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Respond to activities(2) and student answers(2):

 

While Gramsci and Hall see us as unwitting and unwilling “victims” of media, Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch propose in Uses & Gratifications Theory that individuals USE media for personal reasons and empowerment, and are not always used BY media to be controlled or oppressed. Then review the BBC’s explanation of the four major ways the media satisfy our needs.

Take a look as well at the Audience Theories and how they have evolved over the years on pp. 63-68 in the Encyclopedia of Communication Theory. Where once we thought ourselves highly susceptible to media influences (see Hypodermic Needle Theory on p. 64), we understand now that the effects are more limited and that we, in fact, have control in the 21st century over our media usage (remember that when this theory was developed, there were no cable TVs, DVDs, PCs, streaming video, cell phones or even the Internet). As you read about these theories, you might ponder these questions:

• Do you think this means the overall effects of media are more limited?
• Or, conversely, because media are used constantly throughout our work, social and home lives, do you think the effects of media are both more powerful and pervasive?
• Does this theory adequately address the realities of how we’re using social media? What else should be studied to enhance this theory?

Consider, for example, the role that the so-called “legacy” news media long have had in explaining and framing issues and events. More and more people are turning to customized social media news feeds. As you read about this theory, you might ponder these questions:

• What do you think are some of the possible ramifications of this?

In the 1960s, researcher Joseph T. Klapper dismissed the prevailing notion that audiences are passive targets of political and commercial propaganda from the mass media. His research showed the mass media reinforce people’s previously held convictions because of the wide ways they filter content.

Klapper’s ideas are associated today with a variety of Spiral or Reinforcementtheories:

• Selective exposure – people avoid exposure to content that causes them dissonance
• Selective perception – when confronted with a message that causes them dissonance, people will not perceive it, or they will interpret it in ways that make it conform to their pre-existing views
• Selective retention – people will interpret and categorize information in a way that favors their pre-existing views, and forget material that causes them dissonance

Klapper concluded there were five influences on people’s perspectives, including peer groups, message source and opinion leaders. For example, Klapper foundpeople gravitate toward messages that bolster convictions they developed in peer interactions, family structures, religious affiliations, etc.

Furthermore, these predispositions will be reinforced in the choices of news and information people make. For example, people’s perspectives will be influenced by their association with like-minded friends, which will lead to more exposure to those ideas, growing and reinforcing the predispositions. Opinion leaders, such as work associates or people in a peer group, also influence predispositions and act as a filter or buffer to dissonant views.

 

Activity:

Before you tackle this exercise, please make sure you have read the materials at all of the links in this discussion question.

Please select and respond to at least one of the following questions:

1. Do you feel forced, at times, by the news media to have concerns about issues or events that you would not know about if you did not consume media?
2. How do you use the social media to be moreselective about the news and information to which you’re exposed?
3. Should we as a society be concerned about the power that the social media might acquire in the two-step flowof opinion?

Synthesize your thoughts into a cogent and coherent post that includes evidence to support your comments. Then, swap observations with at least two of your classmates by the end of the week.

 

Student answer:

Cody B

 

Do you feel forced, at times, by the news media to have concerns about issues or events that you would not know about if you did not consume media?

I often feel forced by the media to care about recent events. The most recent one happened today, with the president using the national warning system to send a test message to everyone’s phone in the United States. This was reported for weeks beforehand by every news business out there, some making it a political matter and some making up crazy hypotheticals about what the president could do with such immense power. Yet, all it ended up being was an annoying noise for three seconds. The media attempted to frame this in any number of ways, specifically through the “tailoring of a political issue in election campaigns for a specific audience”(Volkmer, 2009, pp. 408). With this being a midterm election season, any amount of potential contention has to be brought to front-page news, and that includes something as innocuous and boring as a national emergency testing system.

Volkmer, I. (2009). Framing theory. In S. W. Littlejohn & K. A. Foss (Eds.), Encyclopedia of communication theory (Vol. 1, pp. 408-409). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412959384.n151

Number 2:

 Culture is defined in the Encyclopedia of Communication Theory as a “complex and contested communicative system through which ideologies and status are negotiated. Ideologies are fundamental assumptions about reality that are both institutionally and socially patterned and function to position groups with higher and lower status.” The health of a society might be defined by how well, how broadly, and how richly the culture permits discourse about status contested ideas.

This definition reflects thinking from the cultural studies and critical theory fields of communication research, the latter of which was developed by the Frankfurt School of scholars who lived through the slaughter of millions in World War I, the breakdown of society with the rise of socialism fascism before World War II, and the fall of the international markets in 1929 that plunged millions in the United States and Europe into dire poverty. These scholars saw the world as one in which the average person was crushed by economic and governmental policies beyond his or her control. Their ideas found new relevance in the 1970s and 1980s as a way for scholars to study humans (through sociology, psychology, communications, political science, literature, and economics), and to see how power worked to constrain or kill people who were not part of the powerful group.

Please read pages 260-262 on Cultural Identity Theory, pages 229-284 on Culture and Communication, and pages 237-242 on Critical Theory in the Encyclopedia of Communication Theory.

As you review these readings, think about the mass media and social group messages you grew up with that informed your sense of yourself as a person of a particular race, gender, social class, etc. What did you learn about who is allowed to be in charge? Who is likely to have more resources than other people? Whom do we almost automatically accord our respect for his or her authority? How much are we allowed to question those in authority? How much commitment to truth and honesty do competing sides hold?

Activity:

Watch “Changes,” an episode of the U.S. television sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati,” paying particular attention to how the show discusses race, gender, and social class issues. Think about which aspects of cultural and critical theory relate to how different kinds of people “understand” the meaning of the show. Keep an eye out, too, for the iconography of the era in the signs and symbols and photographs displayed in the background of the scenes.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD7UarDxcv0

 

After watching the video, please select and respond to at least one of the following sets of questions:

1.  What kind of “social knowledge” does the program assume you have about the work world? Who is in charge?  Who has power?
2.  This program came on the air in 1982; what were some of the stereotypical assumptions about white salesmen and African Americans?
3.  The show plays with the notions of “self-concept” that we discussed earlier in this class. Why do two of the characters question their self-concept? How are their self-concept issues “resolved” through interactions?
4.  This show is very much about presentation and representation of meanings done by the media. The media create programs to make money by attracting viewers. What do the iconography of the era in the signs, symbols and photographs displayed in the show suggest? What is the overall message of the show — what is it trying to teach the audience? What would a cultural studies or critical scholar say about this program’s message in terms of using representations in a way the audience will find both appealing and true?
5.  What TV or online shows are there today that attempt to “teach” the audience in a supportive and entertaining manner about social and racial identities and relationships?  What TV shows use stereotypes in a way that hurts the power of the people being represented?  In other words, are some people being represented for the audience simply to mock?

 

 

Student response:

Week 7 – Cultural Identity

Andres M

2.  This program came on the air in 1982; what were some of the stereotypical assumptions about white salesmen and African Americans?

This show was extremely offensive in today’s standards. This show starts by assuming black people know how to dress simply because they are black. During the first conversation when the show started, Herb and Venus were arguing about the “dress code” in the work environment and what these clothes say about the individual. The gentlemen behind Venus assumed that simple because he was black he knew how to dress. Another stereotype setting was when the secretary informed Venus of the interview and she mention that over the phone everyone sounded the same (skin tone) but she assumes that an individual race speaks a certain way (white or black).

The biggest surprise was when Venus finds out that Rick (the magazine interviewer) is white and not black as he had expected from a black magazine.

 

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