Foundations of Mass Communications

Elna | NoVA | GMU Communication (Journalism & Health) |

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[anakinshouldnt]

[quickweaves]

im i tried

[theweirdwideweb]

New Bork Memes

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Tactical Media

“The term “tactical media” refers to a critical usage and theorization of media practices that draw on all forms of old and new, both lucid and sophisticated media, for achieving a variety of specific noncommercial goals and pushing all kinds of potentially subversive political issues.”

“There is a long-term discourse on the U.S—Mexico borderlands | La Frontera as a space of conflict but also of negotiation, exchange, mixture and hybridity. As the border itself has become increasingly materialized as a fence, a wall, a line, there has of necessity been a shift to thinking of the border itself as a metaphysical binary. (36)”

Picking at this quote I find that along with many other essential details that are touched upon in this reading, we are generally analyzing in a depth so much more complex (pretty subjective) where meanings are drawn from this physical structure. Reactions on either end juxtapose one another, the people perceive the same structure perhaps obtusely, and appropriated images derive from a structure, and what results from the placement of a structure disregarding the reasoning of why it is there.

·       Borders control is both physical and symbolic—what does this mean? The border is a stage where the security is performed. It’s not just about having that physical performance; it has a theatrical aspect as well.

·       “’Successful’ border management depends on successful image management.” In my opinion, I find this to appear immensely true—within a spectrum there should be a level of order, structure, parallels, synchronization. I personally note that these are preferred methods or styles of having overall success. I also assume this is another attribute that contributes to the metaphysical binary that is mentioned above.  

·       “Border control is a ‘public performance’ for which the border functions as a kind of political stage.” The public performance metaphor holds significance, where even those who do not think that they are participants in the act, indeed are—because a greater emphasis is present when there are like, and contrasting segments.

Defamiliarization

·       “To change the way we see the otherwise ‘transparent codes’ of Empire” (36)

First, tactical media is a form of ventionism. * It challenges the existing semiotic regime by replicating and redeploying it in a manner that offers participants in the projects a new way of seeing, understanding, and (in the best-case scenario) interacting with a given system.

I can agree with this quote as well—we are introduced to not only defined meaning and practices of semiotics, but having this ongoing interpretive interaction amongst people. In return, I do wonder to which degree the juxtaposition is measured.

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stop

[veryfunnymemes]

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You Don’t Know the Power... of the Collaborationists

“Interactivity refers to the ways that new technologies have been designed to be more responsive to consumer feedback…” The article included examples of how television channels can be changed, and we act in ways that we are able to when presented in some distinct world within a video game. “Participation, on the other hand, is shaped by the cultural and social protocols.” It “is more open-ended, less under the control of media producers and more under the control of media consumers.”

“Allowing consumers to interact with media under controlled circumstances is one thing; allowing them to participate in the production and distribution of cultural goods—on their own terms—is something else altogether.”

This is the initial reaction I had as soon as I read Star Wars. It’s not something I had thought too much about, if at all—how the boundaries seem so subtle, though, naturally, the division is there. Between being accustomed to the consumer life, rather than being involved, attempting to be, taking action to participate and so forth… and producing a film, a program, a novel, that appeals to a wide array of emotions for a grand audience. My jaw pretty much dropped after reading about these Star Wars submissions, the fan fiction, and essentially how George Lucas was greatly impressed by the man who had shared his Storm Trooper policing Tatooine story—later becoming a comic book writer. How cool is that? I’m practically drooling at the endless possibilities for Star Wars.

Anyway, it’s intriguing how they regulate—over-participation almost—with prohibitionists when the consumer power gets out of control or has the potential to. The Collaborationists are present as well; the go-to fans that can be essential to production, therefore in order for there to be more promotions for the specific franchise, there must be a moderate flow of collaboration.

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Television Studies (Gray and Lotz 2012)

“Technology is a glittering lure. But there is the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product. My first job, I was in house at a fur company with this old pro copywriter, Greek, named Teddy. And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising was ‘new.’ Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion. But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia. It’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means ‘the pain from an old wound.’ It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a space ship. It’s a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. Takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called ‘The Wheel.’ It’s called ‘The Carousel.’ It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around and back home again to a place where we know we are loved.”

