1. MCM 733: Communication Theory
Chapters 10, 11, 12

2. CH 10: Media and Society
Information/Innovation diffusion theory: explains how innovations are introduced and adopted by various communities
First, awareness raising
Second, adopted by early adopters (people who adopt techs early, without all the consumer info)
Third, opinion leaders adopt it based on early adopters experiences
Fourth, opinion leaders spread it to their constituencies
Fifth, laggards adopt it
Change agents: those wo directly influence the adoption process

3. CH 10: Media and Society Media System Dependency Theory:
The more people use media, the more they become dependent on it and the more influence the media will have in their lifes
Knowledge Gap Theory:
There are systematic gaps between better informed and less-informed members of a population. This is a demonstration of the power of systems theory

4. CH 10: Media and Society Agenda Setting Theory:
Communicators don’t tell people what to think, rather they encourage them to prioritize their values.
Priming: media draw attention to some aspects of political life at the expense of others
Agenda Building: collective process in which media, gov’t and the citizenry reciprocally influence one another in areas of public policy

5. CH 10: Media and Society Elements of Agenda Setting Theory:
Mass comm has a huge effect on setting people’s priorities
Vividness of presentation
Position of a story
priming

6. CH 10: Media and Society
Framing Theory: the idea that people use sets of expectations to make sense of their social world and media contribute to those expectations
Second-order agenda setting: media set the public’s agenda at a second level or order – the attribute level, where the first order was the object level.
Frame: a specific set of expectations used to make sense of some aspect of the social world in a specific situation and time

7. CH 10: Media and Society
Spiral of Silence Theory: people holding views contrary to dominant views are moved to keep them to themselves for fear of rejection
Three factors that lead to Spiral of Silence:
Ubiquity: the media are virtually everywhere as sources of information
Cumulation: the various news media tend to repeat stories and perspectives across their different individual programs, or editions, across the different media themselves
Consonance: the similarity of values held by newspeople influences the content they produce

8. CH 10: Media and Society
New Production Research: the study of how the institutional routines of news production inevitably produce bias or distorted content
Personalized News: most news stories center around people
Dramatized News: storylines dominate
Fragmented news: news is made up of a lot different fragments
Normalized News: adding th threat of disaster to a sense of normalcy
Objectivity rituals: rituals that ensure objectivity but reinforce the status quo

9. CH 10: Media and Society Media Intrusion Theory: Social Capital
The idea that the media have taken over politics to the extent that politics have become subverted.
Social Capital
Membership in certain social groups confers status and prestige to an individual

10. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Symbolic Interactionism: people give meaning to certain things and those meanings end up controlling them
Social behaviourism: view of learning that focuses on the mental processes and the social environment in which learning takes place

11. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Applications of Symbolic Interactionism
People’s interpretation and perception of the environment depend on communication
Communication is guided by and guides the concepts of self, role, and situations. These concepts generate expectations in and of the environment
Communication consists of complex interactions “involving action, interdependence, mutual influence, meaning, relationship, and situational factors.”

12. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Social Constructionism: individuals’ power to control or change their environment is limited
Social construction of reality: we construct meaning together in an on-going fashion because people share a common sense of its reality

13. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Some concepts for social interactionism and constructionism:
Signals: artificial signs that produce predicable responses
Signs: something represents something else
Artificial signs: made by people
Natural signs: thunder, lightning, etc.
Symbols: artificial signs for which there is less certainty of response
Typifications: mental images that allow people to quickly classify objects and actions and then structure their own actions in response.

14. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Framing and Frame Analysis
Framing: people use expectations to make sense of everyday life
Social cues: info in the environment that signals a shift or change of action
Frame: a specific set of expectations used to make sense of a social situation at a given point in time
Downshift and upshift: to move back and forth between more or less serious frames
Hyper-ritualized representations: media content constructed to highlight only the most meaningful representations
Primary reality: the real world in which people obey conventions and laws

15. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Cultivation Analysis: media cultivates a reality, that may be untrue, but becomes reality because people believe it to be so
Violence Index: annual content analysis of a sample week of network television to measure amount of violence contained in it

16. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Cultural Indicators Project: periodic examinations of television programming and the conceptions of social reality cultivated by viewing
Television is different from all other forms of mass media
TV is the central cultural arm of today’s society
Audience consciousness is cultivated by keying into basic assumptions about the “facts of life” and “common sense” rather than “high concept” ideas
TV’s major cultural function is to stabilize social patterns, to cultivate resistance to change
The observable, measurable independent contributions of television to the culture are relatively small. It is rather it’s stable contribution that matters (Ice Age Hypothesis)

17. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Products of Cultivation Analysis
Message systems analysis: detailed content analysis of TV programming to assess recurring and consistent messaging
Cultivation: television’s contribution to the creation of a culture’s frameworks or knowledge and underlying general concepts
Mainstreaming: the process, especially for heavier viewers, by which TVs symbols monopolize and dominate other sources of info and ideas about the world
Resonance: when viewers see things on TV that are congruent with their own everyday realities

18. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Mean World Index: a series of questions about the incidence of crime and violence, the answer to which can be used to differentiate heavy and light viewers
The Three B’s of TV:
Television blurs traditional distinctions of people’s views of their world
TV blends their realities into TV’s cultural mainstream
TV bends that mainstream to the institutional interests of television and its sponsors

19. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Commodification of Culture:
When elements of everyday culture are selected for repackaging, only a very limited range is chosen and important elements are overlooked or consciously ignored
The repackaging process involves dramatization of those elements of culture that have been selected
The marketing of cultural commodities is undertaken in a way that maximizes the likelihood that they will intrude into and ultimately disrupt everyday life
The elites who operate the cultural industries are generally ignorant of the consequences of their work.
Disruption of everyday life takes many forms – some disruptions are obviously linked to consumption of deleterious content, other are subtle and take a long time.

20. Ch 11: Media and Culture Theories
Media Literacy Movement
An awareness of the impact of the media on the individual and society
An understanding of the process of mass communication
The development of strategies with which to analyse and discuss media messages
An awareness of media content as a “text” that provides insight into our contemporary culture and ourselves
The cultivation of an enhanced enjoyment, understanding and appreciation of media content

21. Ch 12: The Future of Media Theory and Research
The End of Mass Comm Theory and the Beginning of Media Theory
Web 2.0
iPhone/Blackberry
Virtual reality
Artificial intelligence
Cognitive neuroscience
Globalization