WHAT IS MEDIA CULTURE?

Media culture = the logic / values / world view presented by mainstream media (major media networks)

Mainstream media shaped by:

-technology
-interests of dominant class
-audiences preferences
-socio-cultural faculties

The culture of a society = a structured set of preferences for:
-certain forms of expression
-particular meanings
-certain ways of doing things

The media influence culture by:
-producing and distributing cultural texts / narratives
-bringing attention to other cultural producers
-reflecting and reinforcing political culture / identity

MEDIA CULTURE

»1. MEDIA CULTURE / LOGIC
STANDARDIZATION
SIMPLIFICATION: formats and formulas
MARKETING: getting attention
COMMODIFICATION

»2. MEDIA AND CHANGE

TECHNOLOGY <----> CONTENT
CONTEXT (social structure)

»3. MEDIA TODAY
PERVASIVENESS
MEDIA ATTENTION = VALUE / IMPORTANCE
TV = COLLECTIVE ORALITY
- FELT MEANING V. LOGIC
- REPETITION
- MYTHS AND ICONS
MEDIA CULTURE (2)

»4. MEDIA INFLUENCE:
HOW WE THINK
WHAT WE VALUE

CREATE A PSEUDO-ENVIRONMENT

- CULTURE OF "CHOICE"
- democracy diminished to consumer choice
- "amusing ourselves to death"
- CULTURE OF VIOLENCE (otherness)
- CULTURE OF IGNORANCE (age of trivial information)
- politics = images that sell

WHEN DO MEDIA HAVE INFLUENCE?

WHEN MESSAGE IS:
- CONSISTENT (similar)
- PERSISTENT (lasting)
- CORROBORATIVE (in different media)

QUESTION: what elements of media culture are consistent, persistent, corroborative? [HINT: look for the patterns]

MEDIA CONTENT

KEY CONCEPTS

- encoding (selecting words / images)
- symbolic production

- construction of reality

- intertextuality: knowledge of one text depends on
(1) knowledge of previous texts and
(2) conventions of the particular genre

- polysemy: any message is open to a variety of interpretations

NOTE: texts vary in how open / closed they are
- news = preferred reading

- rhetoric: how things are said

- hermeneutics: how things are interpreted

MEDIA = story telling
CULTURES = meaning systems
AUDIENCES = select meanings from available cultural options

MECHANISMS OF MEDIA/CULTURE BINDING

- media's task = to integrate itself into social life

- mainstreaming (co-optation of counter culture symbols)

- privileging of some social and political agendas

MEDIA AND THE CREATION OF MEANING

Considerable freedom, but:
- credibility
- official sources
- advertiser expectations

Media normalize what they portray
- violence
- sexual attractiveness

Media simplify and dramatize

Media dichotomize and polarize

Media encourage "opinionation" (exchange of ignorance)

Repetition of images blurs meanings

 

MOSES ZNAIMER'S 10 COMMANDMENTS OF TV

»1. TV IS THE TRIUMPH OF IMAGE OVER THE PRINTED WORD

»2. THE TRUE NATURE OF TV IS FLOW, NO SHOW; PROCESS, NOT CONCLUSION

»3. AS WORLDWIDE TV EXPANDS, THE DEMAND FOR LOCAL PROGRAMMING INCREASES

»4. THE BEST TV TELLS ME WHAT HAPPENED TO ME, TODAY

»5. TV IS AS MUCH ABOUT THE PEOPLE BRINGING YOU THE STORY AS THE STORY ITSELF

»6. IN THE PAST, TV'S CHIEF OPERATING SKILL WAS POLITICAL. IN THE FUTURE IT WILL BE, IT WILL HAVE TO BE, MASTERY OF THE CRAFT ITSELF

»7. PRINT CREATED ILLITERACY. TV IS DEMOCRATIC. EVERYBODY GETS IT.

»8. TV CREATES IMMEDIATE CONSENSUS, SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE CHANGE.

»9. THERE NEVER WAS A MASS AUDIENCE, EXCEPT BY COMPULSION.

»10.TV IS NOT A PROBLEM TO BE MANAGED, BUT AN INSTRUMENT TO BE PLAYED.
RICHARD GRUNEAU'S TEN COMMANDMENTS OF TV

»1. TV IS NOT AN INDEPENDENT OR AUTONOMOUS AGENT OF SOCIAL CHANGE

»2. TV DOES NOT HAVE INHERENT OR "ESSENTIAL" POLITICAL MEANINGS

»3. TV AUDIENCES ARE NOT SIMPLY RANDOM COLLECTIONS OF PLEASURE-SEEKING INDIVIDUALS SWEPT UP IN TV'S TORRENT OF SENSUAL IMAGERY

»4.PRODUCTION AND COMPOSITION OF AUDIENCES FOR TV--AND TV GENRES--HAS VARIED HISTORICALLY

»5. PROFESSIONAL AND POPULAR DEFINITIONS OF "THE BEST" TV ARE NOT INHERENT IN THE TECHNOLOGY NOR IN UNIVERSAL AESTHETIC CATEGORIES, BUT ARE SOCIALLY PRODUCED AND CULTURALLY VARIABLE

»6. TV IS NOT A "WINDOW ON THE WORLD"-- IT IS A COMPLEX SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION THAT FRAMES AND SHAPES OUR PERCEPTIONS OF REALITY

»7. DISCUSSION OF TV'S TRANSPARENT OR POPULAR-DEMOCRATIC QUALITIES DEFLECTS ATTENTION FROM TV'S RELATIONSHIPS TO POWER AND IDEOLOGY

»8. THE PLEASURES OF TV DERIVE FROM "FLOW", "SHOW", "PROCESS"`AND "CONCLUSION"

»9. ALL TV IS NOT THE SAME: PUBLIC V. PRIVATE

»10. DISCUSSION OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEDIA SHOULD BE BALANCED BY AWARENESS OF SIMILARITIES AND POINTS OF CONVERGENCE