Terms

• Communications model
  • Standard theoretical model for all acts of communication. Consists of
    • Source of message
    • Channel
    • Receiver
    • Noise
    • Feedback loop
• Selective perception
  • As information receivers we often concentrate on some information over others. This filtering often depends upon our interests, our values, our beliefs. Example: proofreading miscues, a debater who only hears the part of his opponent's argument that matters to him.
• Selective experience/exposure
  • Exposing yourself only to information that accords with your interests, goals, values, beliefs. Example: only watching conservative commentators; ignoring liberal commentators.
• Selective retention
  • Every parent's complaint: dealing with someone who only remembers what he or she wants to remember.
• Consistency Theory
  • Festinger's equilibrium model for describing attitudinal change (or the lack thereof). He argues that we are motivated by a desire to reduce cognitive tension and preserve equilibrium. When we hear information that rubs against our beliefs, values, etc., we experience some cognitive dissonance and wish to return to cognitive balance. The response to this dissonance may come in several forms:
    • we can challenge the legitimacy of the source (sometimes resorting to illogical ad hominem arguments
    • we can fail to understand the source's position (selective perception?)
    • we can decide that the disagreement is minor
    • we can seek social support for our original viewpoint
    • we can attempt to convince the source that s/he is in error
    • we can modify our attitudes
• Maslov's hierarchy of needs
  • Maslov explained motivation in a different manner, emphasizing not that we are driven primarily to achieve equilibrium, but that we are motivated by growth through the satisfaction of our needs. Once one level of needs is satisfied we move to "higher" levels.
    • Physiological needs: for food, sex, rest, physical comfort
    • Safety needs: for freedom from physical harm
    • Social needs: for affection, companionship, inclusion
    • Ego needs: for respect and social status
    • Self-actualization needs: for opportunities to develop one's talents and potentials.
• Aristotle's Rhetoric
  • A compilation of the classic Greek philosopher's lectures on the art of persuasion.
• Logos
  • One of the three modes of persuasion outlined by Aristotle in his Rhetoric , logos refers the logical force of an argument. We persuade by marshaling relevant and substantial evidence in support of some claim; we make certain our arguments are valid and contain no inconsistencies or contradictions.
• Enthymeme
  • Any unstated but implied premise or conclusion in an argument. Advertisers rely upon these in part because they are able to draw the reader/viewer into construction of the argument (we fill in the implied premise). Enthymemes can be perfectly reasonable. Sometimes, though, they lead to the drawing of questionable inferences. For example, imagine a television ad with Brad Pitt amidst a bevy of starlets. The voice-over intones, "He's cool. He's sexy. He's just landed the top role in the biggest movie of this year. He uses Bantam Ace Cologne." The enthymeme: the implied premise that the cologne bears a relationship to his success and that the cologne will work similar wonders for you.
• Pathos
  • Aristotle's second mode of persuasion: appealing to the emotions of the audience.
• Ethos
  • Aristotle's third mode of persuasion (one that, by the way, he claimed was the most influential): convincing someone on the basis of the speaker's credibility. Aristotle listed three traits of credibility. Modern thinkers have added two more:
• Traits of credibility:
  1. Expertise
  2. Good will toward the audience (friendly demeanor)
  3. Good character (the speaker has a reputation for being honest, brave, etc.)
  4. Dynamism
  5. Confidence
• Semiotics
  • The general study of signs: linguistic, visual, acoustic, etc.
• Code
  • Any system of signs. Within this code signs take on meaning, as with a stop sign in the code of highway signs. We make sense of our world (including the world of media representations) by "reading" the signs belonging to these codes. We might, for example, identify a Rolex watch as a sign belonging to a code of wealth. We might be expected to identify thinness as a necessary sign in a code of beauty for young women, etc.
• Ideology
  • An unquestioned set of values and beliefs held by a social group. Americans, for example, view individualism as a positive value; many oriental cultures prefer more communal values and decry what they see as our rampant individualism. The ideology of a marginalized group may entail open contrast to the values of the dominant group.
• Marshall McLuhan
  • The leading theorist of mass communications in the 20th century. Called attention to ways in which media of various sorts condition our thinking.
• "The medium is the message"
  • According to McLuhan the medium conditions the manner in which a message is received. Print privileges rational, analytical thought and reflection. Television directs our attention to the image and appeals more frequently to our emotions. Smoke signals are limited in what they can express, etc.
