The mass media

The mass media

Mass media
1. Refers to any form of written or transmitted communication to the public.
2. Traditional media
  1. Newpapers
    1. Radio
      1. Books
3. New media
  1. Internet
    1. TV
Developments of the mass media
1. TV's did not become a common feature in households until the 1960s. It was black and white and only had 2 channels and stopped broadcasting before midnight until the following evening. The BBC is funded by licence fee. Independent TV is funded by advertising.
2. By the 1980s there were 4 channels. These were added to by arrival of cable and satellite funded by subscription or advertising.
3. Freeview did not appear until 2003
4. Not until the second half of the 1990s didn't computers become more widespread, the internet appears, more gain access and mobile phones come in.
5. Since the late 1990s there has been a increase in the speed of technological change enabled by digital technology and digitisation
  1. Interactivity
    1. Viewer can use remote controls to interact with the TV
  2. Convergence
    1. Where different technological use of the media, communications, and computing can now converge into one platform.
  3. More and more media is appearing on the internet (kindle)
  4. Expansion of personal communications (Facebook, twitter)
  5. Concentration and globalisation - more and more of the media we receive is provided by large international conglomorates that own different media. SKY TV.
    1. Globalisation The idea the world is developing one mass global culture based on American ideas and values.
The mass media as an agency of socialization, social control and social change.
1. Secondary socialisation
  1. People pick up norms and values of society and expectations of behaviour associated with particular roles in media.
2. Informal social control
  1. By reinforcing norms and values and expectations. The media is constantly nor setting.
3. Formal social control
4. Social change
  1. It can have unpredictable results. In the past, the media has been responsible for changing society.
Changing patterns of consumption
1. Decline in newpaper readership because of tablets etc.
2. Market penetration. by digital TV service - SKY - subscription.
3. Household access to internet - social issue to who it excludes.
Sociological approaches to the media
1. The pluralist approach
  1. Argues that having a large number and a wide variety of different media owned by a variety of different corporations is a sign of healthy democracy. This allows the wide range of views of different groups in society to be reflected into the media. A 'free' media means that journalists can investigate wrong doing and keep a check on those with power and who are in government. They would argue that the media is free because people exercise free choice about what they want to read, watch etc. The media owners do not control content because they have to give the people what they want.
2. The marxist/conflict approach
  1. Marxist see society divided into the advantaged, wealthy and privileged classes who have the power in society and the working class are exploited. The interest of these classes are in opposition and conflict. They believe the media is one of the ways in which elite powerful groups control the way people think, act and protect their position and interest. They would argue the media is too concentrated, that the media owners have too much power and are in a strong position to influence media content.
3. Is media ownership an issue?
  1. while the media is an important contributor and guardian of democracy, the concentration of the media in fewer hands
How is the content of the media selected?
1. Agenda setting - refers to the idea that the mass media has an important influence over the issues that people think about become the agenda is decided by press and broadcasters. Editors and programmers become gate keepers, making day to day decisions about what to publish and what not to publish.
2. Other influences
  1. News value
  2. The profit motive
  3. Advertisers
  4. Bias
agenda setting
1. What is considered newsworthy. The media having a large influence on audience
  1. Gatekeeping
    1. Controlling what goes into the newspaper
The press and political socialisation and voting behaviour
1. Political parties are changing the way the campaign reaches voters (email,text)
2. The image of politicians is increasingly important as they appear on TV.
The media, moral panic and deviancy amplification
1. A moral panic refers to a media fuelled public outcry about and issue. The media will take upon a particular story and exaggerate the extent and importance of a particular problem. A particular group will be cast as folk devil, described in stereotypical terms and becomes a threat to society. This creates a outcry amonst the public. Pressure is then put on police, politicians.
2. The way media reports and issue or group can lead to an increase in crime.
The hypordermic syringe approach
1. Description: The media acts as a syringe and injects daily 'doses' of messages and content from the media, TV, newspapers into the veins of audiences with immediate effects. This acts like a drug and has a powerful influence over peoples behaviour and beliefs. This approach would see the media as having the power to influence people to preform copy-cat or real life violence.
2. The audience is passive, unthinking and gullible and unable to resist the media's drug, so the audience is easily manipulated.
3. Criticisms:This view was prominent is the first half of the C20th. Little research supports this approach. Audiences don't all act in the same way. This will depend on how they are scialised.
The two-step flow approach
1. Description: The media influences opinion leaders people whom others take notice of and listen to. These opinion leaders then influence the audience passing on information and views they have picked up from the media.
2. The audience is relatively passive. The media doesn't have a direct impact on them, but they are influenced by the impact the media has had on the opinion leader.
3. Criticism: It suggest the audience is easily influenced. However, it does not recognise the audience has experience and opinions of their own.
Decoding approach
1. Description: The audience are active decoders, they interpret the messages they receive. The content of a TV programme may have several meanings and one section of the audience may interpret it differently to others. They way a person decodes a programme will depend upon social factors; age, class, gender, ethnicity.
2. The audience is active.
3. Criticism: It underestimates the power and influences of the media to shape and influence the choice people make and the pleasure they derive from the media.
The uses and gratifications approach
1. Definition: People use the media in different ways. pleasure, information, company, relaxation. The effects of the media depends upon what the audiences use the media for and their own pleasure and interest.
2. The audience is thinking, active and critical. They make positive choices and will only use the media that fit with their existing views and interest(selective exposure). They will see or hear only that fits with their own views and interest(selective preception). They will ignore or forget material that is not in line with their views or interest)
3. Criticism: It underestimates the power and influence of the media to shape and influence the choices people make and the pleasure they derive from the media.
What is hyperreality?
1. The difference between reality and image. Not being able to distinguish the difference between reality and images from the media.

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