2020-06-08
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What Is Mass Communication?
The media so fully saturate our everyday lives that we are often unconscious of their presence, not to mention their influence. Media help define us; they shape our realities.
Communication is the transmission of a message from a source to a receiver. (a political scientist Harold Lasswell (1948)) He said that a convenient way to describe communication is to answer these questions:
- Who?
- Says what?
- Through which channel?
- To whom?
- With what effect?
Communication occurs when:
A source sends a message -> through a medium -> to a receiver producing some effect
1.Unlike mere message-sending, communication requires the response of others. Therefore, there must be a sharing (or correspondence) of meaning for communication to take place.
2. Communication is a reciprocal and ongoing process with all involved parties more or less engaged in creating shared meaning. Communication, then, is better defined as the process of creating shared meaning.
Interpersonal communication — communication between two or a few people—shows that there is no clearly identifiable source or receiver. Rather, because communication is an ongoing and reciprocal process, all the participants, or “interpreters,” are working to create meaning by encoding and decoding messages. Speaking is encoding, as are writing, printing, and filming a television program. Once received, the message is decoded; that is, the signs and symbols are interpreted. Decoding occurs through listening, reading, or watching that television show.
Noise - anything that interferes with successful communication. Encoded messages are carried by a medium, that is, the means of sending information. When the medium is a technology that carries messages to a large number of people – as newspapers carry the printed word and radio conveys the sound of music and news—we call it a mass medium (the plural of medium is media).
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Mass communication is the process of creating shared meaning between the mass media and their audiences.
This model and the original Osgood–Schramm model have much in common—interpreters, encoding, decoding, and messages—but it is their differences that are most significant for our understanding of how mass communication differs from other forms of communication:
1.Whereas the original model includes “message,” the mass communication model offers “many identical messages.”;
2. The mass communication model specifies “feedback,” whereas the interpersonal communication model does not.
Media theorist James W. Carey (1975) recognized this and offered a cultural definition of communication: “ Communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transformed ”.
Communication is a process embedded in our everyday lives that informs the way we perceive, understand, and construct our view of reality and the world. Communication is the foundation of our culture.
What Is Culture?
Culture does:
1. Culture is the learned, socially acquired traditions and lifestyles of the members of a society, including their patterned, repetitive ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. (Harris)
2. Culture lends significance to human experience by selecting from and organizing it. It refers broadly to the forms through which people make sense of their lives, rather than more narrowly to the opera or art of museums. (Rosaldo)
3. Culture is the medium evolved by humans to survive. Nothing is free from cultural influences. It is the keystone in civilization’s arch and is the medium through which all of life’s events must flow. We are culture. (Hall)
4. Culture is an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbolic forms by means of which people communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life. (Geertz)
Functions and Effects of Culture
Culture serves a purpose. It helps us categorize and classify our experiences; it helps
define us, our world, and our place in it. In doing so, culture can have a number of
sometimes conflicting effects:
1. LIMITING AND LIBERATING EFFECTS OF CULTURE A culture’s learned traditions and values can be seen as patterned, repetitive ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. Culture limits our options and provides useful guidelines for behavior. Culture provides information that helps us make meaningful distinctions about right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, good and bad, attractive and unattractive, and so on.
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But culture’s limiting effects can be negative, such as when we are unwilling or unable to move past patterned, repetitive ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Especially in a pluralistic, democratic society such as ours, the dominant culture (or mainstream culture) —the one that seems to hold sway with the majority of people—is often openly challenged.
2. DEFINING, DIFFERENTIATING, DIVIDING, AND UNITING EFFECTS OF CULTURE There are many smaller, bounded cultures (or co-cultures). These smaller cultures unite groups of people and enable them to see themselves as different from other groups around them. Thus culture also serves to differentiate us from others. Culture can divide us, but culture also unites us. Our culture represents our collective experience.
DEFINING CULTURE
1. Culture is the world made meaningful;
2. it is socially constructed and maintained through communication.
3. It limits as well as liberates us;
4. it differentiates as well as unites us.
5. It defines our realities and there by shapes the ways we think, feel, and act.
Scope and Nature of Mass Media
No matter how we choose to view the process of mass communication, it is impossible to deny that an enormous portion of our lives is spent interacting with mass media.
Eighty-six percent of all American adults own a cell phone, but half of all Americans own a device with an advanced operating system, that is, a smartphone, a pro portion that rises to 62% for people ages 25 to 34. Worldwide, cell phone users annually download nearly 18 billion apps.
The Role of Technology
To some thinkers, it is machines and their development that drive economic and cultural change. This idea is referred to as technological determinism.
Technology does have an impact on communication. At the very least it changes the basic elements of communication. What technology does not do is relieve us of our obligation to use mass communication responsibly and wisely.
Mass Communication, Culture, and Media Literacy
Culture and communication are inseparable, and mass communication, as we’ve seen, is a particularly powerful, pervasive, and complex form of communication. Our level of skill in the mass communication process is therefore of utmost importance. This skill is media literacy — the ability to effectively and efficiently comprehend and use any form of mediated communication.
