of media material - for example, in terms of realism. 10 AUDIENCE • This refers to the readers and viewers of media product. There are problems with the term because audiences can have so many different characteristics that their members have nothing in common except the text they are reading or viewing, • There are big questions about how audiences understand or read texts. 11 MASS MEDIA AND SOCIETY • There are a number of general theories about how the media do or should operate in relation to the society of which they are a part. These may be summarized as follows: the Authoritarian Theory, the Free Press Theory, the Social Responsibility Theory, the Developmental Media Theory, the Democratic Participant Theory. These theories should be cross-referred to ideas about media functions. • Some important critical views of the relationship between media and society are defined as follows: Marxist the Political Economy model, Pluralist, Feminist, Postmodernist. Q1 : Media and Audience 1. In what ways do the media give us 'a picture of the world'? 2. In what ways may we, the audience, create our own picture from what the media put out? Q2 : Culture and Media 1. Do the media reflect a culture that is 'out there' in society?
- 3. 2. Or do the media create new kinds of culture? Q 3 : Text and Meanings 1. Does a story have as many meanings as it has readers? 2. Does it have only one true meaning, which is what the writer intended? Q4 : Media and Society 1. Should the media be free to provide whatever people want? 2. Should the media be regulated by the government, which represents the people? Chapter 4 : Institutions as Source You should have learned the following things about the media as a source of communication and as institutions, through this chapter. 1 DOMINANT CHARACTERISTICS • The media are mainly characterized by the following aspects: monopoly, size, vertical integration, conglomeration, diversification, as multinationals, control and domination of production/finance/product/distribution, particular values. 2 SOURCES OF FINANCE/COSTS • The media have access to enormous sums of money through their means of finance. These means are dominated by selling advertising space, by the sales of their main product and through the sales of associated products. 3 ASPECTS OF PRODUCTION • There are distinctive patterns to the way in which media material is produced. These may be summarized in terms of routines,
- 4. deadlines, slots, specialized production roles, use of new technology and heavy marketing of the product. 4 CONSEQUENCES • There are major consequences to the way that media institutions are set up, run and financed. These may be summarized in terms of mass product, targeted product, repetition of product, elimination of unprofitable audiences, exclusion of competition, polarization of audiences and reduction of choice for the consumer. However, there are some alternatives to the dominant patterns of ownership and distribution. 5 MEDIA POWER • The points already made lead us to conclude that the media have a great deal of power over what we read and see. The nature of this power may be discussed in terms of ownership, monopoly, levers of power, power over product and ideology, the power of professionalism, cultural imperialism. 6 MEDIATION • The media inevitably change the material they draw on and shape it in certain ways. They construct this material and the meanings in it. They offer us representations, but not real life or real events. 9 MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT • There is a power relationship between media and government. The government exerts power over the media in various direct and indirect ways. The media need the government as a source of information, the government needs the media as a means of communication. 10 PROPAGANDA • This implies total control and deliberate use of media towards some end, which does not happen in this country. • Some talk of the influence of government and advertising on the media, as being something like propaganda. • There has been propaganda in times of war; this may be discussed in relation to government management of news. 11 FUNCTIONS OF THE MEDIA • These may be summarized in terms of entertainment, information/culture, social and political functions. 12 MEDIA AND NEW TECHNOLOGY • The arrival of new technology, symbolized by computing power, has changed institutions, production, distribution, product. • The convergence factor, based on a common digital language, is bringing media and institutions together. • Access to this new technology raises problems of media access and of pirated products. 13 GLOBALIZATION • Refers to the way in which media ownership and media operations now work across the globe. This brings wider cultural influence: cultural imperialism. It changes the way in which we understand the world/Using new technology 'shrinks the planet' by making more material more quickly available from ever greater distances. Q1 : Media Ownership 1. Is the apparent concentration of media ownership something to be criticized because it gives too much power to the media? 2. Is this concentration to be approved because it helps British media to be strong enough to compete in a global market- place?
- 5. Q2 : Advertising and Media Finance 1. Is it a good thing that advertising helps subsidize the cost of media to the audience? 2. Is it a bad thing that most examples of media depend on advertising and sponsorship for their survival? Q3 : Institutions and Control of Product 1. Do the public get only the media product that institutions decide will sell? 2. Do the public as purchasers decide which products it is worth the institutions making? Q4 : Institutions Shaping Culture 1. Is media power used to bring us global culture (Coca-Cola and Levi's)? 2. Do the media use their power to support minority culture such as community radio and local newspapers? Q5 : Institutions and their Regulation 1. Is regulation of the media so tight that it interferes with freedomof speech and the public's 'right to know'? 2. Are the media so loosely regulated that they 'get away with too much'? Q6 : Media and Government 1. Do you see the government as representatives of the people with a right to 'talk' to the people through media? 2. Do you see the government as interfering with free speech in the media and using media for its own ends?