1. Mass Communication Theories
Lecture 2
What is a theory?
Vasyl V. Kucherenko

2. What is ‘mass communication’? What is a ‘theory’?
What are the ‘media’?
What is ‘mass communication’?
What is a ‘theory’?
What main elements do any theory includes?
And why do we need the MCTs?
Before we start considering particular mass communication theories, let’s answer several more basic questions

3. The MEDIA Television Radio Newspapers Magazines Film Internet
(…to name a few)
We could think of a list. But this list tells us little about what commonly defines all these media.

4. More accurately would be described as mass media
The media as technologies that communicate messages to audiences in different parts of a region, country, or the world.
More accurately would be described as mass media
‘Mass’, in this sense, refers to the massive reception of media (such as television, Internet, film and so on)
“Whatever we know about our society, or indeed about the world in which we live, we know through the mass media”
(Luhmann, 2000)
Perhaps the solution is to define media as technologies

5. Sender-receiver model
Before the age of mass media, the term ‘medium’ referred to something or someone situated between an object (the message being sent) and a subject (the receiver of the message). A simple communication model with a sender which transfers a message containing information to a receiver.

6. The ‘sender-receiver’ model of communication is outdated:
Tends to give too much power to ‘sender’
Too linear
Emphasis on 1-way communication

9. 8 elements of the communication process
Source
Encoding
Message
Channel
Decoding
Receiver
Feedback
Noise

10. Source
The initiator of a thought or idea who starts the process of communication and wants to share that thought or idea with others.
Can be anyone or anything: an individual, group, organization etc.

11. Encoding
The activities that a source goes through to translate the thoughts and ideas in a perceivable form.
to ‘pack’ them in a particular way
Refers to words, pictures, dynamic images, symbols etc.

12. Message The actual physical product encoded by the source.
a phrase, speech, article, picture, talk-show, movie etc.

13. Channel The ways how the message travels to a receiver
Perceived by our senses: vision, hearing, smell, touch, taste.

14. Decoding (receiving the message)
Translating and interpreting the message
Examples of decoders: TV-set, radio, phone, you

15. Receiver The target of the message, the ultimate goal
The audience and individuals

16. Feedback
Responses from the receiver expressing the interpretation of the message
Can be positive / negative / neutral

17. Noise
Anything that interferes with the delivery or adequate perception of the message
Semantic: words / phrases can have different meanings for different people
Mechanical: decoder malfunction, missing a phone call, pen runs out of ink
Environmental: ‘noise’ that is external to communication process, e.g. a noisy place will distract.

18. Fields of experience
Differing levels of knowledge, experience, general intelligence of a sender and a receiver.
Makes decoding – and, as a result, understanding - difficult or impossible.
Increases levels of noise
The communication is amounted to nothing.

20. Types of communication
International communication
Intercultural communication
Mass communication
Interpersonal communication
Intrapersonal communication

21. Mass communication
“Occurs when a complex organization, with machine aid, produces and transmits public messages to large, heterogeneous, scattered audience” (Dominick, 2010, p.10)
“The process of creating shared meaning between mass media and audiences” (Baran, 2006, p.6)

22. Functions of mass communication
Information function – to satisfy curiosity, reduce uncertainty, and better understand what is going on.
Interpretation function – to interpret certain issues for audiences in more or less explicit way.
Instructive function - some media outlets cultivate knowledge by teaching instead of just relaying information.

23. Functions of mass communication
Bonding function - bringing people with the same or similar values, opinions, interests etc. closer together.
Diversion function - using the media to escape our day-to-day lives, to distract us from our upcoming exam, dull work or to help us relax.

24. Practicum
Please think about or discuss in small groups with your classmates which function - or functions - of mass media are the most important to you personally and why.

25. Theory: Definitions
“…any organized set of concepts, explanations, and principles of some aspect of human experience"
(Stephen Littlejohn & Karen Foss)
"the net which we throw out in order to catch the world-- to rationalize, explain, and dominate it“
(Karl Popper)

26. Theory: Definitions
“Theories … are sets of statements asserting relationships among classes of variables”
(John Bowers a & John Courtright)
“Theory strives to formulate statements or propositions that will have some explanatory power “
(Gavin Davie)

27. Importance of the theory
Assists the researcher to identify and organize the connection among various variables or phenomena that may seem unrelated, at first sight.
Helps the researcher to answer ‘why’ questions.
(1) Determines relationships between concepts that are carefully defined, (2) provides ways to measure those concepts and understand what influences them.
Lies in…

28. Why and in what ways news media agenda over time becomes the public agenda and influences public opinion?
Does the public agenda affects and sets the news media agenda?
Why information, packed in a way as to provide a problem definition, causal interpretation and solution recommendation, repeated over time through various news media sources, becomes dominant public opinion? (even if this information is false!)

29. “A competent journalist writes clearly”
In general, the concepts are the terms or labels we use to organize our everyday experiences and to communicate such experiences to others.
The concepts can be nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs in our vocabularies.
“A competent journalist writes clearly”

30. “A competent journalist writes clearly”
Competence
Journalist
Writing
Clarity
If a person reading this sentence doesn’t understand any of these concepts, the meaning of the sentence can be lost or distorted.

31. A concept a linguistic term
an abstract idea a smallest unit
in a composition or text
“A competent journalist writes clearly”
Four concepts Five linguistic terms

32. A concept: is a basic unit of meaning in our thought;
is an idea or thought about which we have a mental image;
is usually in an abstract form and is not readily observable;
because there is often no widely agreed-on measure of a particular concept, it can mean different things to different people.
Concepts are measured by developing them into variables. Variables then measured by values assigned to them.

33. A variable - a concept that varies (or changes) and, thus, has two or more categories, or values:
‘Gender’ is a variable that has two categories, ‘male’ and ‘female’;
“TV watching” variable may have such categories as ‘high’, ‘medium’, ‘low’ and ‘none’ (or number of hours per typical week);
‘Political participation’ may be measured through a number of various political activity categories.

34. “Television violence viewing is positively related to aggressive behavior”
Positive relationship
Aggressive behavior

35. In sum…
Mass communication - 1) the communication system that reaches massive numbers of people; 2) an actual process of designing and delivering media texts to mass audiences
A theory – a set of statements asserting relationships among classes of variables
A mass communication theory - any theory that aims to explain or predict cultural and social phenomena as interrelated with mass communication and mass media systems.

36. Why we need the MassComm theories
The theories seeks to explain:
the effects, intended or unintended, of mass communication on society, audiences and individuals;
the uses to which people put mass communication;
learning from the mass communication / mass media.
On the whole, the theories explains the role of mass communication in shaping audiences values and opinions.

38. Home readings for Oct.4 (self-study):
Baran, S. J., & Davis, D. K. (2012). Mass communication theory: Foundations, ferment, and future. (Read Ch. 2, Ch.4, Ch.6, Ch.8)
NO REFLECTIONS!
Home readings for Oct.11
Textbook: Baran, S. J., & Davis, D. K. (2012). Mass communication theory: Foundations, ferment, and future. (Chapter 10: Agenda-setting, pp )
Textbook: Bryant J. & Oliver, M.B. (2009) Media Effects: Advances in theory and research (Chapter 1: How news shapes our civic agenda)
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