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Theory All theories in mass com are based on basic com theory Aberrant decoding” or “encoding” Encoding and Decoding the process of converting abstract thoughts into symbols so that they can be sent is called encoding the process of reconverting those symbols back into abstract thoughts is called decoding We need to understand the relationship between the message, sender, and the CHANNEL Always mediated, there are always forces at work on the message. Certain things come across on film than radio-??see and hear versus just hear The sender and the process of communicating en masses
The process is as follows There is a producer who creates the message There a distributor who get the message from the producer to the consumer outlets Most important! Youth, Google There is an exhibitor who retails the message to the public The news studios, film people, etc. Walter Benjamin Discusses the impact of mass distributing art objects “Work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” Tries to evaluate whether the process of mass distributing art objects diminishes their cultural/political power Sees art as anything that makes a cultural expression
Art is associated with AURA- that element that makes the object unique or special Cult Value, Exhibition Value, and Democracy Cult Value is associated with objects that are high in aura, time specific, and needs special knowledge to understand the meaning Opera, etc, you need to understand something before People are left out Exhibition Value is associated with objects that low in aura, not time specific, and there is no special knowledge needed to understand the meaning Equal: no one is excluded Objects high in Cult Value are seen as Fascistic where objects high in Exhibition Value re seen as Democratic Tend to be one or the other Art and the potential for war If everyone has open and equal access, it allows for easy access to use that medium for persuasion and to wage war This occurs when there aren’t a large numbers of producers or an unscrupulous party gets control over the means of production of messages David Kaisers Analyze if the law is “fair” not in its substance but in its practice Looks at the media as a Marketplace of Ideas Analogy to capitalism Regulated by Competition and supply and demand intelligence of man…………. Prior Restraint Stop someone from doing something before they do it Driving a car, printing in England Constraints on the Marketplace Kaisers looks at how open or closed the marketplace is in terms of ACCESS, we will also look at CONTENT Anti-monopoly, etc The marketplace is open if there are large number of producers who have access to the market, competition is strong and effective, and a large variety of products are available.
The marketplace is closed if there are a small number of producers, there is little competition, and there is not a large variety of products available. Legal Constraints and Extralegal constraints Legal constraints are laws that regulate access to the marketplace as well as content Extra-legal constraints are practices on the part of the producers that block access to the marketplace or control the variety of voices being heard. Theories on content How culture is expressed in content When discussing the forces on mass com industries, we need to look at whose interests are being served by the products Determined Media Determined Media says that culture creates the media portrayal In this case, media is reflective of culture
The media industry sees the world as it exists and simply represents that on screen Media follows from culture Media Determinism Media portrayal creates culture In this case, media is refractive of culture The public sees the world as it is represented the on screen and behaves accordingly Culture follows from media Stop people from speaking before they speak If you license people to be able to communicate, you are stopping them from speaking First amendment was way to ensure that prior restraint would be avoided LEGALLY, not that it would not exist Speech can be regulated after the fact so as to void prior restraint Freedom of speech works on an ideological level and functions as “myth” Protection of speech Certain types of speech get more protection than others Political speech gets more protection than any other Commercial speech gets limited protection Obscenity gets no protection at all and can be completely banned and producers and distributors can be prosecutors. Obscenity law in practice Judged on a case by case basis The material must be reported, evaluated, and the presented to a Jury comprised of individuals in a certain community The main issue is context and focus of the trial Obscene works not seen as art and therefore have no cultural expression of value to Obscene works are thought to have no redeeming value Miller test-??first prong The legal definition previously defined called “The Miller Test” First prong-??does the average person applying community standards find the work taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest?
