SOC 344 Midterm 2 Cheat Sheet by _connorb

Focused on measuring direct effects of media on people.
Sometimes called admini­str­ative research
Short Term behavi­oural effects (Bobo Doll)
Long Term behavi­oural effects - Cultiv­ation Theory

Instead of looking at what effects media have on people, focused on unders­tanding why people selected certain media and what made it gratified.

Says we are merely passive consumers of media, we make choices that satisfy particular psycho­logical needs

Possible needs:
Diversion
Substitute for personal relati­onships
Resource for developing personal identity
Way of finding out about the world

Existence of dominance of one social group over another
Form of power based on leadership by a group in many fields of activity at once so that its ascendancy commands widespread consent, appears natural and inevitable
Ruling class can non-vi­olently gain consent to govern and impose their values on society.
Hegemonic: no longer appear contes­table, taken for granted, common sense.
BUT change can occur.

Initially proposed by Antonio Gramsci, "­common sense" when hegemonic

About broadc­asting to serve public interest
Inform, educate, rather than entertain.
Ex, BBC, CBC, ABC

Critic­isms: is it truly indepe­ndent?

Serves interest of the state
state approved messages (propa­ganda)
CCTV, Pervyi Kanal

Medium
TV, Radio, Internet can provide continuous coverage, roll over and be less in-depth
Newspaper: denser factual accounts and be more carefully thought out with a once a day frequency

Editorial positions can influence political stances. FOX vs MSNBC Sun Vs Journal

Advised the gov't on the future of broadc­asting in Canada.
Radio in CAN underd­eve­loped, ppl tuning into American progra­mming
Wide spread fear of commer­cia­liz­ation

1. Inform and Increase peoples unders­tanding of the world
2. Reflect and Strengthen Cultural Identity
3. Encourage an Interest in Arts, Sciences, and History
4. Support a Tolerant Society
5. Allow for the Production of progra­mming that might not be Commer­cially Viable

Book: distin­ction: social critique of taste
Peoples taste will be heavily impacted by their social class
Middle class- greater affinity for middle class cultural fare

Global­iza­tion: Contin­uation of past imperi­alist projects
Imperi­alism: policy of extending a nation­-st­ate's influence over other parts of the world either through force or other means
Two major views of Imperi­alism: Progre­ssive and Regressive
Regressive is pure conquest
Progre­ssive is about raising underd­eve­loped parts of the world to a more developed state.
Proponents of the Political Economy use Cultural Imperi­alism to describe cultural flows in the era global­iza­tion: fear that local cultures will be destroyed in favour of one global culture.

ISA: proposed by Louis Althusser
made of instit­utions such as the family, schools, religion, gov't, and media
Support capitalist system, perform upkeep and spreading of the ideology.
Work to integrate and reinte­grate ppl into dominant system of ideas

First amendment to the US consti­tution that gov't can make no law abridging freedom of the press.
Regulators were always less able to make restri­ctions on broadc­asting
Some regulation was necessary so "­sca­rce­" radio freq weren't being abused

George Gerbner: TV gradual changes the way that ppl view the world.
Criticized for confusing correl­ation with causation and ignoring race, gender, and social class

Domina­nt/­Heg­emonic: Matches the dominant position of the encoder
Negotiated Position: acceptance of overall view of encoded text, but disagr­eement with certain elements.
Opposi­tional position: preferred meaning is identified and rejected by audience members

Ppl are not that attentive to media messages and therefore can't be influenced
Certain ppl did pay close attention to messages and could be influe­nced, and they can influence others in their peer group: Opinion Leaders: used in Marketing

State Broadc­asting
Public Service Broadc­asting
Free Market

Positive: Deemed not offend anyone or provide positive values
Negative: restri­ctive, important to uphold social cohesion. sexually explicit content or violence.

