Thursday, 14 June 2012
Friday, 18 May 2012
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Friday, 9 March 2012
Fandom (Film Industry)
One of the things that you could discuss in your exam is fandom. Below i've wrote a an exemplar paragraph.
Film fandom can involve participating in online discussion and posting to sites such as the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com), joining film clubs or groups, or producing one's own fan magazine or "fanzine." Being part of organized fandom—whether for a certain film or star—is, first and foremost, linked to values of participation and production. Henry Jenkin's argues that fandom exemplifies a participatory culture where film fans are interested in "further interaction with a larger social and cultural community" (Jenkins, 1992, p. 76). Film fans approach watching a film as just one stage within a wider process of consumption and production, with secondary texts such as promotional materials and reviews leading up to the moment of viewing, fanzine reviews and commentaries following the initial filmic encounter. It can be argued then, that web 2.0 allows for these processes to be realised. John Fiske outlines 3 categories of fandom: semiotic, enunciative and textual. It is enunciative and textual productivity that is enabled by the platforms of web 2.0. Enunciative productivity is fans communicating with one another about a film - web 2.0 allows this to occur through the use of online forums and fan review sites. Textual productivity exemplifies David Gauntlett's definition of web 2.0 as allowing people to be creative. Due to the proliferation of hardware and software and converging technologies fans can create media such as mash-up, tribute videos, posters and online fanzines and post them to sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and dedicated fansites. The Twlight Saga is a clear example of fans using the platforms of web 2.0 to their creative best (Here you would give examples of fan produced material). Moreover, the use of web 2.0 has seen a rise in comic cons whereby fans can meet up and act out scenes from films, dress up as characters etc. People from all around the world can communicate with each other and participate in such events. (Give an example of a comic con).
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Monday, 27 February 2012
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Future of the Media Industries
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Internet & The News
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/202/the-social-media-revolution-exploring-the-impact-on-journalism-and-news-media-organizations
http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2009/08/twitters_impact.html
http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2009/06/how_twitter_imp.html
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/06/the-twitter-effect-how-social-media-changes-the-news-narrative179.html
Monday, 20 February 2012
National Media Museum Resources
What is Web 2.0 (reference to some theory)
http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/~/media/Files/NMeM/PDF/Collections/NewMedia/General-WhatIsWeb2.0.ashx
A brief history of the Internet
http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/~/media/Files/NMeM/PDF/Collections/NewMedia/General-ABriefHistoryOfTheInternet.ashx
Viral Marketinghttp://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/~/media/Files/NMeM/PDF/Collections/NewMedia/ViralMarketing.ashx
Friday, 10 February 2012
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Thursday, 14 July 2011
Newspaper paywalls
Mr Rusbridger of The Guardian on the subject
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2010/jan/25/alan-rusbridger-hugh-cudlipp
Mr Murdoch of News Corp on the subject
http://fora.tv/2010/02/05/Rupert_Murdoch_The_Future_of_Newspapers#Murdochs_POV_on_Paywalls_Print_Media_and_the_iPad
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Wedny Chun - a good theoretical framework to apply to the debates about the internet offering freedom??
IN A NUTSHELL
The Internet is a technology based on control systems, yet it is also a mass medium celebrated as fostering personal and political freedom. How? Why? What dreams and desires drove the Internet’s transformation from a communications network used mainly by academics and the military to an integral part of everyday life? And how does the experience of actually using the Internet differ from the hype that surrounds it?
Freedom makes control possible, necessary, and never enough
Section B Exam Advice
Friday, 20 May 2011
Wikinomics (Tapscott & Williams). Their 5 big ideas.
They write about 'how mass collaboration changes everything'. These arguments are about the media (distribution in particular), but also about consumption and exchange (buying and selling – the food and drink of a capitalist economics ) and about human behaviour.
“ As people individually and collectively program the Web, they’re increasingly in command. They not only have an abundance of choices, they can increasingly rely on themselves. This is the new consumer power. It's not just the ability to swap suppliers at the click of a mouse, or a prerogative to customise their purchased goods (that was the last century) It’s the power to become their own supplier – in effect to become an economy unto themselves.”
Free creativity is a natural and positive outcome of the free market, so attempting to regulate and control online ‘remix’ creativity is like trying to hold back the tide. The happy medium is achieved by a service such as Creative Commons, which provides licences which protect intellectual property, while at the same time allowing others to remix your material within limits.
