Baran Davis Chapter 10 - Summary Mass Communication Theory PDF

Preview

Summary

Chapter 10 summary ...

Description

Baran & Davis – Chpt. 10: Media and Culture Theories: Meaning-Making in the Social World Chapter focus: media theory is changing; new media theories; theories here explain that as we move through the many different situations that structure our everyday lives, our sense of ourselves undergoes continual change, as does our understanding of others    

Micro-level cultural theories – examine the everyday use of media by individuals and local communities Macro-level cultural theories – look at media’s role in the larger social order Culture-centered – theories that study culture as a primary means of understanding the social world and the role media play in it Meaning Making Theories – focused on understanding the way media influence how we make sense of the social world and our place in it – how we make meaning

Symbolic Interactionism  Theory that people give meaning to symbols and that those meanings come to control those people    





Symbolic interactionists are strong believers in the power of individuals to have a significant level of control over culture and their social world Early name was social behaviorism – view of learning that focuses on the mental processes and the social environment in which learning takes place Humans are socialized in ways that permit more or less conscious interpretation of stimuli and planned responses Microcosm of society – each of us learns many different social roles through interaction with others; our actions are constantly being subtly “conditioned” by others, while at the same time we are affecting their actions Symbols – in general, arbitrary, often abstract representations of unseen phenomena o We use symbols to create our experience of consciousness (mind), our understanding of ourselves (self), and our knowledge of the larger social order (society) o Symbols mediate and structure all our experience because they structure our ability to perceive and interpret what goes on around us Symbolic interactionism posits that our actions in response to symbols are mediated (or controlled) largely by symbols

Pragmatism and the Chicago School 



Pragmatism – philosophical school of theory emphasizing the practical function of knowledge as an instrument for adapting to and controlling reality o Mead tried to find a middle ground between idealism and behaviorism  Idealism – argued that people are dominated by culture  Behaviorism – argues that all human action is a conditioned response to external stimuli Many of the most productive symbolic interactionists became known as  Chicago School (Chpt. 3)

Current Applications of Symbolic Interactionism 





Summary of Mead’s work relevant for media research: 1. Cultural symbols are learned through interaction and then mediate that interaction 2. The “overlap of shared meaning” by people in a culture means that individuals who learn a culture should be able to predict the behaviors of others in that culture 3. Self-definition is social in nature; the self is defined largely through interaction with the environment 4. The extent to which a person is committed to a social identity will determine the power of that identity to influence his or her behavior Faules and Alexander (1978) offered three fundamental propositions on symbolic interaction and communication o Defined communication as symbolic behavior that results in various degrees of shared meaning and values between participants 1. People’s interpretation and perception of the environment depend on communication 2. Communication is guided by and guides the concepts of self, role, and situations, and these concepts generate expectations in and of the environment 3. Communication consists of complex interactions “involving actions, interdependence, mutual influence, meaning, relationship, and situational factors” Definitions necessary in symbolic interaction theory: o Sign – any element in the environment used to represent another element in the environment  Classified in two ways:  Natural Signs – things occurring in nature that represent something else in nature  Artificial Signs – elements that have been constructed to represent something else in the social world o Signals – artificial signs that produce highly predictable responses o Symbols – artificial signs for which there is less certainty of response

Strengths:     

Rejects simple stimulus-response conceptualizations of human behavior Considers the social environment in which learning takes place Recognizes the complexity of human existence Foregrounds individuals’’ and the community’s role in agency Provides basis for many methodologies and approaches for inquiry

Weaknesses: 

Gives too little recognition to power of social institutions



In some contemporary articulations, grants too much power to media content

*Note: symbolic interaction defines signs and symbols in precisely the opposite way as does social-construction-of-reality theory Social Constructionism  school of social theory that argues that individuals’’ power to oppose or reconstruct important social institutions is limited     

  

Questions the amount of control individuals have over culture Social Construction of Reality – theory that assumes an ongoing correspondence of meaning because people share a common sense about its reality Assumes that audiences are active  actively process information, reshape it, and store only what serves culturally defined needs Phenomenology – theory developed by European philosophers focusing on individual experience of the physical and social world Typifications – “mental images” that enable people to quickly classify objects and actions and then structure their own actions in response o Operate to some extent like stereotypes o Similar to Mead’s idea of symbols and the notion of schemas in informationprocessing theory  Differs from these in emphasizing that these elements of culture can be beyond our conscious control Symbol – in social construction of reality, an object that represents some other object Signs – in social construction of reality, objects explicitly designed to serve as an index of subjective meaning Berger and Luckmann (1966) – Typification Schemes – collections of meanings assigned to some phenomenon, which come from a social stock of knowledge to pattern interaction with the environment and things and people in it o Whoever has the greatest influence over a culture’s definition of its symbols and signs has the greatest influence over the construction of the typification schemes individuals use to pattern their interactions

Strengths:     

Rejects simple stimulus-response conceptualizations of human behavior Considers the social environment in which learning takes place Recognizes the complexity of human existence Foregrounds social institutions’ role in agency Provides basis for many methodologies and approaches to inquiry

Weaknesses:  

Gives too little recognition to power of individuals and communities In some contemporary articulations, grants too much power to elites who control media content

