Critique on media effects
Stuart Hall’s main critics was the idea of media effects (e.g. violence on TV effects
behaviour). Hall argues against the type of (quantitative) research that wants to measure
media effects. He says it is far too simple to think as: Sender Message Receiver. ‘We
don’t have access to the real thing, because everything goes via media.’
David Gauntlett moves against the paradigm of measuring media effects with this ten
points which are wrong with the media effects model. (1) The effects model tackles social
problems backwards: rather than beginning with media, one should start with studying the offenders,
then to see whether, and to what extent, media play a role. (2) The effects model treats children as
inadequate, when research has shown that children as young as seven are able to tell a media
production from reality. (3) It is characterized by a conservative ideology which ‘blames the media’ &
unproblematically talks about ‘anti-social behaviour’. (4) Takes for granted the definitions of media
material; violence is not differentiated. (5) It is based on artificial studies: control of the research
setting, which is not at all like natural settings, ‘simulation of real life’. (6) It is based on studies with
misapplied methodology, contradictory outcomes are not addressed, facile couse-and-effect
explanations are not supported by evidence. (7) Media depictions of violence are limited to fictional
genres: what about the news? (8) The effects model assumes superiority to the masses: the people are
susceptible to media effects, researcher are not. (9) The model makes no attempt to understand the
meanings of the media; it follows the idea that the message is clear and straightforward, and that the
viewers take the messages as such. (10) The model lacks theoretical ground: why should people want
to imitate the media? Does seeing an activity in the media provide a motive for acting like that?
Twitter: hoe een grapje verkeerd opgevat kan worden en ernstige gevolgen heeft, zoals
ontslag.
Fragmentatie en individualisering: Je bent alleen maar zelf bezig met het medium, je kunt
zelf kiezen waar je je aandacht op richt. Nieuwe media, bijv. niet het hele nieuws kijken,
maar alleen wat jou interessant lijkt.
Mitchell: Er bestaan geen visuele media, want je gebruikt altijd al je zintuigen. Bijv. kritiek
op Sensorama, omdat je altijd al rikt.
Re-mediation
The structure of awareness makes research of re-mediation important: how do messages
transform due to the use of a new medium? How do messages changes when they move
from one medium to another?
When it thus moves from one medium to another. E.g. Quran recitation is without
interpretation and is seen as more impressive when little children recite it, because of their
innocence and purity.
This thus also explains this ‘medium is the message’. When you look at war in another
medium you can for instance see that in a video game a war is an enjoyable, adrenaline
producing event. If this idea around the war transforms into another medium, it thus starts
to be a different thing. In an academic treatise a war is for instance a changing
configuration of power. A picture of a soldier with a wounded child is even mediation, but
this comes closest to reality. Remediation thus changes the whole thing.
A newscaster tells about the most terrible stuff, puts a smile on and says: ‘and then now for
something completely different.’ And switches to a lighter subject. There is something very
comfortable in this way of the media, you can just switch to something else. When a
fragment is subtitled, the war is less scary.
Hangt verder samen met re-narration: wat gebeurt er met het verhaal als het door een
ander medium verteld wordt?
Enabling and disabling dimensions of the medium
What is a medium?
- Collins: ‘medium is a way or means of expressing your ideas or of communicating with
people.’
- Oxford Dictionary: ‘the intervening substance through which sensory impressions are
conveyed or physical forces are transmitted.’ This is the materiality of the medium.
- The material or immaterial given that enables (and restricts) communication.
- A medium is a vehicle for meaning which transports and transforms messages: it is a
communicative advise that sort of brings in things from a bringer to a receiver.
- Every object can be a medium: all objects have a dimension of being capable of mediating
something.
- No medium, no communication. Media enable communication, media restrict
communication: e.g. language says a lot, but it can’t explain everything.
Media dimensions: Material/ immaterial. Time-biased/space-biased (e.g. communication
through smoke signals or through drums). Virtual/non-virtual. Enabling/restricting
communication.
1
, Language: Media can restrict communication, e.g. language: we are born and socialized into
a language, this language makes us do thing, so we are slaves of language. If language is
material we could take the meaning of the Oxford Dictionary, but if it is immaterial we could
take the notion of Collins.
Terry Eagleton says about language as medium: ‘My demand to be recognized as uniquely
myself is caught up in a medium over which none of us has proprietorship; which has its
own logic quite independent of our will; and which speaks me far more than I speak it.’
Reproductive technologies and the loss of aura
What is peculiar to so called ‘new media’?
Media of mechanical/digital reproduction. Photography, filming, etc. enable you to
reproduce a real-life event. You couldn’t do this in the past. We have such easy access to
music or something, we don’t have to go to a concert. New technologies have allowed us to
do this. Benjamin: ‘Loss of aura’ something in the appreciation of art has been lost.
Same with for instance a church. When we go to a church for the first time, we have
already seen hundreds of pictures of it; in art books, on postcards. Thus different
experience. Media changes our perception of things.
New media changes/transforms things their meaning, communication, social relations,
notions of distance, notions of time, memory, notions of what is ‘real’, configurations of
power, etc.