The media is democratised by peering, free creativity and the we media journalism produced by ordinary people.
Web 2.0 makes thinking globally inevitable. The internet is the ‘world's biggest coffee house’, a virtual space in which a new blog is created every second. In this instantly global communication sphere, national and cultural boundaries are inevitably reduced.
The combination of three things – technology (web 2.0), demographics (young people are described as ‘digital natives’ they have grown up in a collaborative virtual world which to them is natural and instinctive), and economics (the development of a global economy where business can, and must think of its markets as international, given that traditional, national production structures have declined as we have entered the knowledge economy) – results in a perfect storm, which creates such a force that resistance is impossible, so any media company trying to operate without web 2.0 will be like a small fishing boat on the sea during a freak meteorological occurrence.
I found this via Twitter!
How has the Internet changed our National Identity?
Yet there is some common ground across the online understanding of what Britishness is. Our empirical understanding of this has evolved through reverse logic: researchers have studied British identity in forums, social networks and other virtual gathering spots by looking at how we decide what we are not. And despite the very prominent multiculturalism in the UK, the unfortunate thread that runs through the results of research studies published as recently as 2008 is that Britishness is "white" – seen as the most common marker of what is perceived to be British and what is not.
But it isn't the end of the story. There are countless examples of sites that celebrate our obsession with the weather, our penchant for satire, our co-dependent relationship with the pub and other elements of national heritage. The web allows for the expression of the diversity of the UK and the nuanced representation of the people united under the union flag does still inform how we negotiate and define who we are online.
Citizenship is a political demarcation; the sense of identifying with one's nation is a profoundly personal thing. We're not becoming more or less British because of the web, just as Americans aren't becoming more or less American or Iranians aren't becoming more or less Iranian. Technology allows each of us the opportunity to publish our versions of what it means to be whatever we are.
If you don't agree with it, you can build your own version. So there.
There are loads of theories that could be linked in here: Judith Butler and Identity performance, Charles Cheung and personal homepages, Dan Gillmor "giving a voice to the voiceless" etc.
Marshall McLuhan: The world is a global village
The emergence of “new media” and “social media” — it has all looked fairly revolutionary, the beginning of something entirely new. But, when you step back and consider it, these innovations mark perhaps just an acceleration of a trend that began long ago — one that Marshall McLuhan, the famed communication theorist, first outlined in the 1960s. The vintage clip above gives you a feel for this, and McLuhan himself appears at around the 2:45 minute mark. As you watch this video, you start to realize how prescient McLuhan was, and how social media is almost the logical fulfillment of the trend he saw emerging. We’ve added this piece to our YouTube Favorites, along with another McLuhan clip from the same period.
Think about the work of Ivan Illich and Co. that we looked at when we were unpicking David Gauntlett's approach to online media. Remember we suggested that they foresaw or predicted the changes that online media could make. Moreover think about the "We Live in Public" film and how Josh Harris predicted the sensation that is online media and it's power to encourage participation.
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Music Industry as a Media Area
Here is a link to a music industry blog http://musicindustrysectionb.blogspot.com/ provided by one of the examiners from the AS key concepts exam. It contains a range of examples that could be drawn upon in the exam - esp. Mercury records stopping production of the CD and operating online only. The Gorrilaz using the Apple IPad to produce their music and Lily Allen engaging in viral marketing.Active citizen journalist in Cuba.
Byron Repot - Media Effects and the Internet
Media In the Online Age: Blog posts from the chief examiner
Monday, 16 May 2011
Examiners Report January 2011
G325 Critical Perspectives in Media General Comments
There were 387 candidates entered for this January series. The level of difficulty was appropriate but some candidates were not well prepared to answer all three questions and this is often the case where candidates are taking this synoptic paper for the first time some six months before the majority of entrants for the unit.
There was a marked improvement in the level of responses, in comparison to the previous two series. It is difficult for candidates to sustain the required level of theoretical engagement for level 4 marks over the three sections and some centres had clearly prepared candidates well to write about ALL of the concepts and areas of activity that might be required for questions 1a and 1b in relation to ALL of their coursework, so that they were able to respond to the specific requirements of the questions. As has been previously stated in examiner reports, at training events and on the OCR blog, the fact that there is one A2 examination only, and a part of that is related to coursework, mean that the level of expectation from examiners is high in relation to theoretical conviction and so a level 4 candidate will need to sustain this conviction over the span of the three responses – theorising a specific aspect of their own production processes, analysing their own outcomes using a specific key concept and discussing a contemporary media issue with the use of a range of theoretical arguments.