Framing and Frame Analysis   



Roots in symbolic interaction and social constructionism The expectations we form about ourselves, other people, and our social world are central to social life Expectations are social constructed: 1. Expectations are based on previous experience of some kind, whether derived from a media message of direct personal experience (we aren’t born with them) 2. Expectations can be quite resistant to change, even when they are contradicted by readily available factual information 3. Expectations are often associated with and can arouse strong emotions such as hate, fear, or love 4. We typically are not consciously aware of our expectations and so can’t make useful predictions about how we will feel or act in future situations based on these expectations 5. Expectations guide our actions without our conscious awareness, especially when strong emotions are aroused or there are distractions that interfere with our ability to focus our attention and consciously interpret new information available in the situation Goffman (1974) – Frame Analysis – how people use expectations to make sense of everyday life o Argued that we constantly and often radically change the way we define or typify situations, actions, and other people as we move through time and space o Frame – a specific set of expectations used to make sense of a social situation at a given point in time  Individual frames spread along a continuum from those structuring our most serious and social significant actions to playful, trivial actions  Downshift or Upshift – to move back and forth between serious and less serious frames  Framing involves shifting expectations  Social Cues – information in the environment that signals a shift or change of action o Media and framing = ads are hyperritualized representations of social actions  Hyperritualized representations – media content constructed to highlight the most meaningful actions o Individuals can reframe but tend to maintain the impression that our experiences are quite consistent and routine – we do this by firmly committing our self to our dominant reality  Primary or Dominant Reality – the real world in which people and events obey certain conventional and widely accepted rule

Strengths:    

Focuses attention on individuals in the mass communication process Micro-level theory but is easily applicable to macro-level issues Is highly flexible and open-ended Is consistent with recent findings in cognitive psychology

Weaknesses:    

Is overly flexibly and open-ended (lacks specificity) Postpositivists and critical culture researchers have different versions of this theory Causal explanations are only possible when there is a narrow focus on framing effects Assumes individuals make frequent framing errors; questions individuals’ abilities

The Development of Theory of Frames and Framing 









Scholars took Goffman’s framing theory and expanded it to create a conceptual framework that considers: 1. The social and political context in which framing takes place 2. How journalists develop and impose frames on ambiguous events to create news stories 3. How news readers learn and apply frames to make sense of news 4. The long-term social and political consequences of news media frames Postpositivist Researchers look at framing as  focus on identifying and measuring specific effects of certain types of frames on audiences or readers o Have identified “generic” frames that are frequently found in news stories: conflict or contest frames, horse-race frames, strategic frames, economic frames, moral frames, thematic frames, and episodic frames o Say that critical cultural frames are too abstract and can’t be studied systematically Critical Cultural Researchers look at framing as  focused on elite control over framing, how social movements use frames to advance their goals, and how people’s understanding of the social world is shaped by frames learned from media o Say that elite domination of framing is often neglected by postpositivist researchers William Gamson (1989) – interest is in the ability of activist movements to bring about social change (social constructionist view) o Believes social movements have the ability to generate and promote alternate frames that can bring about important change in social order Robert Entman (2004) – cascading activation – perspective on framing theory that posits a framing hierarchy in public discourse, with powerful public officials at the top and the press at the lowest level

Effects of Framing on News Audiences   

Most common finding  exposure to news coverage results in learning that is consistent with the frames that structure the coverage News coverage can strongly influence the way news readers or viewers make sense of news events and their major actors News coverage is framed to support the status quo, resulting in unfavorable views of movements

Postpositivist vs. Critical Cultural Approaches to Framing   



Limitations to framing = ambiguity, limited scope, and inconsistency Some scholars say there are multiple framing theories that need to be combined into one Postpositivist – primarily interested in framing theory as a new and potentially more useful way to understand and predict media effects o See framing research as closely related to the theories of media cognition and information processing o Want to know if certain types of frames can affect how event information is processed and whether exposure to framed content will have specific effects o Not interested in the origin of frames or why journalists choose certain frames to present events o Not concerned about elite control over framing o Focus on the effects of specific frames o Conduct quantitative research using experiments and surveys Critical Cultural – reject the narrow focus of framing effects research o Conduct qualitative research using field studies, content analysis, in-depth interviews or focus group research o Research focuses on framing contests in which elites are pitted against social movements in an effort to shape public understanding of certain aspects of the social world

Media as Culture Industries: The Commodification of Culture  



Comes from critical cultural studies Commodification of Culture – the study of what happens when culture is mass produced and distributed in direct competition with locally based cultures o Media are industries specializing in the production and distribution of cultural commodities o Elites disrupt everyday culture What are the consequences of lifting bits of the culture of everyday life out of their context, repackaging them, and then marketing them back to people?

1. When elements of everyday culture are selected for repacking, only a very limited range is chosen, and important elements are overlooked or consciously ignored a. Small minority groups likely ignored; culture practiced by large segments of the population will be emphasized 2. The repackaging process involves dramatization of those elements of culture that have been selected 3. The marketing of cultural commodities is undertaken in a way that maximizes the likelihood that they will intrude into and ultimately disrupt everyday life 4. The elites who operate the cultural industries generally are ignorant of the consequences of their work 5. Disruption of everyday life takes many forms – some disruptions are obviously linked to consumption of especially deleterious content, but other forms are very subtle and occur over long periods a. Disruption ranges from propagation of misconceptions about the social world to disruption of social institutions Strengths:   

Provides a useful critique of commodification of culture by media Identities problems created by repackaging of cultural content Identifies many subtle ways that advertising intrudes into everyday culture

Weaknesses:   

Argues for, but does not empirically demonstrate, effects Has overly pessimistic view of media influence and the ability of average people to cope with cultural commodities Needs to be altered to take into account commodification of culture by new media

Advertising: The Ultimate Cultural Commodity 



Advertising packages promote messages so they will be attended to and acted on by people who often have little interest in and often no real need for most of the advertised products or services Intended to encourage consumption that serves the interest of product manufacturers but may not be in the interest of individual consumers...