SOCY1050 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Critical Thinking, Theodor W. Adorno, Culture Industry
Week 6 Lecture A: Media and the Environment
What is the Mass Media?
Media are ‘between’ phenomena
• They stand in the middle as intermediaries between two other elements
• A news broadcast ‘mediates’ between the viewer and the world of current events
The rise of the mass media
The mass media are print, radio, television and other communication technologies such as the
telephone, Facebook and Twitter
• Different media do different things
• News on TV involves the interplay of multiple aspects
• Telephone also shapes how we relate with one another in a communication model
Critical thinking question…
• Advertising • Television • Music and music videos • The Internet • Magazines • Facebook • Twitter
Media and the Environment
What visual images come to mind when you see or hear the term “the environment”?
1. Make a list or draw a sketch or two of the images that come to mind
2. Compare your list or images with the person next to you
1. What do the following images represent to you?
Theory: social constructivism
• Environmental problems are social problems
• There have been distinct ideas about the relationship between humans and nature
• Humans have always used the natural world to develop
• The media plays a key role in social construction of environment
Social constructivism contd.
“Central to the social construction of environmental issues and problems is the idea that these do
not rise and fall according to some fixed, asocial, self-evident set of criteria. Rather, their progress
varies in direct response to successful ‘claims-making’ by a cast of social actors that includes
scientists, industrialists, politicians, civil servants, journalists and environmental activists” (Hannigan
2007: 63)
Discourse and worldviews
Discourse: ‘an interrelated set of storylines which interpret the world around us an which becomes
deeply embedded in societal institutions, agendas and knowledge claims’ (Gelcich et al 2005:379)
Worldviews There are competing ‘worldviews’ that shape perspectives on global environmental
change (Clapp and Dauvergne 2011) Why is that happening? What is causing it? What can be done?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Week 6 lecture a: media and the environment. They stand in the middle as intermediaries between two other elements: a news broadcast mediates" between the viewer and the world of current events. The mass media are print, radio, television and other communication technologies such as the telephone, facebook and twitter: different media do different things, news on tv involves the interplay of multiple aspects. Telephone also shapes how we relate with one another in a communication model. Critical thinking question : advertising television music and music videos the internet magazines facebook twitter. There have been distinct ideas about the relationship between humans and nature: humans have always used the natural world to develop. The media plays a key role in social construction of environment. Central to the social construction of environmental issues and problems is the idea that these do not rise and fall according to some fixed, asocial, self-evident set of criteria.