As in previous series, many of the candidates who achieved higher overall marks for the paper chose to answer section B first.
Section A
1.The question on digital technology appeared to support candidates in finding a range of examples and the better answers reflected critically on the difference digital technology actually made to creative outcomes. This was the strongest set of responses since the introduction of this unit, with the better answers dealing with well chosen examples which ranged across hardware, software and online activity and began to connect these to discuss how they synthesized. The higher achieving answers related clearly candidates’ decisions to the creative potential of digital media. Less accomplished responses tended to fall into two categories – those that were confused about digital technology itself (often simply describing the use of the camera) and those that merely listed examples of technology used without sufficient analysis of how these affordances led to particular kinds of creativity that might not have been possible with analogue processes or with non-technical activities. Where candidates were able to document a journey over time, either in terms of more advanced use of technology or simply making more use of technology in A2, the higher mark bands were accessible. This was extremely difficult for candidates who were only able to speculate on future A2 work as they had not yet completed their coursework – examiners cannot credit this kind of response in a synoptic paper. Level 4 answers typically defined creativity, with references to theoretical work on this much-debated and contested area (for example, Gauntlett, Buckingham, Craft, Csikszentmihalyi, Readman) and then went on to ‘apply’ these definitions to their own use of technologies with a range of specific examples – from how web 2.0 platforms allow the consumer (arguably) to become the producer to identifying particular uses of software such as Final Cut or Dreamweaver that allowed candidates to achieve outcomes that were not possible with simpler software such as iMovie (in the case of video editing). Either, or both, of these approaches allow examiners to award higher marks as long as there is sufficient evidence of critical reflection and evaluation – for which a ‘model’ like Kolb’s cycle might be helpful.
2. Narrative was handled fairly well by most candidates, often applying one or two ‘classic’ theoretical models from formalist / structuralist approaches to their own work – character types (Propp), equilibrium and disruption (Todorov), action and enigma (Roland Barthes), semiotic codes (Roland Barthes) and ‘the gaze’ (Laura Mulvey). The choice of text to analyse is very important in question 1b and in some cases examiners were surprised with the choices made in this regard (for example, writing about a film in 1a and a magazine in 1b). Some made a brave stab at applying the theory to print based texts, but tended to fall back more on semiotics or genre. Whilst there is no reason why a magazine or a website cannot be a rich text for narrative theory, it would seem more straightforward at A2 level for candidates to make use of the plethora of theories of film narrative at both micro (edits and continuity decisions) and macro (storytelling and culture) levels. Many candidates were able to accurately reference narrative theories – Propp and Todorov, Barthes, Levi-Strauss, Goodwin and Mulvey were well described, with some very strong analyses of radio news work and of film trailers and openings. Level 4 answers were those that successfully related these theories to elements of candidates’ own texts. Weak answers were often just an account of “how we made it” but stronger answers were able to apply some critical distance. In some cases there was even too much theory (with unsupported references to Fiske and Adorno) with little, if any, analysis of their own (in cases not yet completed) coursework.
Once again, time management was a factor and it is crucial that candidates devote the same total time to section A as to B as both sections carry equal marks.
Section B
Media in the Online Age – this was the weakest topic with a general lack of theory – see the comments on regulation, the same applies (I've included this at the end of the post). At the very least, centres are advised to look at the recent debates between Jenkins, Buckingham and Gauntlett – all of which are free and accessible online, in the context of claims made by the likes of Gillmor, Leadbetter, Wesch and Shirkey – for a more academic approach to the difference the internet has made to media. A lot of the answers were a set of opinions and ‘everyday’ observations about iTunes, piracy and social media, but in some cases some sustained case study work on music was well supported with a range of examples. For this topic in particular, candidates would be well advised to ‘audit’ their answers to consider how much of them could have been written by a person with a keen interest in media but without the knowledge and understanding from an A Level course in the subject.
Contemporary Media Regulation – this was a very popular topic and there was a high level of engagement with issues of protection and democracy, but there were some common lapses. Many film and TV references were too dated – even one historical reference would suffice, with all other examples from within five years of the time of writing. Other media areas tended to be answered with a more contemporary flavour, so centres are advised to be careful not to over- use dated (if ‘classic’) case studies for film and TV. As always, the James Bulger case was usually poorly handled with insufficient attention given to the complexity of this case and a lack of justification for its use in the context of an answer on contemporary media regulation. Centres are strongly advised to use this case as a historical reference in the context of Martin Barker’s work on how it was constructed as a ‘moral panic’, not as an example of media effects and thus as ‘evidence’ for the need for regulation. Regulation of computer games, with case studies, was often handled well. The difficulties of regulating the internet were tackled, with some success by many and the stronger candidates dealing with the ‘weightier’ political issues around wikileaks and democracy / security as well as the more straightforward debates around piracy and child protection, but too often candidates addressed the issue briefly, explaining how difficult it will always be to regulate the internet, and leaving it at that. There were many superficial observations around the press ‘not being regulated’ and for this reason the regulation of the press was often the weakest part of these answers. Examiners were, once again, surprised that the Byron Report – a hugely significant contemporary example – was rarely mentioned (the link to this is in our blog). In addition, centres are reminded that candidates need to balance their understanding of contemporary issues and examples with a discussion of academic theories of effects, audience and participation that inform their engagement with the debates in question. Whether there needs to be more or less media regulation depends on the view one takes on the relationship between media and society and there is a long history of research and theory – from Chomsky to Hall to Livingstone to Jenkins - that must be understood at A2 level if candidates are to answer the questions from an informed intellectual position.
Has Online media transformed the Western world into a surveillance society??
EXAM TIPS
ESSENTIAL TOOL FOR THE EXAM
What effect has the internet had on religion?
I remember several years ago, when the virtual world Second Life wasthe thing on the web, wandering in the embodiment of my avatar through a most extraordinary representation of a cathedral. The frescoes, stained glass and flying buttresses were replicated to a degree that would make even the most cynical architect weep. Also enjoying the experience were 30 other virtual people from around the world, dressed in all manner of outerwear, from 1950s party dresses to slinky black outfits with impossible heels to squirrel costumes. They, as it turned out, were gathered in this cyber-place to celebrate a religious service.
I watched from the safe distance of a back-of-the-nave pew, listening to the officiant lead his digital flock through a very traditional Catholic ceremony. I left after transubstantiation, just as they were processing in a typically sombre way to receive the Eucharist.
The concept of religious ritual is so deeply embedded in our social fabric that it is natural for it to have made the leap to virtuality. And it hasn't just reared its head in worlds such as Second Life. Social networks, including Facebook, have active and close-knit communities of religious followers of all creeds, gathering in what science writer Margaret Wertheim described in her 1999 book, The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace, as "a new kind of realm for the mind". Perhaps, depending on your attitude toreligion, it's more apt to describe these digital collectives in science fiction author William Gibson's words: a "consensual hallucination".
Online, contrary to Nietzsche's allegation, God is most certainly not dead. The web is littered with sacred spaces and, if anything, He (or She or It) has been released from traditional doctrine to become everything to everybody.
"On the web, you're more easily able to find your tribe," explains Professor Heidi Campbell, a researcher at Texas A&M University, whose most recent book, When Religion Meets New Media, looks at how Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish communities engage with the web. "The distinctions and differences are amplified online."
The importance of the web in everyday life – from banking to shopping to socialising – means that religious organisations must migrate their churches and temples to virtual real estate in order to stay relevant and to be where the people are. Religious leaders have websites, blogs and Twitter feeds, there are email prayer lines and online confessionals, social networks for yogis and apps that call the faithful to prayer. "Being web-savvy should be a required skill for religious leaders in general," says Sister Catherine Wybourne, prioress of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Oxfordshire, and @Digitalnun on Twitter.
But, argues Dr Paul Teusner from RMIT University, Melbourne, the technology itself is not value-free. "It is presented to religious societies wrapped with cultural values that compliment, challenge or repel religious attitudes," he says. This has unsurprisingly affected how organised religion engages with the new "mission field", as the Vatican has described it. Evangelicals, who have historically been keen to get out their message via whatever communication conduit available, were the first organised religious groups to embrace the web, and non-traditional or sidelined religious movements made early moves online to get their version of "the word" out. In contrast, Islam and Catholicism, which both place an emphasis on shared place in their rituals and view the technology as a mode of logic that could take them in its value direction, have been the most hesitant. "The web may have encouraged a lowest-common-denominator eclecticism and turned us into consumers of religion," argues Wybourne.
