Rachella-Ann Valdez
08 Janvier 2013 Theories of mass communication
*Class andAudience Effects and Mix of Attributes
• Less educated the audience is, they are easily influenced
• Mix of attributes approach plays down the qualitative, and ups the quantative facts
• Mix of attributes approach, considers media to be multi-dimensional (radio, paper,
TV), interactive (new mediums allow media to be interactive)
• Stresses the importance of historical preference (always reference past-cases)
• Mix of attributes:
o Interactivity
o Organization, structure
o Control/content
o Channel
o Textuality
• Benefits of the mix approach: clear explication of each new medium, theorizing
about the effects of media, identification of new mediums, identification of new de-
pendant variables, ability to explain previous findings, ability to apply technologies
to our theories
o Having a theory and building up on it, no need to recreate.
• Creation of new media
• It’s not about the content it’s about HOW you get it
15 Janvier 2013 Media Ownership and control
*All Hits are Flukes
• Intro a new cultural object – it has to be significant, degree of centralization
• How reliable/significant is it, to be a success
• Media objects and cultural objects are presented together how well can they suc-
ceed separately
• You can assess cultural items through historical analysis
o Past shows, how much $$ they made
• How well does the cultural object does in other industries
*Sex, Lies, and Advertising
• Two magazines swapped advertisers
o Like Cosmo and GQ switching advertising
o i.e cars in a womens mag
o coloured ppl related to coloured ppl in ads
*Moral Panic and the Nasty Girl
• Media is portraying girl on girl violence when it’s not really not that big
• Moral panic: something is huge when it’s not, over exaggerating
22 Janvier 2013 → Media and politics – the news
*What Do Americans Really Want to Know? Tracking Behaviour of News Readers on the Internet –
David Tewksbury
− Aconcern of mass communication researchers is the identification of the news topics that interest
audiences.
− The difficulty w/ a lot of the research is that people are rather poor at reporting their own habits. − They don't remember what they read and what they haven't so they just say whatever.
− Communication researchers have an incomplete picture of how people receive the news
− New technologies are changing the nature of news reading and providing new opportunities for
studying that behaviour. The interactive nature of the Internet allows people to efficiently select the
news that interests them. Online news users are not bound by the linear format of electronic and
even print news media.
− The internet is also a powerful research tool, one that allows researchers to observe news reading
behaviour more reliably.
− Internet audiences still heavily rely on the traditional news organizations for current events info
when they go online.
− WWW use often clusters around few sites
− When people go to the internet for news, they often visit the sites of the traditional media, not
internet-only outlets.
− MSNBC, CNN, USAToday = popular news sites
− The internet allows users to be able to select the news topics that most interest them
− People often use online news to supplement, not replace, their core news consumption
− people report going online to follow up on news they originally received offline
− readers' online viewing would naturally be supplementary to their print reading
− online news readers are also regular consumers of traditional news media, they may be getting
ample public affairs news offline and supplementing it with other info online
*The End of Silly Season – Lauren McKeon
− News-free months from Junio – Agosto are knows as silly season in today's newsrooms
− the challenge of the slow news season has been clearly apparent in Toronto's daily journalism
− the main problema con silly season is that stories are dearth (lack of actual good content, etc.)
− ex. instances where pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists are natural enemies, this was reported as BIG
news. It's silly y stupido
29 Janvier 2013 → Propaganda and Persuasion
*War and Mass Mediated Evidence – David L.Altheide
− Social actors justify all wars. In the modern era, the justification appeal not only to emotions but also to
reason-through-evidence.
− The mass media are inextricably linked to the propaganda project through their reliance on
institutionalized news sources within an entertainment format promoting fear.
− Ironically, in a free society, it is not the government that directly controls war programming, but rather,
it is the news media, which could challenge the evidence (and emotion) sustaining the narrative if it
chose to do so, but this would entail stepping outside a strong structural relationship of reliance on
government indirectly controls the news media.
− Awareness of war programming can contribute to journalists' and audiences challenging propaganda
campaigns for future wars.
− Project for the NewAmerican Century (PNAC) → promoteAmericano leadership
− The Iraq War narrative was framed by these efforts and the resulting propaganda campaign to convince
theAmerican people that attacking Iraq was tantamount (equal) to attacking terrorists and others who
threatened the United States
− The majority of the U.S news media did little to describe the narrative and the organization behind the
PNAC.
− That this is a key aspect of what news organizations should do is suggested.
− Each new war situation is presented by producers as something unique and novel, whereas the
informati
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