MDSA01H3 Chapter 1: Chapter 1
Textbook Notes
Chapter 1
Introducing Critical Media Studies
Everything we know is learned in 2 ways:
1. Somatically
– things we know through direct sensory perception of our environment
2. Symbolically
– things we know through someone or something such as a parent. Friend, teacher, museum,
textbook, etc.
–it is mediated ➔ it came to us via a medium
• Medium – derived from the Latin word medius eaig iddle
• Before the invention of mass media
Primary medium ➔ spoken or written word
Limitations:
1. Transmission of info was slow because of the available means of transportation (foot, horse, etc.)
2. Cannot be easily reproduced and distributed
3. Passed through multiple channels thus altered
Mass Media > Hand written letter
➔ they have the capacity to address large audiences in remote locations with relative efficiency
Critical Media Studies – about social and cultural consequences of revolutionary capability
Categorizing Mass Media
Media – very broad term that includes a diverse arrays of communication technologies such as cave drawings,
speech, smoke signals, etc.
Mass media – communication technologies that have the potential to reach a large audience in remote
locations
Four sub-categories of Mass Media:
1. Print Media
2. Motion Picture and Sound recording
3. Broadcast media
4. New Media
Print Media
German printer Johannes Gutenberg – invented the movable-type printing press in 1450
• Printed materials were costly and rare before – the invention of movable type allowed for a cheap
production of books and pamphlets
• Religious tracts were eventually followed by almanacs, newspapers, and magazines
o Poor Richard’s Alaac – well known early almanac
• 19th and 20th century – the newspaper industry experience rapid growth
• American magazine – the first US magazine; published in 1741
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Motion Picture and sound recording
- Deeply intertwined in large part to Thomas Edison
• Phonograph – Ediso’s first ietio i ; a deie that plaed reorded soud
• Kinetoscope – Ediso’s seod ietio i ; a earl otio piture deie that shoed short,
silent films in peep-show fashion to individual viewers
• The development of the vitascope gave rise to the silent film era in the mean time
• The Jazz Singer – the first commercially successful feature-length talkie in 1927
Broadcast media
- It freed mass media from transportation for the first time in history
• Radio came
• Television followed shortly with Philo T. Farnsworth
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sorted out broadcast frequencies for radio in 1945 and
television in 1952
• Two recent developments with regard to radio and television:
o Satellite radio and cable
o Satellite television
New media
- it is the broadest; most difficult of the four categories of mass media to delimit and define
• e edia are the ultural ojets hih use digital computer technology for distribution and
irulatio – Lev Manovich
• The history of new media begins with the development of the microprocessor or computer chip
o 4-bit Inter 4004 – the orld’s first oerial iroproessor itrodued i
Living in Postmodernity
Postmodernity – describes the historical epoch that began to emerge in the 1960s as the economic mode of
production in most Western societies gradually shifted from commodity-based manufacturing to information-
based services
Postmodernism – a aestheti sesiilit or stle of ulture which reflects something of this epochal change,
in a.. self-refleie plaful, deriatie, eleti, pluralisti art
Five key trends driving the mass media in postodernity:
1. Convergence
2. Mobility
3. Fragmentation
4. Globalization
5. Simulation
Convergence
- the tendency of formerly diverse media to share a common, integrated platform
- considered visionary in the early 1980s
• Before media convergence could become a reality, it had to overcome 2 major obstacles:
1. The noise associated with analog signals such as those used in television and radio broadcasting
generated message distortion and Decay over long distances
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Everything we know is learned in 2 ways: somatically. Things we know through direct sensory perception of our environment: symbolically. Things we know through someone or something such as a parent. It is mediated it came to us via a medium: medium derived from the latin word medius (cid:373)ea(cid:374)i(cid:374)g (cid:862)(cid:373)iddle(cid:863, before the invention of mass media. Limitations: transmission of info was slow because of the available means of transportation (foot, horse, etc. , cannot be easily reproduced and distributed, passed through multiple channels thus altered. They have the capacity to address large audiences in remote locations with relative efficiency. Critical media studies about social and cultural consequences of revolutionary capability. Media very broad term that includes a diverse arrays of communication technologies such as cave drawings, speech, smoke signals, etc. Mass media communication technologies that have the potential to reach a large audience in remote locations.
