Summary Industry MED1 | Chapter 1-5 | Understanding Media & Culture

UNDERSTANDING MEDIA & CULTURE
AN INTRODUCTION TO MASS COMMUNICATION | VERSION 2.0
Jack Lule




Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

, Chapter 1 Media and Culture

1.1 The lost cell phone
- Example of someone who lost her cellphone – writer got his inspiraton from The New York Times
 Same story used in another book – shows symbolic the multtude between media and culture
- Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan – book used as inspiraton
 Medium (broadcast/print/etc.) more important than media (content)
 Affect the human central neroous system – medium is the message
- Culture = partcular way of life and how life is acted out in work/practce/actoites


1.2 Intersecton of American media and culture
- Mass communicaton = communicaton transmited to large segments of the populaton
 Happens using all kinds of media
- Mass media = means of transmission for wide audience
- Culture = expressed and shared oalues/attudes/beliefs/practces of a social group/organizaton
- In this book: the American experience
- 1960 frst to debate: John F. Kennedy os. Richard Nixon – also broadcasted on the radio
 Radio listeners considered it a tee whereas to oiewers belieoed Kennedy was beter
 Changes in media technology haoe a big impact on culture


1.3 How did we get here? The eooluton of media
- 2017: mobile  facebook/snapchat/twiten – 7 out of 10 use social media to connect
- We are eoerywhere exposed to media
- 15th century: printng press by Gutenberg – cheaper and easier
- Newspaper preoiously used to connect with homee keep culture and natonal identty
- 1830 inoenton of the penny press: low price – more entertainment and murder/drama
- 20th century flm and radio – boon for adoertsers
- 1930s Great Depression (bad economy)
- 1837 the telegraph – fast long distance communicaton
- 1940s teleoision – consumer based economy
 Just three major networks controlled 90% of all aired programs
- 1980s cable teleoision  more channels
 To sold adoertsing and commercial drioen programs (CBS) – Britain used licensing fees (BBC)
 Technologies form and cause cultural changes
- Why do media seem to play such a big role
 Entertainment and imaginaton
 Informaton and educaton
 Public forum = discussion of important issues
 Monitor gooernmente business and insttutons (journalists)
- Each media/medium has his own benefts – medium is the message
 Internet seems to hold other media within it: webpage includes text/images/oideo


1.4 How did we get here? The eooluton of culture
- Cultural period = tme marked by way of understanding the world through culture & technology
- Modern age = post-Medieoal era (1500) – modernity
 Technological innooatonse urbanizatone discooeries and globalizaton

, 1. Early modern period: starts with printng press inoenton – 15th-18th century
 Rising literacy rates  educatonal reform
2. Late modern period – 18th-20th century
 Industrial reooluton in Englande America and France
 Change in producton/economics/social/cultural – inoenton of steam power and machines
 People mooed to cites – manufacturing instead of an agriculture
 Industrialized naton – focus on indioidual and ratonal thinking
 Mass media: united people regional/social/cultural
 Modernism = 19th/20th artstc mooement: questoned limitatons of ‘traditonal’ art/culture
- Post-modern age = second half of the 20th century
 Skeptcisme self-consciousnesse celebraton of difference and modern conoentons
 Questoned of dismissed assumptons from the modern age
 No belieoe in an objectoe truth of autonomous self
 Reject grand narraties = large-scale theories that explain totality of human experience
 Instead micro narratoes = localized understandings of the world
 Dioersity of human experience
 Mistrusted originality – borrowed across cultures and genres: long lioe the thief


1.5 Media mix: Conoergence
- Media conoergence = preoiously technologies come to share contente tasks & resources
 Mobile phone: picturese oideos and calls = conoergence
- 5 categories how media is consumed and produced (process)
1. Economic conoergence: single company with mult kinds of media
2. Organic conoergence: stories in different media platorms
3. Cultural conoergence: stories in different media platorms
 Partcipatory culture = consumers react/remix a culture
4. Global conoergence: geographically distant cultures infuencing
 Cultural imperialism = deoeloping countries pressured to shape corresponding insttutons
5. Technological conoergence: merging of technologies
- Generaton gap because of cultural changes
- Conoergence transformed who and how ‘old’ media is used


1.6 Cultural oalues shape media; Media shape cultural oalues
- Cultural oalues shape media and mass communicaton
- Value of free speech and press – howeoere shifed limits
 Obscenity = offensioe or disgustng by accepted standards
 Copyright law = protect creatoe rights
- Organizatons (gooernment/school) shape media to promote their oalues
 Can become propaganda = atempts to persuade an audience
- Gatekeepers = determine which stories make it to the public


1.7 Mass media and popular culture
- Popular culture = media/products/attudes considered to be mainstream or part of eoeryday life
 for example: American Idols | The Beatles | Jenny Lind
- tastemakers = mass media that encourages adopton of trends
 also used to create demand for new products
 now also professional tools Yelp | blogs | SMS | social media
- crowd-surfng = product reoiews (tripadoiser/yelp)
 form of mass tastemaking – not oery fair though