• "The global village"
  • Another famous McLuhan phrase, it suggests that mass communications will bring us all together in terms of shared information and values.
• George Gerbner
  • A prominent media effects researcher, he is famed for his
• Cultivation theory
  • A theory that explores the ways in which media messages, particularly from the world of television, cultivate specific values and ideas in its viewers. Gerbner found, for example, that heavy viewers of television were more frightened by the world around them than moderate or light viewers. See "mean world syndrome" below.
• Mosaic Theory
  • A theory that describes the work of ideology in society. It suggests that media help construct certain views about society by spreading out the sources of information across a wide spectrum.
    • Example: societal construction about gender roles is reinforced through television, radio, magazines, books, movies, news stories, etc. The more we get the same message from a variety of sources the more we believe that such views are "natural"
• Complementary copy
  • This is editorial copy (features, articles, etc) that exist to complement advertising copy. You might see a recipe next to a General Foods ad, an article on how to please your man next to a perfume ad, etc.
• Patriarchy
  • Ideology that favors males over females. Such an ideology confers power to males and dependency to females. Patriarchy helps construct representations of gender.
• Social Construction Theory
  • The theory that argues the preeminence of social environment in determining identity.
    • Ideological analysis and "deconstruction" forms a part of this theory.
    • A common method in disclosing ideological forces: take two opposed terms (rich/poor, male/female . . .) . Consider whether society teaches that one side of the term is valued higher than the other. Then reverse these valuations and imagine what the world, or (for our purposes) media representations of this world, would look like.
      • For example, if the poor in a society were deemed of higher value than the rich, how would representations of poor people change?
      • If peacefulness and non-violence were given a higher value than violence (happy or otherwise), how would media representation change?
• Federal Communications Commission
  • A governmental agency given regulatory power (1934) over wireless (e.g. radio, television) and wired communications. Regulation concerns content and ownership. The FCC controls broadcast licenses, ownership rules, regulation of some kinds of content.
• 1996 Telecommunications Act
  • Major revision of telecommunications law. Removed barriers prohibiting cable and telephone companies from competing against each other, removed prohibitions against the number of tv or radio stations a company may own (raising from 25% to 35% the total of U.S. households a single media company may reach), tried (unsuccessfully) to provide criminal charges against those who provide sexually explicit images across the Internet. In general the law has led to the creation of ever larger media conglomerates. Some critics fear that this will lead to homogenization of content.
• The Fairness Doctrine
  • A series of FCC initiated rules that took place in 1949 requiring stations to air and engage in controversial issues impacting local communities. It also required that stations provide competing points of view. This ruling contributed to the disappearance of smoking ads on television in 1971. (Tobacco companies did not want to compete with anti-smoking spots compelled by the Doctrine)
• Mean world syndrome
  • George Gerbner's phrase for a condition felt by heavy tv watchers: they tend to see the world as a dangerous place; they are victimized by their own fears about the world.
• Happy violence
  • Gerbner's description of media violence which is there for entertainment value. The painful and wide-reaching consequences of violence are ignored.
• Information/action ratio
  • The ratio of the information you are given to the amount of action you can practically take in response to it. When we are given large doses of information that we can do nothing about, we tend to feel helpless. This increases apathy. Neil Postman argues that too often our news broadcasts increase apathy because the ratio of information to action is so high.
• Subliminal advertising
  • Advertising that attempts to influence people at a point below the threshold of consciousness. The mind processes images (sometimes sexual) in a peripheral, non-conscious way.
• Product placement ads
  • Refers to product images embedded in movies, television. Companies pay substantial funds to have their products become part of a scene. Critics complain that the practice is offensive when the product takes away from the narrative emphasis of a film, or when the product is one that gives a favorable representation to products that entail a health risk (cigarette product placements) Advocates argue that a product like Coke or Tylenol or Marlboro is part of our world anyway; why shouldn't a producer help defray the high cost of film making with these product placements?
• Vertical Integration
  • Refers to the process by which one owner acquires all aspects of production and distribution of single type of media product. Vertical integration for movie companies was outlawed in the late 1940's in order to increase competition. Until recently prohibitions against vertical integration in the television industry meant that a network like ABC could broadcast but not own their own shows (the so-called "fin-syn" rule).
