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Mass Communication:
A Critical Approach

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Prior to the 1980s, the vast majority of people watched video content (television programs) on their television sets from three or four broadcasters over the local airwaves. Then cable television exploded; currently, an estimated 85 percent of homes with a television pay for some kind of cable or satellite television.¹ The still-increasing numbers of channels include networks and local affiliates as well as cable-only channels and premium offerings, such as HBO. At the same time, a growing number of consumers are finding ways to watch their favorite programs without signing up for traditional cable service.

The process is called cord cutting, a term created to describe people who cancel their cable or satellite-television subscriptions in favor of watching similar content streamed online. Industry researchers estimate that by the end of 2013, about 7.6 million homes had “cut” their cable cords, up from about 5 million homes in 2010. Although that represents only about 6.5 percent of all U.S. households, a closer look at the numbers reveals some interesting details about this trend. Customers under the age of thirty-five are twice as likely to cut the cord as older users, and customers who have a Hulu or Netflix account or own a smartphone or digital tablet are also much more likely to ditch their cable subscriptions.² The ability to watch streaming video using mobile devices is a major driving force in changing viewing and cable-purchasing habits. Researchers have also found that not only are younger users more likely to cut the cord, but more and more of them go straight to online streaming and never bother getting hooked up to cable in the first place.

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Though this is a significant change, it doesn’t exactly liberate consumers from the major cable companies. Consider, for example, the cable company Comcast. Its recent purchase of entertainment conglomerate NBC Universal means that it still produces content, for which it still gets paid through services like Hulu and Netflix, which license TV shows and stream them for their users. Comcast and other cable providers often provide the same broadband Internet services being used by cord cutters. That means cable companies can structure prices and bundle services like cable, Internet, and even telephone landlines in such a way as to encourage users to keep all three. They have also been pushing for regulators at the FCC to allow them to charge companies such as Netflix more money to get faster Internet service, although the FCC has so far decided against the tiered pricing schemes favored by large Internet providers. Such a tiered service would mean that only large, well-established companies would be able to pay for this faster Internet, stifling the innovation of small Internet start-ups. These regulatory, legislative, and judicial battles over net neutrality, technological innovation, and multiplatform corporations will continue to shape our digital media world for years to come. The tensions between innovation, control, consumer interests, and commercial profits will be a recurring theme throughout this book.

THINKING ABOUT OUR RELATIONSHIP—with all the small, medium, and large screens in our world generates many compelling questions. For example, what does research tell us about how media both reflect and shape our world? What roles and responsibilities do mass media have? What is our role in media processes, such as the development and distribution of content? And how (if at all) should these processes be changed? In this book, we take up such questions by examining the history and business of mass media as well as scholarly research into how media and people interact. We take stock of the media’s positive and negative aspects, seeking ideas for ways to use media to improve the quality of our lives.

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At their best, media, in all their forms, try to help us understand the events and trends affecting us. At their worst, they can erode the quality of our lives in numerous ways. For one thing, media’s appetite for telling and selling stories can lead them to misrepresent those events or exploit them (and the people they most affect) for profit. Many critics disapprove of how media—particularly TV, cable, and tabloid magazines—seem to hurtle from one event to another, often dwelling on trivial, celebrity-driven content rather than meaningful analysis of more important events. Critics also fault media for failing to fulfill their responsibility as a watchdog for democracy—which sometimes calls for challenging our leaders and questioning their actions. Finally, the formation and growth of media industries, commercial culture, and new converging technologies—smartphones, laptop computers, digital television—have some critics worrying that we are now spending more time consuming media than interacting with one another.

Like anything else, mass media have their good sides and bad, their useful effects and destructive ones. And that’s why it is so important for us to acquire media literacy—an understanding of the media that are powerfully shaping our world (and being shaped by it). Only by being media literate can we have a say in the roles that media play around us.

In this chapter, we will take steps to strengthen that literacy by: