Media og kommunikation The Media Book – chapter 1 Theory in Media Research

Media Studies A social science that studies the nature and effects of mass media upon individuals and society, as well as analysing actual media content and representations. A cross-disciplinary field, media studies uses techniques and theorists from sociology, cultural studies, psychology, art theory, information theory, and economics. from Wikipedia

Media Studies Popular understandings of media studies encompass: –media production –mass communication –journalism Separate strands include: –Audience Studies –Television Studies –Radio Studies

Critical media theory Looks at how the corporate ownership of media production and distribution affects society Provides a common ground to social conservatives (concerned by the effects of media on the traditional family) and liberals and socialists (concerned by the corporatization of social discourse). The study of the effects and techniques of advertising forms a cornerstone of media studies

Contemporary media studies includes the analysis of new media, with emphasis on the: –internet –video games –mobile devices –interactive television and other forms of mass media which developed from the 1990s.

Forces at work in the 1990’es Digitization →Convergence →Industrial concentration →Privatization & deregulation →Commercialization →Globalization

BFI Key Aspects of media studies Signpost questionKey aspect Who is communicating and why?Media Agencies What type of text is it?Media Categories How has it been produced?Media Technologies How do we know what it means?Media Languages Who receives it, and what sense do they make of it? Media Audiences How does it represent its subject to us? Media Representations

Agency Agencies: those who produce media text Media text: –Oral, print, still/moving image, computer generated communications Agents: specialist roles/knowledge –Technical, directive, administrative, creative Concernes: –Effect, profit, distribution, ownership, financing

Category Expectations of consumers to different kinds of media texts Genre categories in various media: –News –Editorial –Fashion –Health –Mystery/fiction –Country/western

Technology Technologies of any given system of media and delivery –Communications technology Technologies define significant differences between media At the same time they also can underdemine these same differences

Languages Contexts for the use, experience and decoding of spoken, written or printed language “Socio-linguistics” of media –Formality/unformality –Political implications –Oral mode in printed media Post modernist approach –Implicit/explicit borrowings –Discourses in society

Audience Audience studies First concerned with effects of media on audience –Beliefs, attitudes, behaviour –Social class, education, oppucation Now more concerned with media use –Culture, age, gender, social class

Representation Media text content Representation of the world: –Portray, reflection, filter, negotiation Selection Exclusion Inclusion

Nine approaches to media Mass society, functionalism, pluralism Media effects Political economy The public sphere Media occupations and professionals Cultural hegemony Feminism Moving image New audience research

The big 3 - theories Effect studies –Effect of media on audiences Cultural studies –In the context of cultural studies, the idea of a text not only includes written language, but also films, photographs, fashion or hairstyles: the texts of cultural studies comprise all the meaningful artifacts of culturetextfilms photographsfashionhairstyles Political economy