Key points” average person, community standards, “prurient interest” Second prong Does the work depict or describe in a patently offensive manner sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law? Key points: patently offensive means hard core which is sexual content for own sake Third Prong Does the work taken as a whole lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value? All First Amendment work is supposed to contribute to the Marketplace of Ideas Work that does not contribute to the marketplace can be banned but need to understand whose values are being used to evaluate The standard here should be that of the national, reasonable person and not community standards Indecency in Broadcasting The world of terrestrial television is regulated by the Federal Communications
Commission The law that regulates content in broadcasting is called indecency Content can be regulated overtly because broadcasters use the public resource of the electro magnetic spectrum Argument is that broadcasting is random, pervasive, and domestic In order to support the public, content needed to be regulated Safe harbor laws-??pacific the pacific case set up what are called safe harbor laws these are times when indecent material can be broadcast adult content can be aired from pm-am rationale is that children are in bed and don’t need the protection in that timeshare regulation of cable broadcasting roadsters that work in satellite or cable are not subject to indecency laws but rather obscenity laws the rationale is that these broadcasters do not use the public airwaves to transmit and therefore do not need to be regulated for the benefit of the public Terrestrial Broadcasters fought this law fiercely but lost Legal Constraints Laws that regulate wither access to the marketplace of ideas or content that can be brought and sold in the marketplace of ideas In Journalism, there are very few legal constraints due to the direct protection of the First Amendment The laws that exist do cover mostly content and not access
Most laws regulating access have been thrown out by the Communication Act of 1999 and further legislation that virtually deregulated the industry The regulation that does exist tend to cover content that is not political in nature Used to be you couldn’t own more than 30% of the market, now you can own anything The Constitution The intent was not a blanket protection, but to punish you after Libel and Slander Slander: spoken false claims Libel: written false claims Both actionable in civil court, not criminal court Actual damages are compensation for the harm done to the plaintiff Car accident: mime off work, medical bills Punitive damages are meant to act as a punishment for the defendant and deter future offensives Libel and Defamation False statement of fact that is disseminated about a person and that tends to injure that person’s reputation Defamatory Content Must be a specific statement that would injure someone’s reputation Must lower the person in the estimation of the community or deter third persons from associating with them Must take community standards into account Exceptions: Dead people cannot make a defamation claim Governmental entities cannot sue Jokes are allowed Opinions are allowed Need to look at the natural and probable effect on the mind of the average reader Falsity Truth is a defense and the Plaintiff must PROVE falsity Must be substantially false as in major allegations, not surrounding facts Can’t’ couch facts in opinions-??need to look at the implications of the statement Opinions cannot be proven as false, they are simply an opinion Publication Publication is an intentional communication too third party Either on the radio, TV, or to a friend The conclusion must be reasonably implied by the speaker Simply repeating the false statement is enough.
Both the original party and the rent speaker are liable Mass media seen as publication, as well as interpersonal communication Identification The Plaintiffs identity must be reasonably understood Must be “of and concerning” the Plaintiff Often the name is not enough to raise the claim but needs more information in that regard Blind items may not pass the identification standard Fault The Plaintiff needs to prove that the Defendant intended to communicate the false message in most cases If the Plaintiff is a private citizen, then they only need to prove that the Defendant was negligent in their reporting If the Plaintiff is a public figure or official, then the Plaintiff must prove actual malice in the case, which is a much higher standard Rationale in distinction is that Public people put themselves in the limelight and profit from that situation, therefore bearing some of the burden Actual Malice Standard Knowledge that the information is false or the reckless disregard of whether the information is false or not Actual Malice looks to what the Defendant was thinking at the time of the publication Knowing Falsehood is easiest case but often reckless disregard is the issue Reckless disregard is when the Plaintiff ha enough information o be suspicious of the statement at the time of publication Harm Damages can be calculated as actual or punitive is no case because no case Allowed to be vulgar or crass If there is a bad past, may be no reputation to hurt Defenses Retraction statutes Statute of limitations-??6 month to 3 years (1 year in IL) Truth Neutral reporting standard Extralegal constraints are barriers put on an industry that are not legal in nature No one will publish Lance Armstrong books because they won’t make money since he lied Dixie Chicks got banned from Radio Either access to the marketplace is limited of the kinds of products to be sold is giggly controlled These are barriers are not put in place by law but rather by business practice Journalism as an Industry Not seen as a way to generate income but rather to service the community Not until the late 19th century was Journalism seen as a lucrative enterprise The industrial revolution and the penny press The industrial revolution brought a flood moving to urban centers The idea that journalism was being sold to a demographic group with different needs is established Small town people wanted to know what was going on at home Need to promote itself as a respectable business and create proper image
Journalism as a product In order to run a really successful business, there needs to be a certain level of control over the product to produce a predictable return on investment You have to know what to expect when you’re reading a newspaper, watching news, reading a blob The image of the Muckraker or the Watchdog is promoted to show that it isn’t about money but truth, honor, and Justice Muckraker: goes out and gets the truth Watchdog: they go out and find the truth for you Both are about money Journalists set the agenda and are the 4th Estate to promote notion that is about public service, not business Judicial, executive, legislative branches of government, they are there to watch them and get the news The News Values On order to be sure you have a marketable product, you need to ensure it has an audience News Values are elements that must be present in each story for it to go to print The stories must have these specific elements to make it into the news on that day- or any 1. Proximity 2. Prominence about someone prominent or a prominent issue 4. Timeliness 5. Distinction something unusual dog bites man-??not news… Man bites dog-??news 6. Convergence great in print, video The power structure of the newsroom In order to maintain a secure return on investment, you need to be sure that roles are highly defined in the news organization The content of news can change depending on who is in control of that content Each role has a specific Job and powerboat The publisher The editor-??managing and page Sports, photo, copy-??editors underneath The reporters The propaganda theory NOAA Chomsky and Edward S.
