Media, Information and Technoculture 1050A/B Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Political Economy, Cultural Studies, Capitalism
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Professor
Media, Information
and Technoculture
1050A/B
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
September 17, 2015
Introduction to Media, Information and Technoculture
Why Study Media?
• Omnipresence: media are with us all the time
• Pleasure: media are an enjoyable and creative part of our lives
• Work: media can offer interesting and rewarding employment
• Power: media shape how we think and what we believe. We need to critically understand
media to have some control over our lives
• Media are a big part of our lives (everywhere all the time)
o Adults on media 15 hours a day, teenagers about 16-18 hours
o Constant, but intimate attention to media
o Multitasking (watching television and texting at the same time)
• Media are pleasurable (something enjoyable about involving ourselves in media)
o Common to talk about media as entertainment
o Media give us new eyes, new ears, etc. (having superpowers of a kind, enables
us to go to another world)
o Media offer us en escape from the everyday (at the same time however, we
are transformed, moved)
▪ Offers an escape but also offers a model way of life (how we would
like to live in media forever)
o This fu/ etetaiet of edia a e uite oplex
o Not only appealing to be consumers of media, but also being able to create
media (writing stories, photography etc.)
• Media can offer interesting, rewarding work
• Media are powerful
o Extraordinarily influential (how we think about issues, problems etc.)
o Ex. Caitlyn Jenner on Vanity Fair – making transgender identities more
publically acceptable, showing support for transgender people who have yet
to accept themselves.
o Ex. Edward Snorton? (US and information publishers spying)
o Media are an instrument of power (we need to study media ourselves in order
to have some sort of control over it)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
September 24, 2015
Three Ways of Watching Zombies
(Three Ways/Approaches to Think about Media)
(Genres of Media)
3 Genres/Categorizations:
Medium Theory:
• Media as technology
• What the means by which different media reach us?
o Story telling culture to print culture (books became central organ of media) to
electronic culture (television, radio, and film) to a digital culture (internet, social
media)
o How these different cultures of media alter our senses and our way of
understanding the world
• (Medium theorists would ask these questions) How does the speed, scope, interactivity
of media affect us?
Cultural Studies:
• Media as texts
o All media can be understood as being made up as sign systems
• What is the meaning or message of media content?
• How do media as systems of signs (language, image, sound) represent the world?
o What are they trying to tell us about the world?
• What does a particular media product have to say about issues about social identity
(race, gender, class)?
• How do different audiences interpret what is being put out in a television show, film
etc.?
Political Economy:
• Media as commodities (goods that are made to be sold for a profit)
• Where is the money in media?
• Who owns and profits from media?
• How do they relate to their workers and audiences?
• Are there alternatives to corporate media?
Example to Show the 3 Genres: The Walking Dead
Background:
• AMC cable television show
• From graphic novel (comic) by Robert Kirkman
• Zoie apoalpse plot
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Caitlyn jenner on vanity fair making transgender identities more publically acceptable, showing support for transgender people who have yet to accept themselves: ex. Edward snorton? (us and information publishers spying: media are an instrument of power (we need to study media ourselves in order to have some sort of control over it) Three ways of watching zombies (three ways/approaches to think about media) (genres of media) Example to show the 3 genres: the walking dead. Dead, dawn of the dead etc: 2000s more film, video games, graphic novel, tv with digital distribution. Print is abstract, it is linear and ordinary and highly connected to rationalist, scientific community. Print is good for complex descriptions of characters, people with deep, inner lives. They do not have articulate personalities that books/novels are normally associated with. The reason that zombies have done so well in electronic and digital media is because these are high-paced media forms that work primarily through images and pictures.