One of my favorite moments from the AMC hit series Mad Men, which is emphasized as a television program of aesthetic analysis—known to attract significant interest— mentioned on page 36 of Lotz and Gray (2012). It was not until the derivative of shows such as this one that television was not in any way even considered a form of art. Now textual analysis demonstrates the “close reading” qualities over television, like the concepts in literature where the objective is usually grasping meanings behind terms, poetic structures, tones, intentions, things of these sorts that simultaneously influence many far more than other forms of media.

The article commences with the fact that television was only recently a text that could be textually analyzed, or analyzed in general in the 1970’s. Truly and realistically, yet surprisingly enough—having the ability to analyze or closely read into this text (more so the programs and content extending from television) was once considered a one-time thing, for the replaying, rewinding, fast-forward, and pausing gadgets were not to be in existence for another decade or so (such as VCR). Timing was vital then, and could not be as well predicted as our evolution and reproduction of programs are nowadays where people have the capabilities to watch anything, at anytime, anywhere, as many times as they’d like—after all, how often do we ‘hit play’ and so forth? All. Day.

There were many forms of analyses introduced to us in Lotz and Gray (2012) such as:

Textual analysis, formal analysis, Rhetorical analysis, Linguistic/Semiotic/Semiological analysis, aesthetics and ideologies—all which demonstrate how television is a lot more influential than it was originally assumed to be.

[gmu10]

What Do You Want to Hear?

The relationship between Agenda Setting and Framing

Agenda Setting: Media coverage of an issue can elevate the issue’s important in the view of audience members Framing: Subtle changes in how an event or issue is covered (terms, metaphors, images) can shape how audience members interpret and understand the event or issue.

How exactly does framing differ from agenda setting? It’s actually not complicated.

·        Framing is “selecting and highlighting some facets of events, or issues, and making connections among them, so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution.” (Entman, 2004, p. 5).

·        Selecting and highlighting: selecting some facets of an issue or event, and highlighting these facets, making them more noticeable, more salient.

·        Frames reside in media messages, and are built into messages through the choices authors make.

The Raw Material of Frames: Keywords, Metaphors, Symbols, Concepts, Visual Images

Entman looks at media coverage in two instances where two airliners were shot down by the military—Korean airlines 007 was shot down by the Soviet Union (1983) MURDER implies intent, “SHOOTING TO KILL,” deliberately by the USSR because they are “evil.” Several years later this happened again where the USA shot down an Iran Air plane 655 (1988). The manner in which it was presented definitely altered the perception of readers due to the images used in the background, complemented by the smooth disposition of the headline compared to the fully capitalized, and finger-pointing headlines ostracizing open-minds, resulting in fear, anger, or both.

According to Entman, Cultural Congruence “measures the ease with which – all else being equal -a news frame can cascade through the different levels of the framing process and stimulate similar reactions at each step” (Entman, 2004, p. 14).

“… The cascade model suggests that the media should provide enough information independent of the executive branch that citizens can construct their own counter-frames of issues and events” (Entman, 2004, p. 17).

·        When someone (whether a journalist or an advocate), constructs a media message they make a series of choices. What languages or terms should be used in order to describe a situation?

·        These choices create a message that frames the event or issue in a particular way. And then this frame, embedded in the message, then works to shape the audience’s interpretation of the issue or event.

I was definitely drawn to the frames journalists/advocates create compared to the root of where the information/content is coming from, despite the strong suggestions of attempting to remain unbiased. Recently in my COMM 303 (Writing Across the Media), we also covered how media is controlled. Specifically, in advertisement, yes it is money-based, though the say in what to produce and how to produce/distribute content is derivative of whoever is in charge, and this is done in order to provide a sense of loyalty with a particular audience. In terms of the Bush administration, they demonstrated their authoritative disposition, because the president, in this case, is in charge of what citizens should expect to hear from the media. All of the content will be covered, though the tone, the expression, the format in which it is given like air time, screen time, mentions, and the portrayal will vary depending on the target audience.