Bijv. Reizen, van tevoren heb je allemaal foto’s gezien en je hebt al uitgezocht wat je gaat
doen, etc.
The medium is the message and media set up structure of awareness
The medium is the message: it is a ‘structure of awareness.’ This links up with that the
medium is not neutral. What the medium is, in a way, divines the message. You can’t see
media in an isolation, you have to see it in a broader something. E.g. on television the war
is something between commercials. This changes our ideas about what is a war like and will
get us far from the reality of war.
Another example is the medium of the photo-album. When years go by and you look back
at a holiday, the whole image of your holiday is entirely pictured around the photographs in
your album. Media structures our awareness also by helping to remember. We are not
aware of it, but photo-albums structure our mind.
A medium is an obstacle to know the real.
Wanneer je bewust wordt van de media, dan heb je de droom naar immediacy, je wil iets
zien zonder de media, je wil zelf de realiteit zien.
Medium is not a neutral vehicle for meaning, it produces meaning
MacLuhan states: media are not neutral: ‘In studying the communication process we cannot
only look at the message, as if the medium is a neutral carrier of it – the medium itself is
meaningful. Or, media make content.’ We cannot see media as somehow not having an
impact on the message. E.g. if you play Bach on an accordion, you could say it is music
from Bach, but the accordion transforms it into something else.
‘There are no visual media’ (Mitchell)
Messages are not only ‘ideas’ or ‘ideational content’. It can also be feelings and sensations,
etc.
Media speak to our entire sensorium.
Mitchell’s ideas as to what visual culture ought to be: visual culture is the field of study that
refuses to take vision for granted, that insists on problematizing, theorizing, critiquing and
historicizing the visual process as such. It puts the visual at the centre of the analytic
spotlight rather than treating it as a foundational concept that can be taken for granted.
Of course it is not only one sense that works, but there are a lot of senses that work.
Mitchell states: there are no visual media!
The purely visual doesn’t exist. All media are, from the standpoint of sensory morality
‘mixed media’, there are no pure media. E.g. listening to radio. Looking in museums. There
are certain activities in which some senses dominate. E.g. smell-o-v-
sions/odorama/sensorama.
There is a social hierarchy of the senses. Senses are not neutral, we think that some are
more important. This hierarchy changes in settings, like a mix-panel.
What have we gained with this insight? The awareness of mixed media makes it possible to
think about the way in which media are mixed. What kind of a sensory mix do we take into
account? All the senses? E.g. there is no single curry, the ingredients are the same, but the
2
Stuart Hall’s main critics was the idea of media effects (e.g. violence on TV effects
behaviour). Hall argues against the type of (quantitative) research that wants to measure
media effects. He says it is far too simple to think as: Sender Message Receiver. ‘We
don’t have access to the real thing, because everything goes via media.’
David Gauntlett moves against the paradigm of measuring media effects with this ten
points which are wrong with the media effects model. (1) The effects model tackles social
problems backwards: rather than beginning with media, one should start with studying the offenders,
then to see whether, and to what extent, media play a role. (2) The effects model treats children as
inadequate, when research has shown that children as young as seven are able to tell a media
production from reality. (3) It is characterized by a conservative ideology which ‘blames the media’ &
unproblematically talks about ‘anti-social behaviour’. (4) Takes for granted the definitions of media
material; violence is not differentiated. (5) It is based on artificial studies: control of the research
setting, which is not at all like natural settings, ‘simulation of real life’. (6) It is based on studies with
misapplied methodology, contradictory outcomes are not addressed, facile couse-and-effect
explanations are not supported by evidence. (7) Media depictions of violence are limited to fictional
genres: what about the news? (8) The effects model assumes superiority to the masses: the people are
susceptible to media effects, researcher are not. (9) The model makes no attempt to understand the
meanings of the media; it follows the idea that the message is clear and straightforward, and that the
viewers take the messages as such. (10) The model lacks theoretical ground: why should people want
to imitate the media? Does seeing an activity in the media provide a motive for acting like that?
Twitter: hoe een grapje verkeerd opgevat kan worden en ernstige gevolgen heeft, zoals
ontslag.
Fragmentatie en individualisering: Je bent alleen maar zelf bezig met het medium, je kunt
zelf kiezen waar je je aandacht op richt. Nieuwe media, bijv. niet het hele nieuws kijken,
maar alleen wat jou interessant lijkt.
Mitchell: Er bestaan geen visuele media, want je gebruikt altijd al je zintuigen. Bijv. kritiek
op Sensorama, omdat je altijd al rikt.
Re-mediation
The structure of awareness makes research of re-mediation important: how do messages
transform due to the use of a new medium? How do messages changes when they move
from one medium to another?
When it thus moves from one medium to another. E.g. Quran recitation is without
interpretation and is seen as more impressive when little children recite it, because of their
innocence and purity.