Allowed to license radio broadc­asters
Goal: "­lic­enses should serve public conven­ience, interest, necess­ity­"
Guaranteed compet­ition by never allowing local monopolies

About Art in Canada
Canada became dependant on American culture gods
Let to formation of Canada council for the arts and National Film Board
Establ­ished study models for funding Canadian Broadc­asting
Formed the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) which was to regulate Broadc­asting
Rejected the argument that CBC alone should be respon­sible for canadian culture

Hockey Night in Canada. Owned by CNR. Most iconic program in Canadian history. CNR became CRBC and then CBC

TW tracks: National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadc­asting System (PBS)
individual stations receive funding from the Corpor­ation for Public Broadc­asting
^They are primarily funded by donations
Local affliate stations run progra­mming
Member stations produce content or simply license content from NPR or PBS

Class Bias
Instit­utional Bias

Media systems should be guided by market conditions
Gov't should be involved as little as possible
What's on should be what the audience wants to see
Ex: Global, CTV, NBC, CBS, ITV

Bricolage: in order for cultural products to be successful - must have an excess meaning that people can tap into
Views audiences as being the ones that make meaning, no the culture industries

Uses Michel de Certeau's ideas, sees culture as war
Culture industries are armies and consumers are guerilla fighters
consumers look for cultural territory not being held by cultural industries and use those spaces: like turning Madonna into a feminist icon
Armies of cultural industries come to take back the territory held by the fighters, they retreat and move to another point. This goes back and forth
Culture Industry has strate­gies.

News providers in any medium are never unbiased
Newspaper limited space, broadcast limited time, internet limited resources
Has to generate Ad revenue
Choices for whats get included or excluded

Gateke­eping: determine which news stories included in a particular news outlet's product. Gateke­epers are editorial staff, how news will be included, concepts of importance and interest. Affect what we know, care, and talk about

Agenda Setting: Result of their decisions about which issues­/events to focus on, media shapes the priorities of the public.

Views cultur­alist Neo-Ma­rxist view as giving too much emphasis to the meaning within texts
Political economists tae a much more unreco­nst­ructed view of Marxism and focus on ownership of the means of production as the key to explaining why the capitalist system is as powerful as it is.

Encodi­ng/­Dec­oding:
one of the most important concepts in cultural studies
Try to explain why the message sent is not always the message recieved
Encoding happens at the source of the message, encoded with the meanings the creator wants it to have. Usually Hegemonic messages
Decoding happens at the receiver: 3 types, dominant, negoti­ated, opposi­tional

Deregulate media during Reagan presidency
Mark Fowler the commission led the charge against deregu­lation
Including the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine

Henry Jenkins: fans in the way they choose to make content their own become textual poachers. They often illegi­tim­ately, take texts that exist and try to extent them or make the stories their own.
Refigure meaning, to reflect different interp­ret­ations or values.

Incomp­atible with capitalism for government to be involved in broadc­asting
Laws of Supply and Demand must apply
Market is more easily able to quality cultural content than a gov't agency
Compet­ition leads to innovation
Bettering society should only be a goal if it is what is profitable

Adam Smith
Markets should be allowed to decide what is best for society based on what people want
Gained popularity during Regan presidency
Position of Harper Gov't

Ultimate goal of human beings as the ability to think, act freely, and to be creative
Capitalism objectives ppl, turns them into standa­rdized pieces within system
Capitalism has transf­ormed culture into another commodity rendering it unable to challenge the system
Culture Industry simply spreads the ideologies of the capitalist system

Move beyond materi­alism of classical or unreco­nst­ructed Marxism
Start to view culture and being, not so much indepe­ndent of economics, but a major factor in mainta­ining the system.
Unreco­nst­ructed theories of Marxism view culture as essent­ially inflexible
Neo-Ma­rxism: culture as changing to support the changing needs of the capitalist system

Englis­h/F­rench, Available, Multic­ulture, Reflect Canada

Criticism: taxpayer money

1. Ownership and Profit
2. Advert­isers
3. Sources
4. Flak
5. Anti-C­omm­unism (more like Anti-A­mer­ica­nism)

Demanding a 2nd option other than CBC
John Diefen­baker's gov't passed the Broadcast act
Forming the Board of Broadcast Governors
First act was to start applic­ations for a second station in major markets
CTV created. Financing these

Why has CAN done so well? Sports, sketch comedy, Drama

1. Frequency
2. Amplitude
3. Clarity
4. Cultural Proximity
5. Predic­tab­ility
6. Unexpe­cte­dness
7. Continuity
8. Compos­ition

1. Elite Nations
2. Elite People
3. Person­ifi­cation
4. Negativity

First PBS
First Director John Reith vision of educat­ional morality and national cohesion
Used to raise taste and moral awareness
Held as Monopoly until British Gov't licensed a 2nd national channel ITV

Infota­inment: News and current affairs presented in entert­aining fashion
Seriou­sness may be lost.

Truthi­ness: Colbert
what you want facts to be, opposed to what they are. Feel like its the right answer as opposed to what reality will support