Media in the US

Question 1

lifestyles defined by media images of consumption

Answer 1

• femininity and masculinity
• class
• active adults
• race
• images of success and failure
• media production of leaders

Question 2

media as a crucial factor of national identity formation

Answer 2

• Benedict Anderson: Imagined Communities
• loss of earlier powerful factors of identity formations (religious communities based on sacred languages and hierarchihcal dynastic political system)

Question 3

three main factors converged in the creation of modern national consciousness (Anderson)

Answer 3

• a new capitalistic system of production
• a new print technology of communication
• a new significance of linguistic diversity

Question 4

key moments in the history of media in US

Answer 4

• 1776 - Declaration of Independence (T. Jefferson’s “we”)
• the was for independence: pamphleteering (Thomas Paine)
• Paul Revere’s “Boston Massacre”

Question 5

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Answer 5

• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• sold more than 300 000 copies in the first year
• “few book in American history have had so great an impact on the course of public events.”

Question 6

The Mexican War

Answer 6

• 1846-48
• in 1833, the Penny Press became a phenomenon in New York City where Benjamin Day, the publisher of the New York Sun, used new technologies, increased ad revenues and clever editorial choices to create the first newspaper specifically designed for the common man and woman.
• they soon found their perfect subject in the U.S. Mexican War, and the war became the fist to be covered widely in newspapers. Many editorial writers of the Penny Press used their newspapers as soapboxes to drum up support for the war

Question 7

The War with Spain

Answer 7

• 1898, The Maine Explosion
• Maine was a United States Navy ship that sank in Havana Harbor on 15 February 1898, contributing to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April
• U.S. newspapers, engaging in yellow journalism to boost circulation, claimed that the Spanish were responsible for the ship’s destruction
• the phrase, “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!” became a rallying cry for action

Question 8

US and WWI

Answer 8

• 1916 - election - “Wilson kept us out of war”
• 1917 - US enters war “to make the world safe for democracy”
• reasons
  ->Tho Committee on Public Information (CPI)
  -> British Propaganda
  -> Unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany
  -> Domestic “preparedness” movement (National Security League)
  -> Economic Interdependence

Question 9

US and The Great War

Answer 9

• importance of public libraries, magazines
• importance of the movie industry: preparedness movies

Question 10

traditional media

Answer 10

• Centralized, top down
• Gatekeepers
• Fact checking
• Prime time
• Few Modes and Channels
• Created by Experts
• Typical:
  
  • Complexity
  • Multiple areas and themes
  • Rational argumentation
  • Upholding Status Quo
  • Claim to legitimacy
  • Elitist

Question 11

new media

Answer 11

• Decentralized, dispersed
• No gatekeepers
• No fact checking
• My time, simultaneity
• Multiple Modes and Channels
• Created interactively
• Typical:
  
  • Simplification
  • Limited scope, tailor-made contents
  • Social bubbles
  • Emotional appeals
  • Change
  • Denial of legitimacy, uncovering conspiracy
  • Anti-elitist

Question 12

defining characteristics of new media

Answer 12

• digitality
• interactivity
• dispersal
• virtuality

Question 13

Homo Deus

Answer 13

• Yuval Noah Harari
• the book sets out to examine possibilities of the future of Homo sapiens. The premise outlines that during the 21st century, humanity is likely to make a significant attempt to gain happiness, immortality, and God-like powers
• “In the heyday of European imperialism, conquistadors and merchants bough entire islands and countries in exchange for colored beads”
• “In the twenty-first century our personal data is probably the most valuable resource most humans still have to offer, and we are giving it to tech giants in exchange for email services and funny cat videos”

Question 14

the changing system of publishing

Answer 14

• “news publishers have lost control over the distribution of their journalism, which for many readers is now “filtered through algorithms and platforms which are opaque and unpredictable”

Question 15

Techno Feudalism (What Killed Captialism)

Answer 15

• Yanis Varoufakis
• in his new book the maverick Greek economist says we are witnessing an epochal shift
• he argues it’s no longer the global finane system that shapes us, but the ‘fiefdoms’ of tech firms

Question 16

Raymond Williams’ Understanding of Media

Answer 16

• NM as subject to control and direction by human institutions, skills, creativity and intention
• Plural possibilities and uses of technology, focus on social use
• Importance of patterns of wealth and power
• Technology has no “essence” that would immediately create effects peculiar and exclusive to itself
• Technology as shaped and determined by human agency

Question 17

Medium is the Message

Answer 17

• a phrase made by Marhall McLuhan
• All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the message. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the media work as environments
• Technological determinism
• Media as extensions of the human body and the senses
• Medium is the message
• Hot and cool media

Question 18

Media as Nature

Answer 18

• Technology also has agency and effects that cannot be reduced to its social uses
• The environment thesis: the new media are not bridges between humans and nature: they are nature