Hermann The concept is that due to the business structure of Journalism, certain issues or concepts will be systematically included or excluded Due to the way news organizations are run, there is a bias that is built into the system and is not due to the individual needs or beliefs of individuals News will go through a series of filters before they are deemed “worth” of coverage If the story passes through all the filters, you’ll get positive coverage If the store does not pass, it will be deemed unworthy and won’t get coverage or it will be negative The Filters Consolidation of Ownership Who owns the paper will get bias coverage Advertising The only one that counts Sourcing Don’t offend source-??they’re the only one that can give news Flak A negative response to a story
Coverage and Public Opinion Daniel Hailing The assertion that news coverage follows public opinion of the story Sees public opinion as being a series of spheres and issues travel from sphere to sphere as the public changes their mind on the issue The coverage of the story will change as that opinion changes The Spheres of Public Opinion: Consensus: something almost everyone in the status quo believe; positive coverage and high quality Legitimate Controversy: equal weight in the status quo on each side; people in the status quo reject and a small minority believe; no coverage or negative Ideology defined A belief system of worldview of a culture Something you don’t really think about because you’re raised with it “All men are created equal” Need to look at how specific ideology is perpetuated and how it works to socialize us all as “social subjects” Ideology and Socializing Agents: the SIS Ideology is perpetuated via institutions Louis Altimeter’s Ideological State Apparatus (SIS) As social subjects, we are all a compilation of competing discourses to which we are subjected Isis are institutions in the private domain that work to promote belief systems using positive reinforcement-not positive message!!
Can promote negative message using positive reinforcement You can make someone kill someone if they are rewarded Army Muslims were bad on TV (negative message), enjoying watching TV (positive reinforcement) Not the content, how you get the message and why you believe it Sis’s and Aras’s Isis work by appearing to be neutral, independent, and free of any relationships to governmental bodies-??Relative Autonomy Rasa (Repressive State Apparatus) are usually linked to an arm of the government Function by using oppression and punishment power Police: if you are driving fast, you’re going to get a ticket. You should be looking out for other drivers instead of getting there faster. People will not speed-??not because they care-??but because they are afraid of being punished. Isis and the media Neutral, independent Reward power Coerce the compliance using active participation and the reward in the process Ideology is perpetuated RASA-??The IRS Arm of the government Punishment power Coerce compliance by instilling fear of NOT complying Media as SIS All media texts are perpetuating ideology via their discursive practices The simple act of watching or listening, any participation, is often an act of complicity in and of itself
Even if you hate it, you are complying to the ideology Ideological Analysis and Marxism Basic notion that there are people who have power and those who do not Power is associated with having control over the means of production Cultural texts are produced by those who have power Logic demands that they produce texts that promote their own interest Participation All media is produced to make money Money is earned by selling the largest number of units or getting the highest number of viewers Participation with the media text generates money, even if you reject the dead you are complying Unless the media text is developed and distributed by a small, independent firm, no way to avoid this system The big and the small (or less big) Main stream media texts are all produced, distributed, and exhibited by one of a number of large, multinational conglomerates, also called “The Dominant” “Alternative” media outlets do exist but must be actively sought out by the consumer people dislike “alternative” because they are less high quality the ideology associated with dominant texts is Dominant ideology associated with alternative texts is called Alternative Ideology goes against Status Quo Punk: goes against what people think, saying things that were alt and was difficult to find those albums Ideology and false consciousness Ideological analysis is NOT false consciousness Originally, leftists argues the theory of false consciousness The dominant promote their worldview as the correct on that everyone should attempt to achieve-??it is “universalism” The dominant class universalism their beliefs, people internalize it, it becomes common sense Only discusses power structures, not the human involved
Uneven Development Uneven development claims that Isis can align themselves with more than the dominant ideology, but in the end, the dominant ideology will always be prioritize The “louder, aggressive, available” ideology is the dominant ideology The ideology less available-??or developed-??is the alternative ideology All cultural texts can hold traces of the alternative ideology within them, but in the end, they will be all presented within a “dominant fram Hegemony Grammar’s notion of how to maintain power by negotiating consent-??the oppressed just believe that they have some power over their own situation when, in fact, they have none People who are oppressed, who have no power, must believe they have some Hegemony is source of power that allows for dissenting views but, according to uneven development, will always prioritize its own You may think you have power by protest, but things aren’t going to change To achieve control, compromise must be made and culture is a key site where struggles take place and this negotiation occurs 1. Define IA-??thesis paragraph 2. SIS/RASA 3. Dominant/Alternative 4.