This thus also explains this ‘medium is the message’. When you look at war in another
medium you can for instance see that in a video game a war is an enjoyable, adrenaline
producing event. If this idea around the war transforms into another medium, it thus starts
to be a different thing. In an academic treatise a war is for instance a changing
configuration of power. A picture of a soldier with a wounded child is even mediation, but
this comes closest to reality. Remediation thus changes the whole thing.
A newscaster tells about the most terrible stuff, puts a smile on and says: ‘and then now for
something completely different.’ And switches to a lighter subject. There is something very
comfortable in this way of the media, you can just switch to something else. When a
fragment is subtitled, the war is less scary.
Hangt verder samen met re-narration: wat gebeurt er met het verhaal als het door een
ander medium verteld wordt?
Enabling and disabling dimensions of the medium
What is a medium?
- Collins: ‘medium is a way or means of expressing your ideas or of communicating with
people.’
- Oxford Dictionary: ‘the intervening substance through which sensory impressions are
conveyed or physical forces are transmitted.’ This is the materiality of the medium.
- The material or immaterial given that enables (and restricts) communication.
- A medium is a vehicle for meaning which transports and transforms messages: it is a
communicative advise that sort of brings in things from a bringer to a receiver.
- Every object can be a medium: all objects have a dimension of being capable of mediating
something.
- No medium, no communication. Media enable communication, media restrict
communication: e.g. language says a lot, but it can’t explain everything.
Media dimensions: Material/ immaterial. Time-biased/space-biased (e.g. communication
through smoke signals or through drums). Virtual/non-virtual. Enabling/restricting
communication.
1
, Language: Media can restrict communication, e.g. language: we are born and socialized into
a language, this language makes us do thing, so we are slaves of language. If language is
material we could take the meaning of the Oxford Dictionary, but if it is immaterial we could
take the notion of Collins.
Terry Eagleton says about language as medium: ‘My demand to be recognized as uniquely
myself is caught up in a medium over which none of us has proprietorship; which has its
own logic quite independent of our will; and which speaks me far more than I speak it.’
Reproductive technologies and the loss of aura
What is peculiar to so called ‘new media’?
Media of mechanical/digital reproduction. Photography, filming, etc. enable you to
reproduce a real-life event. You couldn’t do this in the past. We have such easy access to
music or something, we don’t have to go to a concert. New technologies have allowed us to
do this. Benjamin: ‘Loss of aura’ something in the appreciation of art has been lost.
Same with for instance a church. When we go to a church for the first time, we have
already seen hundreds of pictures of it; in art books, on postcards. Thus different
experience. Media changes our perception of things.
New media changes/transforms things their meaning, communication, social relations,
notions of distance, notions of time, memory, notions of what is ‘real’, configurations of
power, etc.
Bijv. Reizen, van tevoren heb je allemaal foto’s gezien en je hebt al uitgezocht wat je gaat
doen, etc.
The medium is the message and media set up structure of awareness
The medium is the message: it is a ‘structure of awareness.’ This links up with that the
medium is not neutral. What the medium is, in a way, divines the message. You can’t see
media in an isolation, you have to see it in a broader something. E.g. on television the war
is something between commercials. This changes our ideas about what is a war like and will
get us far from the reality of war.
Another example is the medium of the photo-album. When years go by and you look back
at a holiday, the whole image of your holiday is entirely pictured around the photographs in
your album. Media structures our awareness also by helping to remember. We are not
aware of it, but photo-albums structure our mind.
A medium is an obstacle to know the real.
Wanneer je bewust wordt van de media, dan heb je de droom naar immediacy, je wil iets
zien zonder de media, je wil zelf de realiteit zien.
Medium is not a neutral vehicle for meaning, it produces meaning
MacLuhan states: media are not neutral: ‘In studying the communication process we cannot
only look at the message, as if the medium is a neutral carrier of it – the medium itself is
meaningful. Or, media make content.’ We cannot see media as somehow not having an
impact on the message. E.g. if you play Bach on an accordion, you could say it is music
from Bach, but the accordion transforms it into something else.
‘There are no visual media’ (Mitchell)
Messages are not only ‘ideas’ or ‘ideational content’. It can also be feelings and sensations,
etc.
Media speak to our entire sensorium.
Mitchell’s ideas as to what visual culture ought to be: visual culture is the field of study that
refuses to take vision for granted, that insists on problematizing, theorizing, critiquing and
historicizing the visual process as such. It puts the visual at the centre of the analytic
spotlight rather than treating it as a foundational concept that can be taken for granted.
Of course it is not only one sense that works, but there are a lot of senses that work.
Mitchell states: there are no visual media!
The purely visual doesn’t exist. All media are, from the standpoint of sensory morality
‘mixed media’, there are no pure media. E.g. listening to radio. Looking in museums. There
are certain activities in which some senses dominate. E.g. smell-o-v-
sions/odorama/sensorama.
There is a social hierarchy of the senses. Senses are not neutral, we think that some are
more important. This hierarchy changes in settings, like a mix-panel.
What have we gained with this insight? The awareness of mixed media makes it possible to
think about the way in which media are mixed. What kind of a sensory mix do we take into
account? All the senses? E.g. there is no single curry, the ingredients are the same, but the
2
