Midterm: Week 1 Flashcards
Define culture
how people live and represent themselves at a particular time.
- Process delivering values of society
- Products of society we embrace through education, science, religion, fashion
- People figured out how to monetize information with mass media
Define mass communication
- disseminate information, delivery of cultural messages + stories to a wider audience, empowered by the invention of the printing press
- Process of designing cultural message sand stories
Define mass media
- industries and channels of communications that produce and distribute stories
- Things that distribute songs, novels, movies music
Define the interrelationships of culture, mass communication and massmedia
These are reactive > Mass Media is the convergence of culture and mass communication. Cultural circumstances necessitated inventions of products and technologies that converted societal needs into tools. Mass communication made info and culture accessible, mass media made information a commodity.
Culture links individuals to their society and mass media helps circulate those values
What are the five eras of communications
- Oral:
verbal(word) non verbal (sounds, grunts) local - Written:
pictorial cave drawings, pictograms, alphabet - Print:
Gutenberg’s printing press > faster productions meant cheaper products making literacy more accessible - Electronic:
telegraph > instantaneous communication, telephone, radio, TV, personal computers - Digital:
media segmentation (targeting specific demographics to relay information), globalization (mass media/industries producing and distributing stories have a global footprint), internet
How does your text define media convergence?
“convergence” changes that have occurred over the past decade:
Technological: the technological merging of content across channels
Business/industrial: consolidating media holdings
- Google suite
- amazon: aws, twitch, wholefoods, contactless/amazon basics
- disney
How does a venn diagram represent media convergence?
- overlap between Telecom, Cable, Computers
- sectors center is the area of digital convegence where we see the overlap between industries
- Google fi
Describe the skyscraper model of culture.
hierarchical representation of culture as high vs low
have/have not’s
wealthy exclusive at the top, pop culture = low culture at the bottom
- middle: news
Skyscraper pros and cons:
- sets baseline of what high vs low cultural experiences are
- rigidity isn’t an authentic representation of culture
- helps with aspirations, hamilton taking a show to broadway which is high culture also brought medium culture music to the high culture stage and was exclusive
- as a marketer it helps identify the baseline
- limitation, it is subjective but there isnt a level playing field, there is a class division
- something that is accessible cheapens
- pg19 tendency to exploit high culture, throwaway ethic, diminished audience
- artificially puts culture into predetermined categories
Describe the map model of culture
- More popular cultural forms congregate in certain areas of the map, while less popular cultural forms are outliers.”
- not hierarchical, represents fluidity and how ideas overlap
- Nonlinear representation of societies intersections, emphasizing diverse tastes.
- judge culture on good/bad based on aesthetic judgements at a certain time
- sometimes we want familiar tendencies, other times we want to be challenged
- choosing things that are meaningful
culture as a map: What are its strengths and limitations
not hierarchical, multidirectional, more flexible multidimensional and inclusive
People are still separated into teams, doesn’t equate empathy
- the cultural model you can use for yourself in terms of your relationships and empathy, doesnt give you insight into the broader audience
What are the five steps in the critical process
Description: pay attention and research the subject, learn both sides
Analysis: think about patterns identified in the desc stage
Interpretation: question your findings “what does this mean”? “so what”?
Evaluation: arrive at an objective, factual judgement
Engagement: take action connecting your perspective with our role as citizens to question media, apply your voice to the cultural environment
why is the critical process important
critical process empowers media literacy which means you understand how mass media works and how opinions are formed.
develop a knowledgeable opinion and be tolerant and empathetic towards diverse forms of expression.
i think an example of this would be doomscrolling, defaulting to the worst takeaway of a series of news. if you peek beyond the alarmist nature of news you’ll find context and diverse opinions.
