Mass Media

History Of Mass Media

There have been theories of a powerful media that can manipulate the audience's minds, and a weak media where the audience is skeptical and not directly manipulated by mass media.  Many theories show that there is a balance of power between the media and the audience.

1.  Powerful Media

War of the Worlds Broadcast by Orson Welles

• scared the crap out of the nation by reading a story
• story told of the invasion of Earth (New Jersey) by Martians
• sounded believable, people acted as reporters of the story
• if the people missed the short message saying the story was fake at the beginning of the broadcast, they believed the story
• people committed suicide, caused mass hysteria

Propaganda (WWII) - used by Nazis, promote nationalism

• Planes would drop paper flyers across cities to promote messages of nationalism and brainwash the public into acting in a certain way
• Helped publicly support Nazi ideas
• De-moralized Allied troops, gave false information to instill fear
• Continues today (George W. Bush / FOX News Network, etc.)

The age of simulation- people get mad when they experience something perceived as real, but really fake (leads to the powerless media discussed below)

• Lip-synching musical performers- still make the public mad

Walter Lippmann- a N.Y. Times journalist- invented the term 'Public Opinion' (Platonic)

• Public opinion- term he coined- explains modern democratic politics
• discussed how the media serves a vital role of informing the public on their democracy, and how the media can be persuaded by government or big business (money = control of media = power in a democracy)

 

2.  Weak Media (Powerless Media)

• After people have been 'duped' by the media as in the War of the Worlds Broadcast, people no longer take what they hear as true (skeptical public)
   
• Lazarsfeld two-step-flow hypothesis:  Media influences the opinion leaders, the the opinion leaders influence the audience.  People will consult their opinion leaders before making any decisions on information gathered - local support groups (family, church, priests, coworkers, etc).  His study was on how people formed opinions during a presidential election, and found that people trusted their peers more than the media
  http://www.utexas.edu/coc/journalism/SOURCE/j363/lazarsfeld.html

3.  Marshall McLuhan (Powerful Media)

• The medium is the 'massage' - different mediums massage different senses
• Global Village - mediums allow distance to be conquered, instantaneous communication across the world
• media is a biological extension of our nervous system (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

Uses Gratification Theory:  the (consumer) public 'uses' the media to satisfy needs.  This assumes a goal oriented, active audience.  The public can choose the media, and their ability to choose limits what media is popular.

Expectancy-Value Theory:  the public has preconceptions about different media (individual orientations), and their beliefs / evaluations determine the value of the media and whether they use it

Dependency-Value Theory:  this theory assumes that the public is dependant on media for information depending on whether the times are stable or not.  If the times are stable, then the media isn't needed as much, but it is much more valuable in a time of crisis (such as wartime) when the public depends on the media for information more

McQuail's 4 Communication Models:

1. Transmission model
2. Ritual or Expressive model
3. Publicity model
4. Reference model

4.  Conflict Theorists

There exists a power-linked media (balance of powerful / powerless media mentioned above)

Media ownership is predominantly by government or large companies, and can be exploited to filter out information or exaggerate certain information to manipulate the public's minds (Marxists focus on this problem)

Jean Baudrillard - the Semiotics of Media

Jurgen Habermas

Example:  FOX News, CNN and Al Jazeera networks all have a different message (As in the movie:  Control Room)

Majid Tehranian's book "Technologies of Power"- main media vs. small media

main media is large media networks with large infrastructures, which can be controlled by governments or large corporations (TV, supercomputers, etc)

small media is a counter to main media, which is not controlled by large governments or companies- such as underground radio, personal computers, etc

Communication mediums can be used for either democracy or tyranny- can be used to control people or to allow them to express themselves.

Mass Media is a Moving Target

1920's to Present:  Newspaper -> Radio -> TV -> Internet

• Each medium has its own set of problems, properties and sets of rules
• As soon as a medium becomes secondary (widely accepted) a new medium arises with new properties to learn
• Some things work in one medium and not in another (very complex field)

An Organizing Model for Mass Media:

See page 304 of Littlejohn-