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Brenda Wilson visits George Mason University

Reporting on cases such as the ongoing pandemic of HIV and AIDS with a consistent body of work, Award-winning correspondent and editor at NPR Brenda Wilson visited our GMU campus this past Wednesday, 03/16/16. Wilson was awarded a Kaiser Foundation Media Fellowship in 1999 to study the impact of AIDS on migrant workers in South Africa. “She also shared a DuPont/Columbia Award for “Breaking the Silence,” an NPR series on AIDS in the black community, which also won an award from the National Association of Black Journalists.” Wilson has been away from National Public Radio (NPR) for a little while, and is currently working with young African journalists who are supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who report on health throughout Africa (and in other public health cases/infectious diseases, India). She not only reports on these individuals living with the disease, but spends time on the ground with them, aside from just traveling across the globe from her computer. 

Wilson shared with us one of her stories that was aired on NPR in 2006, though she had been working with it for many years (early 1990’s)—it served as a marker between the immunodeficiency, and the investment of the Bush Administration. The administration made a greater emphasis at the time around the ABCs of HIV/AIDS, which stands for Abstinence, Be faithful, and Contraception/Condoms. The religious groups were another focus of that emphasis as they pushed for treatment with the help of missionaries that have seen the ongoing consequences and impact of what was happening. Wilson traveled to Africa in order to find/locate individuals in their early twenties, to follow their understanding of ABCs—abstaining, being faithful, and using contraception. The reason Wilson considered these young adults from everyday living, was to have the authenticity of their understanding without the involvement or influence of others in more educated/urbanized areas.

Young people in Africa had their own way of understanding sex. There was a reality game show called Big Brother Africa that identified about twelve countries in Africa (at the time). Each country provided at least one contestant living their lives in a house that was isolated, and having intercourse under the covers was regularly seen on this show on television (adults did not like this whatsoever).

For young girls in Africa coming of age and marriage, being faithful was not necessarily going to protect these women from getting AIDs. Women usually have no control over what their husbands do in Uganda, neither do they have much say in the relationship, being entirely dependent on the man… therefore the man has extraordinary power. Even before they are actually married, this is apparent to the girls that big men, with big money, have the most power over girls and women who lacked the opportunity to be financially stable or independent; they would provide for them in order to receive sex or engage in any sexual activity in return. The more proximity there is between a man and his wife, or ability for either to travel a greater distance, the more risks there are for the man and woman developing the disease. In other words, the wealthier the man/woman, the more susceptible. Wilson talked about the chronology and impact of HIV and AIDS between the late 70′s and today, what continues, what has enhanced treatment, the decrease in costs of treatment between $15,000 dollars from the beginning of the awareness, to an average of at least $350 dollars. The presentation was very informative, the quantitative and qualitative research was well-rounded, and quite admirable the fact that Wilson has been an activist with heavy involvement in the study and research of the epidemic for more than twenty years. There is over an hour’s worth of content that Wilson shared with us, though primarily, these stories are the overall focus that has brought our attention to the extent of the information in Africa. Otherwise, here in the United States, the stigma and pandemic focused on men who engage in sexual activity with other men, or people assuming that immigrants/migrants are the main reason.

-ETD

[gmu10]

It’s Complicated...

Has anybody else noticed how complicated and overly complex every individual in this book seems to be? And why is it that most stories begin with the white seventeen-year-old female? (Just adding a bit of humor) Though, aren’t we all in one form or another complicated and complex? The intermingling of social lives and actively engaging through social networks have skewed the thought processes between generations, and as we mentioned in class, Social Media is:

1.)    Persistent (in a way that other forms of interaction might not be; things can come back because they have already been there—unless deleted)

2.)    Visible

3.)    Spreadable (can be shared, reblogged, retweeted, hashtagged, etc.)