Marxism 5. False Consciousness 6. Subjectivity . Uneven Development 9. Intro to show 10. Apply Uneven Development 1 1 . Conclude with Hegemony Media Determinism: the media creates culture and shows reality in a refracted nature Determined media: the media shows the world as it exists and reflects the culture it portrays Film Industry and the Depression Status of the classical Hollywood studio system when the depression hits: CRISIS The Coming of Sound 1927: The Jazz Singer Creates a new need in the public for sound film Unfortunately, income was down at this point and there was no crash to make new capital investments The Deal with Wall Street
Hollywood, which was created as a reaction to an East Coast mentality and politics needed to get loans from East Coast Bankers to rebuild their business Bottom line was the ruling force and return on investment becomes the controlling interest Hollywood and Politics-1932 Style At the beginning of the Depression, Hoover was in the Oval Office Denied there was any hunger at all Viewed charity and public aid as demeaning Focused on the need for work as a solution Although 20 million needed assistance on the eve of the 1932 election, Hoover focused on lowering income taxes for the wealthy and tariffs on foreign goods Trickle own economics A recession occurs when no one spends and the market stalls By cutting the taxes on the rich, you empower them to spend more money and stimulate the economy Eventually, that spending will create Jobs which will empower the poor by creating an active market Results-??was Woody Allen right?
The Rationale By relying on government assistance, the public become dependent and rely on handouts Need to shift responsibility off the government and the wealthy to the individual and the working class “Don’t’ ask rich people or the government to help you, help yourselves” The weapon he concept that needed to be perpetuated needed to be made via a velvet glove, not a closed fist Activated an SIS to promote this concept The tool: Shirley Temple Shirley Temple as a Political Statement Shirley ideology was one of work and helping one another Public sources of charity were drying up and she encouraged people to help themselves through love and understanding Pick yourself up from your bootstraps and get to work!!
The paradox The public paid to be entertained when, in fact, they were being preached at to stand on their own The ideology was created to pass the buck the government and the lethal to the poor and working class Shirley was a perfect example of hegemony in Getting pumped up, but actually Just giving money to the people that are oppressing you Review extralegal constraints are business practices that bar or limit access to the marketplace of ideas SIS is an institution that promotes a belief system using positive reinforcement and is neutral, independent, and relatively autonomous Every media org functions within a world of extralegal constraints, as well as legal ones, and functions as an SIS The influence of Edison: The MAP Edison patents the sprocket necessary to run film through a camera and a projector Sets up film company with Eastman, who controls all the film stock coming into the country called “The Motion Picture Patents Company’ Licenses the anyone who wants to be involved in the industry Implications of the MAP Known as “the trust”, the MAPS was faced in Orange, NJ Sherman Anti-Trust Act? Prior Restraint?
Entities involved in the process rebel: producers, distributors, exhibitors-??called “independents” File antitrust cases and begin diverting the control of the MAP Order equipment from Europe and move operations to California while Justice department ales The Emergence of the Classical Hollywood Studio System The Independents emerge victorious against the Trust Create their own system in “Hollywood” Major Studios control all three aspects, Production, distribution, exhibition Minors control one or two Poverty Row Just production Wield more effective control than the Trust Put out over 80% of the films at the time oligopoly Major and Minor Studios Major: MGM ROOK 20th century Fox Warner Brothers Paramount Minor: Universal Columbia United Artists Poverty Row: Republic, etc. Oligopoly Control Studios had control over the industry and actively engaged in anti-competitive