CHAPTER ESSENTIALS

• Mass media are industries that create and distribute songs, novels, newspapers, movies, Internet services, TV shows, magazines, and other products to large numbers of people.

  Mass communication is the creation and use of symbols (such as languages, motion pictures, and computer codes) that convey information and meaning to large and diverse audiences through all manner of channels (pp. 5–6).

• In the oral and written eras (1000 B.C.E. to the mid-fifteenth century), information and knowledge circulated through spoken traditions (oral) and then through manuscripts (written) commissioned by elites (p. 6).
• In the print era (starting in the mid-fifteenth century), wide dissemination of manuscripts became possible, thanks to the emergence of movable type and the printing press. Mass production of books spurred four significant changes: resistance to authority, the rise of new socioeconomic classes, the spread of literacy, and a focus on individualism (pp. 6–8).
• In the electronic and digital eras (the late nineteenth century to today), the telegraph, radio, and television (electronic media) made messages instantaneous and reshaped American life. Digital communication, whereby images, texts, and sounds are converted into electronic signals and reassembled as a precise reproduction of an image, a piece of text, or a sound, has changed the rules about who controls the dispersal of information (pp. 8–9).
• The electronic and digital eras also ushered in media convergence, which can refer to the technological merging of media content (such as the availability of a magazine article in print and online form) or to a business model used by media companies that consolidate media holdings to reduce costs and maximize profits (pp. 9–11).

• A new medium goes through three stages on its journey toward mass medium status: the novelty (or development) stage (inventors or technicians try to solve a particular problem), the entrepreneurial stage (inventors and investors find a marketable use for the new device), and the mass medium stage (businesses figure out how to market the new device as a consumer product) (p. 12).
• Human beings have long debated media’s merits and dangers. Some people today are worried that mass media are overly commercial and sensationalistic, that they cause violence, and that they have too much financial power (pp. 12–13).

• One approach to media literacy—or the attempt to understand how the media work and what impact they have on our lives—is the linear model. According to this model, senders (authors, producers, organizations) transmit messages (programs, texts, images, sounds, ads) through a mass media channel (newspapers, books, magazines, radio, television, the Internet) to large groups of receivers (readers, viewers, consumers). Gatekeepers (news editors, TV and movie producers) filter those messages. Citizens and consumers return feedback, or messages, to senders or gatekeepers through letters, phone calls, e-mail, “tweets”, or talk shows. The linear model doesn’t capture certain complexities of the mass communication process (p. 14).
• The cultural model of media literacy views media as characteristics of a culture and recognizes that different people assign different meanings to media content. Adherents believe that even as we shape media, they shape us (p. 15).
• The social scientific model seeks to test hypotheses about media’s effects by gathering and analyzing measurable data. Politicians and businesses often use such research to formulate strategies (pp. 16–17).

• Cultural researchers of media have offered several metaphors to describe how people judge different media content. The “culture as skyscraper” metaphor holds that some people associate high culture with characteristics such as “good taste,” higher education, and fine art, and low or popular culture with characteristics such as the “masses” and commercial “junk” (p. 17).
• The “culture as map” metaphor holds that culture is an ongoing process that accommodates diverse tastes and that various media can satisfy human desires for both familiarity and newness (p. 18).
• Cultural researchers trace changes in values that accompany changes in media. The modern era saw the rise of values including efficient work, celebration of the individual, belief in a rational order, and rejection of tradition and embracing of progress (in particular, during the Progressive Era).

  The postmodern period witnessed the emergence of values including celebration of populism, a revival of older cultural styles, an embracing of technology, and an interest in the supernatural (pp. 19–20).

• Social scientific media researchers ask different types of questions about media than cultural researchers ask. In a comparison of studies analyzing news coverage of cancer, a study informed by the cultural model explored how coverage of Betty Ford’s mastectomy informs news coverage of cancer today, including an emphasis on women’s need to maintain their femininity. A study informed by the social scientific model reported data-based findings, such as the percentage of news stories that included content about how to prevent cancer (p. 20).
• Social scientists use content analysis to gather data—they code and count the content of various types of media. They also conduct experiments to generate data, and gather data through surveys (p. 21).

• Citizens can examine the findings of cultural and social scientific research on media to follow a critical process consisting of describing, analyzing, interpreting, evaluating, and engaging with mass media. Both models have strengths and limitations (p. 21).
• To conduct our own critiques of specific media, we must acquire a working knowledge of each medium we want to study, as ell as transcend our own preferences or biases regarding the media we’re studying (pp. 24, 26).
• A critical perspective on the mass media is valuable because it enables us to take part in debates about the media’s impact on our democracy and culture (pp. 26–27).