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Key terms and concepts
  communication
  Meaning
  culture—dominant & bounded
  mass communication
  media
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communication
the ways we socially interact
through messages
that convey information
and generate meaning
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Levels of Communication
  intrapersonal communication
  interpersonal communication
  group communication
  mass communication
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intrapersonal communication
  how we think
  and how we assign meaning consciously and otherwise
  to all the messages and events
  that surround our lives
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meaning:
A person’s inner response to
a message,
the experiences it evokes,
including images,
interpretations, and feelings
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Meanings are shaped by both
personal and
collective (shared by all members of a group)
aspects of experience
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meaning:
A person’s inner response to
a message,
the experiences it evokes,
including images,
interpretations, and feelings
8/26/12 Meanings are shaped by both
personal and
collective (shared by all members of a group)
aspects of experience
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What do padlocks bring to mind?
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LOCKS AS SYMBOLS OF EVERLASTING LOVE ADORN
THE PONT DES ARTS, THE FOOTBRIDGE THAT CROSSES
THE SEINE FROM THE LEFT BANK TO THE LOUVRE
The notion of “love locks”” is abhorrent to many Parisians—For
them the ideal couple is Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de
Beauvoir, both of whom had many paramours and deemed
jealousy bourgeois, banal, and possessive.
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meaning:
a person’s inner response to a
message
the experiences it evokes
including images, interpretations,
and feelings
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Meaning & Codes:
meanings are based on codes
more or less internalized
rules or social agreements about
what stands for what
what goes with what
what kind of behavior is appropriate
in what situation
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Richard III, Act 1 scene 1
  Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
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meaning:
A person’s inner response to
a message,
2 what kind of behavior is appropriate
in what situation
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Richard III, Act 1 scene 1
  Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
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meaning:
A person’s inner response to
a message,
the experiences it evokes,
including images,
interpretations, and feelings
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Tess McGill (Melanie Griffth) Working Girl (1988)
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Culture:
8/26/12   shapes the way we
  think
  feel
  act
  and react
  it is the world made meaningful
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Lillian Russell
Victoria Bechham
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1934--Clark Gable without undershirt
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Male physique: changing standards
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Hugh Jackman
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Robert Downey Jr.—shirtless Sherlock
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Differing Cultural Attitudes about the Benefits of
Sunbathing
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Brazilian sunbathers: Ipanema Beach
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A beach in Qingdao, China—August 2012
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American Culture
  U.S. population
  geographically dispersed
  demographically diverse
  dominant culture
  bounded cultures
3 Sunbathing
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Brazilian sunbathers: Ipanema Beach
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A beach in Qingdao, China—August 2012
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American Culture
  U.S. population
  geographically dispersed
  demographically diverse
  dominant culture
  bounded cultures
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Bounded Cultures
  groups who have shared
  ways of seeing that are outside the mainstream
  of the dominant culture
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Bounded cultural orientations
  guide our distinctions
  about such matters as
  right and wrong
  good and bad
  attractive and unattractive
  appropriate and inappropriate
  behavior
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Bounded Cultural Contention
  abortion
  gay marriage
  stem cell research
  evolution/creationism
  gun ownership
  isolation/intervention
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Major Political Parties
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Culture is
  created
  maintained
  and transformed
  through all forms of communication–including
  mass communication
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Mass communication:
the process of designing and delivering
information and entertainment
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Major Political Parties
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Culture is
  created
  maintained
  and transformed
  through all forms of communication–including
  mass communication
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Mass communication:
the process of designing and delivering
information and entertainment
through media channels
to large and diverse audiences
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Elements of mass communication process
  who
  says what
  in which medium
  to whom
  with what effect
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Who: the mass media
  the companies that
  produce and distribute
  information and entertainment
  for the public at large
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says what: the message
  radio shows, mystery novels, newspapers, movies,
magazines, comic books, TV programs, blogs, and so on
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in which medium
  “The medium is the message.”
  Marshall McLuhan the method of message transmittal shapes
what is communicated
  each new medium alters perceptions of time and space
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in which medium
  any object or device
  for preserving messages over time
  or moving them through space
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a new communications medium
  will not—in itself—shake up the status quo.
8/26/12 5   “The medium is the message.”
  Marshall McLuhan the method of message transmittal shapes
what is communicated
  each new medium alters perceptions of time and space
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in which medium
  any object or device
  for preserving messages over time
  or moving them through space
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a new communications medium
  will not—in itself—shake up the status quo.
  who uses it, and what it is used for
  —these will be the decisive factors
  although its various uses may have unintended
consequences
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Telegraph—a “disruptive” technology
  Samuel Morse—painter-inventor
  1844-Baltimore/Washington line
  Western Union/only nationwide telegraph network
  1871 Morse statue—Central Park
  lean writing style
  inverted-pyramid style
  objectivity—
  separation of fact from opinion
  balanced reporting
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Broader Impact of Telegraph Use
  separated communication from transportation
  transformed information into a commodity
  coordinated commercial and military operations
  forerunner of all electronic communication
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to whom: audience analysis
  gathering and interpreting
  information about
  the recipients of messages—
  such factors as age, religious affiliations, educational levels,
and knowledge of the subject
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Reception Model of Media Studies
focus is on
how audience members derive and create meaning
  by decoding a message based on
  their own experiences, feelings and beliefs
8/26/12 6   information about
  the recipients of messages—
  such factors as age, religious affiliations, educational levels,
and knowledge of the subject
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8/26/12 Reception Model of Media Studies
focus is on
how audience members derive and create meaning
  by decoding a message based on
  their own experiences, feelings and beliefs
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with what effect….
  How has the audience been affected by interpreting the
meaning of a message?
  Have they been changed in some significant way?
  Or did the change concern trivial or unimportant matters?
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