4.)    Searchable (“stalking”)

These general attributions of social media have been transforming teenagers in the manner in which they approach the real world in comparison to their interaction/participation on social media. This is actually analyzed and seen as one of the many alternatives in this continuous creation or evolution of identity work. I found it quite interesting after reading, thinking more in depth in regards to correlating these facts with how older generations might have evolved in their own identity work.

While going over chapter 3 (Privacy), the variety of definitions of privacy was something I found myself wanting to speak about in class, but tend to shy away from… but I recently completed an IT course that focused on Ethics in Cyber society which contained a separate definition of Privacy from the few we read in this chapter. Privacy dealt with proximity, accessibility, gaining knowledge over personal intelligence that was not meant to be shared/overheard, or the exposure of interpersonal concepts/content in relationships or between that person him/herself. We were then expected to categorize such findings or specific situations as either ethical or unethical. I attempted to put myself in the position mentioned in this chapter where teens did not necessarily think of any higher authority than that of their parents, school figures/teachers, coaches—which is something adults found to be quite limiting, or ignorant for a child to do such a thing. I can say that although I did at a certain point have a Myspace, AOL IM, Gmail, made Facebook in 2007, I was never as expressive as others, essentially the generation of teenagers today. I was hardly ever an avid poster or that opinionated individual. In high school, I became more exposed to witnessing other students, teammates, classmates get involved in serious trouble that affected their academic careers, their ability to be accepted/appropriately maintain the role of being student athletes, and their potential to attend university. It was a wide scope of not pitying them, and more so having thoughts like, “is it really that hard to keep your shit together, and act appropriately?” I never found it difficult to keep certain knowledge to myself, unless it was unethical to society. 

In chapter 5, Danah Boyd’s main focus is bullying, what defines bullying, and differentiating between who’s at fault, with the perception of what is dramatic, the constant seeking of a social status separates from the physical persona. A Swedish Psychologist by the name of Dan Olweus narrowed down three major components that are central to bullying in particular: aggression, repetition, and imbalance in power. Other areas include repeated psychological, physical, or social aggression. This chapter in particular I, of course, understood the stories and the scenarios given—though generally I despise how much caution individuals lack online versus face-to-face interaction. The boundaries are definitely different, and unrealistic when compared to the public, police officers, parents, adults, general authority figures. When aggressions and conflicts are excessively repeated online, it’s almost like people believe their words and intentions cease to exist whilst being thrown into this grand abyss, but it’s all a stagnant mess that is persistently visible, and accessible. I suppose it is in the way the individual approaches life based on their own epistemology and understanding whether they choose to bully or not, but it truly is sad and perplexing to me. I remember creating a Formspring account where other people would send you anonymous messages that were public for others to see if you allowed it. I felt like I really wanted to know what people thought about it, and expected the unexpected hate anons… what I received were anonymous messages on how chill I was, how great of a friend I was, how funny I am at school, comments on shoes I used to wear, or how the fact that I was (and continue to be) a huge Star Wars geek was cool. In the meantime, I would see other people I knew getting ridiculous anonymous messages on how annoying they were, and idle comments on their perceived sex lives, hair color, petty and childish things. I believe that treating others they manner in which you desire and expect to be treated always applied and worked well for me!

[gmu10]

Media Violence

From our Media Violence and Social Cognitive Overview in class based on our reading of Sparks 2009:

Learning ≠ Performing

·        Just because we learn something does not mean we do it. People often think before they act (this explains the cognitive aspect).

Conclusion: Vicarious Reinforcement

·        Behavior can be reinforced by watching others receive positive or negative consequences (that’s the social part of cognitive theory)

How media violence is presented matters

·        Bandura: We are more likely to perform behaviors if we see that they pay off for others by delivering valued outcomes

·        We know U.S. television is incredibly violent

·        50% of major characters are involved in violent acts during an average week of prime-time television (Gerbner, et al. 2002)

·        57% of prime-time programs contain violence

·        About 6 violent acts per hour (Wilson, et at. 2002)

Children’s media is even more violent

·        69% of programs contain violence

·        About 14 violent acts per hour

·        The average children (2 hours of cartoons/day) sees 10,000 violent acts

·        Only 2% of children’s programs educated kids on non-violent problem-solving

