Key Sociologists for Media Topic Flashcards
What does Guilting and Ruge argue?
Topic: Selection and Presentation of News
- Argues that stories are more likely to be pursued and published if they meet these news values.
- e.g. Continuity such as Boris Johnson’s Partygate Scandal
- Once an event has become headline news it remains in the media spotlight for some time - even if its amplitude has been greatly reduced - because it has become familiar and easier to interpret.
- Continuing coverage also acts to justify the attention an event attracted in the first place
What does McQuail argue?
Topic: Selection and Presentation of News
• McQuail argues that news is a socially manufactured product because it is the result of a selective process.
• Gatekeepers, such as editors and journalists and media owners make choices and judgements about what events are important enough to cover and how to cover them.
• This makes the news a social construct. Things that they don’t want to the audience to know are gate kept/filtered.
• Things they want the audience to know are already set on their agenda as high priority.
• This causes media companies to follow a set of news values which allow them to decide which stories to focus on and which ones to ignore (Extreme and not mainstream) as the media is used as an ideological state apparatus.
What does McLuhan argue?
Topic: Globalisation
Hint: Global Village
• McLuhan argues that the world is rapidly becoming a global village in which rapid technological change has caused space and time barriers in human communication to collapse.
• People around the world can communicate instantaneously on a global scale.
• For example, we can zoom or face time to communicate with people all over the world. In addition to this, we are able to have idealised Western ideas spread around the world about having a car, marriage and a house through the media.
What does Ritzer argue?
Topic: Globalisation and Mass/Popular Culture
Hint: McDonaldization
• This is further supported by Ritzer who came up with a term called McDonaldization. This refers to how the media has become just like fast-food places, such as McDonald’s, who have an efficiency driven approach that’s the quick and the same everywhere.
• In media, McDonaldization means making things quick and streamlined. TV shows, movies, and news often follow the same formats and styles to appeal to a lot of people worldwide. This is demonstrated in how certain genres and predictable stories have become popular, and information gets spread fast.
• A good example of this in media is the use of short sound bites, such as YouTube shorts. They’re efficient and grab attention fast, but make complex issues seem too simple.
• Therefore, the effects of globalisation on consumption of popular media are that it has been dumbed down to adapt to the audience’s undermined ability to think critically and their reduced attention spans
What does Tomlinson argue?
Topic: Globalisation
• Tomlinson argues that globalisation does not involve a direct cultural imposition from the Western world.
• But instead there is a hybridisation of cultures whereby individuals can ‘pick and mix’ and draw upon their own local culture as well as Western/global culture.
What does Sklair argue?
Topic: Globalisation
• This is further supported by Sklair, who argued that media is largely American based, spreading news information and popular culture to a global market.
• This encourages the acceptance of the dominant ideology as Sklair calls ‘culture ideology of consumerism’.
• This means there is a shared western culture around the world of watching the same tv shows, films, music and fashion, thus sharing the same Westernised lifestyle.
• Therefore, with American companies such as Netflix dominating the streaming of television and film shows, it is apparent Western media is becoming popular around the world and is becoming more important than local media.
What does Cohen and Kennedy argue?
Topic: Globalisation
• Cohen and Kennedy, suggest that cultural pessimists under-estimate the strength of local cultures
• They note that people do not generally abandon their cultural traditions, family duties, religious beliefs, and national identities because they listen to Rihanna or watch a Disney film.
What does Fenton argue?
Topic: Globalisation
Hint: Cultural Imperalism
• Fenton argues that most media conglomerates are based in the US and dominate media communications.
• This is referred to as a process of ‘coca-colonisation’ which involves cultural and media imperialism.
• The media-led global culture-ideology of consumerism has led to Western media products and cultural values being forced on non-western cultures.
• This is evidenced by the fact that nearly all 500 top-grossing-international films of all time outside of the US are primarily American films.
• Therefore, globalisation has led to the undermining of local culture.
What does Baudrillard argue?
