Collective Identity

Lets just start in USA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZkC_fNxmQk

Cultivation Theory

CULTIVATION theory helps us to understand the importance of the media. Same area as audience effects models but slowing down from an immediate to a slower more ideological effect.

George GERBNER started this and cultivation theorists argue that TV has long term effects , which are small gradual, indirect and cumulative and ultimately significant. That TV reinforces values already present in society and to support the dominant ideology.

Cultural Effects Theory

Similar the ‘drip drip theory’, cultural effects theory argues that the relationship between the media texts and peoples behaviour is long term and subtle. And that constant exposure to a particular message can be seen as slowly affecting judgement and attitudes.

Two videos on Media Influence

Media Influence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN4FgBXoVg8pt 1

A bit radical maybe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOQ1jZOj_ho But useful to watch

Back to Basics

IDEOLOGY – are messages or values that are embedded into media

Ideology refers to the influence of ideas on people’s beliefs and actions’ (Anthony Giddens)

DOMINANT IDEOLOGY – these are the ideologies that are accepted by the majority as the norm in society.

So that it should be clear that people in control of the media have the ability to promote the messages and values that they want to.

This leads to the next term….

Hegemony – from Marxism

The ruling class maintains their power through he control of ideas and culture rather than force.

The mass media adopt a consensus of what is normal, a kind of unquestioned commonsense, a set of values that the majority of people agree with without even thinking about it.

Media traditionally controlled by white middle class men, and that they construct media texts to maintain the status quo and keep them in power.

Hegemony – from Marxism

GRAMSCI – Antonio GRAMSCI (1891- 1937), Italian, developed this notion of cultural hegemony, when societies norms are defined by the way the dominant classes portray things.

ALTHUSSER – Louis ALTHUSER (1918 - 1990). French, argues that people are not free and self-determined but rather controlled by the ruling classes ideology, which is promoted through state control. This consists of everything from education, media, religion and family. To put it another way he believed that a persons ability to define themselves is not innate but acquired within the structure of the established social practices, these then determine their characteristics and the range of the characteristics that they can have and their limits.

NB not really relevant but he did strangle his wife in 1980!

Pluralism

Says that the media is diverse, with a wide range of available choices.

Consensus values in society influence the media whose texts just mirror society.

If particular representations are dominant it is because it is popular with its audience, not because they are being pushed by media institutions.

Pluralism - cont

The main function of media to entertain, their audience, then it make sense to provide representations that meet audience expectations

These leads to stereotypes, pandering to the views of the audience, and the more they pander the more money they make.

So they need to be constantly adjusted , as society changes it views

Interesting little video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY8pxyO0XL8

Pluralism - cont

GIROUX – Henry GIROUX( 1943- ) American, introduced the thinking that media representations may have little to do with who are being represented, (‘empty representations’) as there is no self-representation but rather being portrayed by another group, eg the representations of youth in main stream mass media are constructed by adults, and you can extend that out to gender.

Females in film

Feature films: In 2010, women comprised 16% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 USA grossing films. This represents a decline of 1 percentage points from 1998 and is even with 2009 figures. By role, women accounted for 7% of directors, 10% of writers, 15% of executive producers, 24% of producers, 18% of editors, and 2% of cinematographers. (Martha Lauzen, Celluloid Ceiling, Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, San Diego State University)

Mediation

What happens to real events or people that are changed into words or images and used to form media texts that the audience consume.

Three main areas

Selection – more is rejected, eg news

Organisation – life is not organised but this will be

Focussing- will lead audience to concentrate on certain things and ignore others

Moral Panics

COHEN – Stanley COHEN (1942 – 2013), South African, first coined the term moral panic in 1987. A moral panic is an episode that causes society ( and by that we mean the dominant class) to worry that it might cause an upset to its values and principles. This he explains can be a person or group of people which become defined and seen as a threat to societal interests and values. He discussed the roles that the mass media has in these cases by mediated them, amplifying the facts ( and apparent frequency by spiralling the reporting) their importance . And it can do that by use of emotive language, reporting frequency, and across different media text.

Moral Panics

He argued that from time to time ‘folk devils’ emerge which reflect the worries and anxieties of society, and by reporting on these folk devils a moral panic occurs which involves police, politicians and the mass media reporting and reflecting on it and mediating adding to the moral panic. One outcome of this moral panic is how it reinforces hegemony but making it clear what society will tolerate and what it wont, and what its values are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1a8-BJD8qg

Representation

Reflective Representation – trying to replicate the true meaning of the thing or person. People think the news is this

Intentional Representation – opposite to reflective, most important is the person doing the representation, presenting their view of things their opinions

Constructionist Representation – where things do not have a meaning, we create the meaning, and it is not fixed. This is the most popular.

Stereotypes

A shortcut way to deliver to the audience a set of characteristics about a person by attributing identical characteristics to everyone on that group.

If the audience accepts them may well change their perception of the word and hence behaviour.

Constructed using a set of variables, such as clothing, language, habitat, music, lifestyle etc and based on simplification, exaggeration or distortion and generalisation

Stereotypes - cont

DYER – Richard Dyer ( 1945 - ) stated (1979) that stereotyping involves a number of processes: the complexity and variety of a group is reduced to a few characteristics, and exaggerated version of these characteristics is applied to everyone in the group as if they are an essential element of all members of that group, and that these characteristics are represented in the media through media language.

He suggested that stereotypes are formed by those with power about those with less power.

Stereotypes - cont

MEDHURST – Andy Medhurst ( 19xx - ) suggested (1995) that stereotypes can be seen as a type of media shorthand allowing an easy quick communication with the audience. Stereotypes would therefore by used when time was an issue, TV adverts, sitcoms, less significant characters in soaps or when introducing new ones.

Implicit Personality Theory

Implicit Personality Theory is a way that we ‘work out’ details about a person from a limited amount of information that we have about them.

Social Categorization

Social categorization – is the process by which we categorise people into different groups base don common characteristics. Some of the most common grouping people use include age, gender, occupation and race. Can have positive and negative aspects, can make judgements really quickly and establish expectations on how you expect that person to behave in certain situations very quickly

Can lead to errors and stereotyping.

Countertypes

A specific type of stereotype, usually formed from a negative stereotype, to form a positive one by selecting some positive features from that group.

It is still a stereotype, so still a simplification of the diversity within a group.