Conclusions

·        Aggression is a transgression against social rules that tell us not to act violently

·        Media portrayals of aggression contradict these social inhibitions  

·        Celebration of violence in the media works against social rules that tell children to resolve problems nonviolently, thus lowering their inhibitions

“Should we be making all of this fuss over media violence? Are the murder and mayhem on television really to blame for the increased violence in society? Would copycat criminals eventually commit their crimes even if a TV program or movie never inspired them to act? (p. 80)”

Copycat Phenomenon, where “people sometimes imitate the exact behaviors that they see depicted in the media”—raises these questions displayed above, brought up later in the text that stuck out to me. Personally, the last question where whether or not copycat criminals would carry out the crimes if they were, perhaps, motivated or inspired by a TV program or movie (or not) definitely arouses my curiosity when thinking of two (or more) separate chronologies of the individual/ potential criminal. A question derivative from this part of the text was wondering whether the amount of social networking/media an individual is active on can create a clearer map or some sort of structured outline of how that particular person would be influenced based on their media consumption from which they chose to disclose. 

I also gathered (from what I had read so far) that, like the example in Sparks 2009: “Avoid the Noid;” strange, and uncommon forms of content from advertisement, or slogans in the media would most likely be less demanding to obtain information, studies and research findings from because of how unusual and uncommon it is. The fuss that is created of whether or not media violence is a major contributing factor towards societal violence is a valid “fuss,” though my thoughts are geared more so to how it may be more of a reciprocal exchange where violence in society is portrayed in the media in order to make media realistic enough for media consumers to be more attentive towards it, and vice versa. Categorized research studies such as rewards and punishments in terms of violence among children-focused programs is an area that is not so gray, because although behaviors exist in all of society, research focusing in children are simpler to obtain conclusions and results, essentially displayed above. For society, however, not as simple.

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The Two-Step Flow Model

First thing we had simplified in class was defining the terms from the chapter and the Katz article:

(MEDIA Campaign messages / Election News> OPINION LEADERS Early deciders/high interest / Consume election media selectively> OPINION FOLLOWERS)

·        An opinion leader is someone who is known personally and whose opinion is trusted

Step 1: Early deciders (opinion leaders) selectively pull out information from the media that reinforces their strong belief Step 2: Opinion leaders pass on this information to opinion followers (late deciders) in order to influence their decision

Personal Influence (1955) Who are opinion leaders? How do people use opinion leaders to make decisions?

·        Personal influence (peers) trumped media influence in decision-making

·        Opinion leaders are “specialists,” not “generalists” (different leaders from different subjects)

·        Individuals turned to people like themselves (in gender, ethnicity, income, etc.) for advice (homophily)

Three distinct sets of findings within the Two-Step Flow Model explained in the article that constitute the process include:

Personal influence

·        “Personal contacts appear to have been more frequent and more effective than the mass media in influencing voting decisions.”

Flow of personal influence

·        Two questions in order to proceed with the findings: “Have you recently tried to convince anyone of your political ideas?” “Has anyone recently asked you for your advice on a political question?”

·        “Opinion leaders are to be found on every level of society and presumably, therefore, are very much like the people whom they influence.”

The opinion leaders and the mass media

“The Data, in other words, consists only of two statistical groupings: people who said they were advice-givers and those who did not. Therefore, the fact that leaders were more interested in the election than non-leaders cannot be taken to mean that influence flows from more interested persons to less interested ones… it may even be that the leaders influence only each other, while the uninterested non-leaders stand outside the influence market altogether.” I can agree here in regards to how non-leaders stand outside the influence market—I think every individual has their own degree of potential when it comes to whether or not they’re influential, and that all depends on how they enforce it (if they do). I don’t think all non-leaders are uninterested, almost leveling with how I don’t think some opinion leaders are that influential, hence they are found on every level of society presumably, and it is a given that those who find them influential will seek them out.

The voting study from the article managed to pinpoint two differences between the study being conducted, in comparison to the 1940 study: the first one that is mentioned is that there is a difference in the conception of opinion leadership. Second, it is assumed that the study was geared more toward finding the opinion leaders and a hint of the interpersonal relationship aspect, rather than the influence of mass media.

Everything is broken down into what individuals can handle in small doses, and so I find that interpersonal communication is the root of efficiency in terms of understanding, making decisions, and lastly hearing about how opinion leaders decide to consume their desired amount of mass media is definitely a preferred alternative to solidifying or accentuating one’s own perspective. Although there is a freedom of choice, the facts and opinions have their own base, which derives from sources of mass media—therefore we are always in the scope of it, though the freedom links us to whether or not we decide to be conscious of the matters by taking the time and effort to expand from unbiased findings.

[gmu10]

Organized Climate Change Denial (It’s happening regardless...)

Denialism and media are portraying an ongoing realistic problem as pop-ups that are continuously being blocked with theories, and corporations, coalitions, front groups, and think tanks that generally promote climate change denial (“excuses,” to essentially simplify it). The evidence is, and has been in plain sight, statistically, economically, and environmentally since long before the moment it was first acknowledged.

The Key Components of the Climate Change Denial Machine I find to be an embarrassment, because those who deny what can be proven and explained without the arguable tendencies, are well aware of what they are facing once that actually occurs. “European scholars such as Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens describe the current era as one of ‘reflexive modernization,’ in which advanced nations are undergoing critical self-confrontation with the unintended and unanticipated consequences of industrial capitalism—especially low probability, high consequence risks that are no longer circumscribed spatially or temporally such as genetic engineering, nuclear energy, and particularly climate change (Beck 1992; Beck et al. 1994; Giddens 1990).” They are actively approaching climate change with the questioning of regulations, rather than the disposition of how to resolve major problems, or enhance regulations if they are even acknowledged in the first place.

It seems (most likely is) as though political administrations draw in what they set to begin with, and in return is the continuation of the flow of components in the denial machine. It rumbles around in the echo chamber, and nothing but attacks and backlash are returned. Another focus is the international diffusion of denialism where the ecological threats only become greater due to the spread of ‘anti-reflexivity,’ basically the rejection of facing the flaws in the aspects/qualities of a capitalistic society.

I can include that in environmental economics, the presentation of The Kyoto Protocol was a major step in regulating emission levels, and although it has not decreased the amounts that are emitted, it has definitely decreased the rate of global CO2 emissions. Other alternatives that help reduce one’s carbon footprint, and is economically friendly include: monitoring electricity at home, water consumption, recycling, and one that is difficult to perform in an urban to suburban area would be to bike instead of using a car to commute. More doable: carpooling, taking a shuttle bus, using the metro.

Personally, one way or another, left or right-sided, I would have to say that it is in the hands of the advanced nations to step up for the entirety of the globe to manage better alternatives, to better handle the potential dangers from such high consumption and burning of fossil fuels. Although these may not be major first-world problems in a high society like ours, but inevitably everyone is at risk for being equally impacted as a consequence of denialism.

[gmu10]

What is mass communication? According to our Mass Communication Theory text, it is “when a source, typically an organization, employs a technology as a medium to communicate with a large audience (p. 5).” Above, I have displayed for you all a great example, and personally two of my favorite media of mass communication: Visiting NPR, my third visit to the Newseum, and a few shots from the WGMU Radio livestream I am happy to announce that I am a part of. Radio and newspaper I would say are two of many media I have been able to participate in. In terms of how news and information are distributed, I have become passionate over public radio more than anything at this moment in time. While mass communication focuses on the feedback from people who consume media, (although public radio is indirect as well in the sense that it is delivered to a mass population without them being able to bounce back as frequent) public radio/radio stations to me seem a lot more considerate of their audience, almost to a personal level. We rely mostly on tone, vocabulary, storytelling, which to me is a riveting, intriguing manner of drawing attention in the radio industry… Anyway, that’s basically my small take on those specific mediums in terms of mass comm.

-Elna