Media and
Communications
Media is derived from latin meaning "middle". A medium is something that
is in the middle, between two things, or mediates something between two
things. For example, money is the medium of exchange. What is the medium
of communication? Radio, television, and the Internet are a few examples.
Communication
Communication is a term used in the notions of community. To communicate
is to engage in activities that maintain a community. How we see media:
- Audiences : Entertainment/Information
- Professionals : Creativity/Work
- Owners : Profit Making
- Students : Social Forces
Our concern is with how
communication media mediates social relations. C. Wright Mills said this
regarding the individual and society:
"The Sociological Imagination is a way to understand
that
private trouble are not seperate from public
issues." |
Role of
Media Media mediates our
relations with other individuals, social institutions (family, state,
nation, etc.), and social totality or society as a whole.
Conceptual Framework and
History Media bridges the gap
between space and time. It connects people and activities for social
relations need to extend across space and time for society to exist.
The history of media includes Spoken Words, Writing, Print, and
Electronic Media.
Spoken Words as a medium:
prehistoric times onward
- Space: limited to face-to-face contact
- Time: knowledge carried across generations by oral traditions
(storytelling)
- Medium: human body (voice), no other way of preserving
history
- Social Organization: localized, small communities/villages
- Authority: religious, speech considered sacred and powerful
in many cultures
Writing as a medium: 3000 BC
onward
- Space: not limited to face-to-face contact, writing
tablets/papyrus could be transported. The source of the message did not
have to be present at its destination.
- Time: permitted messages to survive across generations (ex.
stone carvings)
- Medium: externalized for the first time, messages could be
stored outside of the body
- Social Organization: kingdoms
- Authority: divine kinship, religious and feudal. "So it is
written, so it shall be done."
Print as the
first mass medium: 15th century onward
- Space: could be bridged in multiple directions, same message
could be sent to large numbers, standardization of reproduction
- Time: permitted survival of message across time, across
generations, across production (standardization), time to reach
destination reduced
- Medium: standardized, reproducible, forerunner of
industrialization/mass production
- Social Organization: decline of feudal monarchy/rise of
nation states
- Authority: decline of religious power, rise of secular
(non-religious) power
Electronic Media as a
medium: early 20th century onward
- Space: no longer confined to physical space
- Time: instantaneous transmission and presentation across
generations
- Medium: electronic, magnetic, etc., electricity based
- Social Organization: nation states remain powerful, but
global relations on rise. Increasing connections between global/local.
Relations of production and consumption; Capitalist economic society
- Authority: secular democracies, rise in power of economic
interests/Corporations
Conclusion: Media have been at
the center of changes in social relations across history, but we cannot
think of media alone as the cause of these changes (avoid Technological
Determinism).
Powerful, Direct
Effects Media is often
considered a "Magic Bullet" or "Hypodermic Needle", injecting media
messages into your brain. Assumptions include;
- Behaviorism: media messages as a Stimulus, their
effect as a Response (attitude, behavior, etc.)
- Individuals seen as susceptible to media influence because of loss
of traditional social bonds
Social scientific research sought to
isolate variables that caused media effects, such as in military
propaganda films.
Laswell's
Model This is the foundation
which describes the key terms and identifies the main areas of mass
communication research.
- Who?
- Institutional Research
ex) political economy, ownership,
censorship
- Says What?
- Message Analysis
ex) content analysis, bias, gender images
- In Which Channel?
- Technology
ex) research and development, diffusion of
technology
- To Whom?
- Audience research
ex) ratings, media uses, reception
- With What Effect?
- Influence/Impact studies
ex) attitude/behavior change,
media and violence
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