Module 3 Flashcards
(28 cards)
In what ways are audiences active?
- Interpretation (how audiences might construct meaning differently)
- Social context of interpretation (not just individual)
- Collective action (how users make formal demands on media producers)
- Audience as media producers (creation)
What is polysemy?
• The notion that multiple meanings can coexist in media content or “texts”
• Polysemic texts are “open” to interpretation, they can be enjoyed by a broad range of people
- Thus, polysemy can be a highly desirable feature for mass market media
What is the uses and gratifications approach focused on?
- What are people doing with media?
- Why are they using media?
- Focuses on the user – content – social world aspect of the media model
How was the movie “March of the Penguins” interpreted?
- Interpreted as pro-family, pro-life
- Supporting traditional family values such as monogamy
- Viewed as supporting the theory of intelligent design (as opposed to evolution)
- Movie’s subtle message about climate change not taken up by conservatives
- The filmmakers said they did not consciously avoid those topics- they wanted to create a film that would reach as many people as possible
What is the difference between an “open” and “closed” text?
“Open” texts are structured to allow for more readings than a “closed” text which tries to control how audiences interpret a text’s meaning
What is the encoding-decoding model?
Encoding- decoding is an active audience theory developed by Stuart Hall which examines the relationship between a text and its audience
What is encoding?
The process by which a text is constructed by its producers
What is decoding?
The process by which the audience reads, understands and interprets a text
What are the audience’s decoding models?
- Dominant reading: closest to producers’ intentions, in line with dominant production and ideological codes
- Oppositional reading: draws on outside information or other codes to identify the preferred meaning and resist it
- Negotiated reading: partly deferred but negotiates with it in light of own experience or disconfirming information
How does social position influence interpretation?
By providing resources used to decode media messages
- we draw from tools given to us based on our culture
Why do romance fans read romance novels?
- A challenge to a feminist critique that sees romance novels as “sexist trash”
- Women’s social needs were not being met by society
- A way for them to escape from household obligations to romantic fantasy in both (1) the act of reading and (2) the stories
- “Good” romances provide an alternative to what the Smithton women felt is missing in their own lives
What is convergence?
The blurring of boundaries among types of media
What is Web 2.0?
Internet applications that facilitate user interaction, collaboration, and information sharing
What are the chief mechanisms of media consumption?
Pleasure and fantasy
Why create?
- Self-expression
- Interaction/community building
- Sharing
Explain the case of “no comment”
- Feminist’s oppositional readings of mainstream culture
- Helped create a feminist identity
- There was a collective process of resisting these misogynist, sexist messages
- A way of interactivity in the press that worked even before the internet
What is culture jamming?
- Parody or criticism of mainstream culture
- Pranking
What are celebrity games?
- Mass-mediated pleasure of the celebrity world
- Audience adopts a playful attitude toward the celebrity world
- Gossip
- Detective work (ex: obsessing over someone’s public role in a private life)
What is selective exposure?
Media users can play an active role in choosing what media they were exposed to
Social class provides us with what in terms of decoding?
Cultural “tools”
What is a “game player”?
When audiences adopt a playful attitude towards the celebrity world (involves gossip and detective work)\
The “matrix media” (media landscape enabled by the internet) is characterized by:
- Interactive exchanges among users
- Multiple sites of productivity
- Diverse range of tools available for interpretation and use
“Participatory culture” is one…
- With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement
- With strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others
- With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices
- Where members believe that their contributions matter
- Where members feel some degree of social connection with one another
What is participation inequality?
Large online communities and social networks typically have a relatively small number of people who generate most of the content and many more lurkers who look but don’t contribute