Topic: Globalisation and Popular Culture
• Baudrillard believes that we now live in a media-saturated society where images now dominate and distort the way we see the world.
• This distorted view of the world has led to people being unable to distinguish between media and real life. This distorted view of the world is referred to as hyperreality.
• This means that we now identify more with media images than our own everyday experiences and thus live a media-lead virtual life.
• For example, we are now more likely to get excited about acts on a reality TV show or engage with in conversations with practically strangers over Facebook and Twitter, rather than get involved in the local community.
• Therefore, the media has rendered the audience unable to distinguish between real life and media.
What does Jenkins and Shirley argue?
Topic: Globalisation effects on popular culture
• Shirky argues that global social media through the uploading of texts and images has become a shared global resource.
• Jenkins argues that this participatory culture creates new forms of community because those involved feel connected to another, in that they care about what other people have created.
What did Tuchman find argue?
Topic: Media Representations of Gender
Hint: Symbolic Annihalation
Tuchman et al used Symbolic Annihalation to describe how women’s achievements are often not reported and when these are reported, they are presented as less important than their looks and sex appeal.
What does Ferguson argue?
Topic: Traditional Media Representations of Femininity
Hint: What is the ‘cult of femininity’?
• Research on women’s magazines indicates that they reinforce patriarchal ideals and women’s subordinate position to men.
• According to Ferguson, women’s magazines revolve around a cult of femininity emphasising traditional values of caring for others, family, marriage, and appearance.
What does Gauntlett argue regarding negative stereotypes of masculinity?
Topic: Traditional media representations of masculinity.
We live in a post-modernist society, whereby both positive and negative representations of masculinity exist.
Gauntlett argues that there are still plenty of magazines aimed at men which sexually objectify women and stress images of men as traditionally masculine.
What does Batchelor argue about gay representations in media?
Topic: Representations of Sexuality in Traditional Media Represenations
• Batchelor found that when gay representations did appear in the mainstream media, they weren’t generally ‘integrated’ into plot lines, but rather gayness was part of the plot, seen as a source of anxiety, or as a target of teasing or bullying.
What does Barnes argue about the stereotypes of the disabled in traditional media representations?
How many does he put fourth…?
Don’t worry, you don’t have to remember all 6 stereotypes; just expand upon one.
Topic: Representations of Disability in Traditional Media
✩ Barnes (1992) argues that mass media representations of disability have
generally, been oppressive and negative.
✩ People with disabilities are rarely presented as people with their own identities:
• As victims – Barnes found that when people with disabilities are featured in television drama, they are three times more likely than able-bodied characters to be killed off.
• As villains – people with disabilities are often portrayed as criminals or monsters, e.g. villains in James Bond films often have a physical impairment.
• As super-cripples – Barnes notes that people with disabilities are often portrayed as having special powers or as overcoming their impairment and poverty. In Hollywood films, the impaired male body is often visually represented as a perfect physical specimen in a wheelchair. Ross notes that disability issues have to be sensational, unexpected or heroic in order to be interpreted by journalists as newsworthy and reported on.
• As a burden – television documentaries and news features often focus on carers rather than the people with disabilities & in need of pity and charity – Barnes claims that this stereotype has grown in popularity in recent years because of television appeals such as Children in Need.
• As sexually abnormal – it is assumed by media representations that people with disabilities do not have sexual feelings or that they are sexually degenerate.
• As incapable of participating fully in community life – Barnes calls this the stereotype of omission and notes that people with disabilities are rarely shown as integral and productive members of the community such as students, teachers or parents.
• As ordinary or normal – Barnes argues that the media rarely portray people with disabilities as normal people who just happen to have an impairment. They consequently fail to reflect the real, everyday experience of disability. Instead, they are usually seen as atmospheric and curio. They may be included in a drama to enhance an atmosphere of mystery.
This means that disabled people are used to add a visual impact to productions. Therefore, Shakespeare would argue that such stereotypes have reinforced negative attitudes towards disabled people and their ignorance about the nature of disability.