• Horizontal Integration
  • Often referred to as synergy, this refers to the process by which one company buys different kinds of media, concentrating ownership across differing types of media. A large media company, for example, might publish a book, produce a movie based on that book, produce a music CD that contains music from the book, manufacture toys based on characters from the movie, and so on. Critics worry that this may encourage such companies to support those media products that can cut across the different media and ignore others. Other critics worry that we will be awash in yet more concentrated advertising.
• Watchdog vs. "stenographers of power"
  • Two opposed views of the role of media in politics. The traditional view: the media acts as a watchdog of politics, informing citizens of abuses of power. Another view: the media is so dependent upon governmental sources for information that it simply takes dictation from political figures. Political figures set the agenda.
• Agenda setting
  • Since not everything can be covered, the media must make selective choices in coverage. Very often there is a remarkable similarity between the media's issue focus and the issue agenda of voters. Do the media set the agenda or do the voters?
• Pseudo event:
  • Events planned for the purpose of producing dramatic images that be disseminated as reported. They aren't typical events in that they exist only to be publicized: press conferences, televised debates, photo opportunities.
• Public journalism (also known as civic journalism)
  • A response to the growing lack of respect for current journalistic practice. Newspapers which practice civic journalism encourage readership to become more involved in their communities. They query readers about the issues that matter to them, hold candidates to elective office accountable for responding to these issues. The American Journalism Review lists the following attributes of public journalism:
    • "asking readers to help decide what the paper covers and how it covers it; becoming a more active player and less an observer; lobbying for change on the news pages; finding sources whose voices are often unheard; and, above all, dramatically strengthening the bonds between newspaper and community. At its heart is the assumption that a newspaper should act as a catalyst for change.
• Horse race journalism
  • Journalism that is more interested in "Who's ahead? Who's losing" than in the issues. In part this practice may derive from a journalist's lack of knowledge about an issue. It's easier to ask the strategy question ("Will this move undercut the Democratic Party's position . . . "Will this move help gain voters for the next election" etc.) than engage in a real discussion of the issues. Listen to the kinds of comments or questions a national political reporter/commentator makes. All too often they are variants of the horse race approach.
• muckrakers
  • a term for investigative journalists working in the first part of the 20th century who uncovered corruption in government or big businesses. Ida Tarbell's investigation of monopolistic practices of Standard Oil and Upton Sinclair's investigation of labor abuses in the meat industry are examples.
• "buckrakers"
  • a recent term for those national journalists who make large fees by doing speaking engagements or who make large sums of money as news anchors, etc. In the case of speaking engagements, when the Ted Koppel's agent told him he had reached the $50,000 per speech level, Koppel told his agent that he would do no more. Why not? He felt that taking large sums of money from various groups could compromise his credibility. Other nationally known reporters (e.g. Steve and Cokie Robert, George Will) have not joined him. The problem? A quarter century or so ago journalists did not expect to earn the kind of money some make now. They aligned themselves with the working class, and some argue, represented the interests of working class with more alacrity. Now, some media critics argue, they identify upwards to a managerial, moneyed class.
• disinformation
  • a CIA term for information that confuses potential spies. To confuse the enemy you provide him with lots of information, parts of which are inconsistent, or contradictory, or excessively complex. In a media context disinformation would apply to information of a similar nature that has been disseminated to an audience by any source which wishes to resist social change.
• EPS cycle of media evolution
  • a theoretical description of the evolution of media since ancient times.
  • Elite Stage - roughly up to the industrial revolution, though the introduction of the printing press in the 16th century meant that more people had access to a work such as the Bible. In this stage the key audience for media are educated and moneyed elites. This affects the type of information given out
  • Popular Stage - with the advent of mass media in the form of newspapers, magazines, dime novels in the 19th century more people had access to information. In the 20th century the arrival of radio and television led to the creation of the broadcasting industry. A limited number of media sources commanded a large national audience. Three television networks, general interest magazines (e.g. Look, Life, Saturday Evening Post) exemplified some of these mass media sources.
  • Specialized Stage - more and more our information comes from specialized sources seeking to command a niche market. In virtually every field of mass communications (books, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, movies, music industry, advertising, public relations) media sources are reaching out to capture selected audiences. This has led to
• Narrowcasting
  • sending a message to a selected audience (opposite of broadcasting).