Literacy —the ability to effectively and efficiently comprehend and use written symbols—had existed since the development of the first alphabets more than 5,000 years ago, it was reserved for very few, the elites. (Gutenberg Revolution)
Elements of Media Literacy:
Media literacy includes these characteristics (Silverblatt):
1. A critical thinking skill enabling audience members to develop independent judgments about media content.
2. An understanding of the process of mass communication.
3. An awareness of the impact of media on the individual and society.
4. Strategies for analyzing and discussing media messages.
5. An understanding of media content as a text that provides insight into our culture and our lives.
6. The ability to enjoy, understand, and appreciate media content. Learning to enjoy, understand, and appreciate media content includes the ability to use multiple points of access —to approach media content from a variety of directions and derive from it many levels of meaning.
7. Development of effective and responsible production skills.
8. An understanding of the ethical and moral obligations of media practitioners.
Media Literacy Skills:
1. The ability and willingness to make an eff ort to understand content, to pay attention, and to filter out noise.
2. An understanding of and respect for the power of media messages. We also disregard media’s power through the third-person effect —the common attitude that others are influenced by media messages but that we are not.
3. The ability to distinguish emotional from reasoned reactions when responding to content and to act accordingly.
4. Development of heightened expectations of media content.
5. A knowledge of genre conventions and the ability to recognize when they are being mixed. The term genre refers to the categories of expression within the different media, such as the “evening news,” “documentary,” “horror movie,” or “entertainment magazine.” Each genre is characterized by certain distinctive, standardized style elements— the conventions of that genre.
6. The ability to think critically about media messages, no matter how credible their sources.
7. A knowledge of the internal language of various media and the ability to understand its effects, no matter how complex. Just each media genre has its own distinctive style and conventions, each medium also has its own specific internal language. This language is expressed in production values —the choice of lighting, editing, special effects, music, camera angle, location on the page, and size and placement of headline.
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
1. What is culture? How does culture define people?
Culture – is the learned behavior of members of a given social group.
Culture defines us by helping us classify and organize our experience, helps define the world around us. Culture comprises of customs, norms, values, and traditions of a particular society or part of that society. Culture is socially constructed and maintained through communication. It limits as well as liberates us, it differentiates as well as unites us. It defines our realities and thereby shapes the ways we think, feel, and act.
2. What is communication? What is mass communication?
Communication – is the transmission of a message from a source to a receiver - this view of communication has been identified with the writing of political scientist Harold Lasswell (1948). He said that a convenient way to describe communication is to answer these questions:
Who? Says what? Through which channel? To whom? With what effect?
Mass communication is the process of creating shared meaning between the mass media and their audiences.
3. What are encoding and decoding? How do they differ when technology enters the communication process?
Encoding – the process of transforming the message into an understandable sign and symbol system (e.g. speaking, writing, printing, and other).
Decoding – the process of interpreting the signs and symbols after receiving the message (happens through listening, reading, or watching a television show).
When the technology enters the communication process it becomes mass communication.
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4. What does it mean to say that communication is a reciprocal process?
Communication is a reciprocal process. It means that as communication is happening, both interpreters are simultaneously source and receiver, therefore there’s no feedback required.
5. What is James Carey’s cultural definition of communication? How does it differ from other definitions of that process?
Media theorist James W. Carey wrote, “ Communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transformed”. Carey’s definition asserts that communication and reality are linked. Communication is a process embedded in our everyday lives that informs the way we perceive, understand, and construct our view of reality and the world. Communication is the foundation of our culture. Its truest purpose is to maintain ever evolving, frail cultures.
6. What do we mean by mass media as cultural storyteller?
When we talk about mass media as a cultural storyteller we mean that by its means we can define culture’s realities, shaping the way we feel, act, and think.
However, these stories can also be used not to be entertained but to see the values, the way things work critically. We should reflect on the stories and what they say about us/our culture.
7. What do we mean by mass communication as cultural forum?
In this sense mass communication becomes a forum where we can have cultural discussions, talk about cultural definitions and understandings.
But in this context media industries should be professional and moral, while audiences should be critical and thoughtful.
8. What is media literacy? What are its components?
Media literacy – the ability to effectively and efficiently comprehend and use any form of mediated communication. Its main components are following:
- A critical thinking skill enabling audience members to develop independent judgment about media content.
- An understanding of the process of mass communication.
- An awareness of the impact of media on the individual and society.
- Strategies for analyzing and discussing media messages.
- An understanding of media content as a text that provides insight into our culture and our lives.
- The ability to enjoy, understand, and appreciate media content.
- Development of effective and responsible production skills.
- An understanding of the ethical and moral obligations of media practitioners.
9. What are some specific media literacy skills?
Despite all the skills mentioned prior, media literacy still requires some specific skills like:
- The ability and willingness to make an effort to understand content, to pay attention, and to filter out noise.
- An understanding of and respect for the power of media messages.
- The ability to distinguish emotional from reasoned reactions when responding to content and to act accordingly.
- Development of heightened expectations of media content.
- A knowledge of genre conventions and the ability to recognize when they are being mixed.
- The ability to think critically about media messages, no matter how credible their sources.
- A knowledge of the internal language of various media and the ability to under- stand its effects, no matter how complex.
10. What is the difference between genres and production conventions? What do these have to do with media literacy?
Genre – is the categories of expression within the different media (e.g. evening news, documentary, horror movie, entertainment magazine etc). the production convections – are certain distinctive, standardized style elements that every genre is characterized by. Sometimes in order to maximize the broadness of the audience and the profit some media companies can mix conventions together. Therefore it becomes harder to see the real news behind all of this as the formats are melted together. So we should have such important skill and know how to differentiate media genres and their typical conventions.
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Chapter 2 synopsis