There's another potentially destabilising force at work: what has traditionally been behind closed doors in ecclesiastical councils is now online, challenging the control that leaders once had over doctrine and their flocks. Just as the Reformation was ushered in by the printing press in the 16th century, allowing people to access the texts for themselves and distribute their interpretations widely, the web has helped proliferate different interpretations and articulations of religions and we have witnessed the emergence of new communities and faiths. Individuals now have a much more autonomous role in deciding whom to approach as a source. "Those people may have official, traditional credentials or they may be Rabbi Google," says Prof Campbell.
"Religious leaders will have to get used to the idea of being more accountable and transparent in their dealings and of having to engage, on equal terms, with those who stand outside the traditional hierarchies," says Wybourne.
Yet the web has not de facto increased inter-faith communication. Campbell has observed that the internet is not being used for inter-religious dialogue or diversity. "If you want to do that, you need intensively to create that community." The impulse to specialise because of the volume of information online means that people seeking answers are drawn to flocks of birds that match their feathers. "Unless you're looking for diversity, you're not going to find it online," says Campbell.
The search for answers is part of our social narrative and so it is unsurprising that we have gone to the web to ask the questions. There, we are finding our communities, whether they are organised under a traditional doctrine with well-established rituals, or are evolutions that have been produced by people who feel they have seen the light. The greatest danger of the web is not that it will kill or change religion, but that, as Campbell argues, we will see the differences in our faiths because of our desire to find our own kind.
TAKEN FROM THE GUARDIAN ARPIL 17TH 2011.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Key Thinkers in Media and Cultural Studies.
Adorno, Theodor (1903-69): German sociologist, critical theorist, classical Marxist, music critic. Along with Max Horkheimer, Benjamin and Herbert Marcuse, he was a pioneering figure in the Frankfurt School of social research during the 1920s/30s. KEY READINGS: (with Horkheimer)Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (1969); The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture (1991); Essays on Music (2002). KEY WORDS: standardization, commodity fetishism, pseudo-individualization.
Ang, Ien (1954-): Indonesian/Dutch cultural studies specialist. Best known for her audience research and analysis, she has made an impact on feminist thinking and theories of media consumption. KEY READINGS: Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination(1985); Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World (1996). KEY WORDS: ideology of populism, postmodern feminism.
Angell, Norman (1872-1967): British politician, journalist, media commentator. A ‘mass society’ critic, he viewed the tabloid press as a demagogue for the less favourable prejudices of ‘the public mind’. KEY READINGS: The Public Mind: Its Disorders: Its Exploitation (1926); The Press and the Organisation of Society (1922). KEY WORDS: mass society.
Arnheim, Rudolf (1904-2007): German film theorist, perceptual psychologist. Undertook groundbreaking studies of art (especially film) and visual perception, and lesser-known studies of radio and aural perception. KEY READINGS: Film as Art (1958); Radio (1936); Towards a Psychology of Art: Collected Essays (1966). KEY WORDS: visual perception.
Barthes, Roland (1915-80): French literary critic, cultural theorist. His most enduring legacy is to semiotics and structuralist theory. His theory of myth was a precursor of contemporary studies in ideology. KEY READINGS: Mythologies (1957); Image-Music-Text (1977). KEY WORDS: denotation/connotation (v. Ferdinand de Saussure), myth.
Baudrillard, Jean (1929-2007): French sociologist, media and cultural theorist. His work is associated mostly with postmodernism and consumerism, especially the notion of ’saturation’. KEY READINGS: Simulations (1983); The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1995). KEY WORDS: simulation, hyperreality.
Becker, Howard S. (1928-): American sociologist, jazz musician. His labelling theory of deviance remains a major interactionist perspective on how public – including media - reaction defines what is socially acceptable and unacceptable. KEY READINGS: Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (1963); (with M. M. McCall, eds) Symbolic Interaction and Cultural Studies (1990); Art Worlds (1982). KEY WORDS: labelling, collective activity.
Bell, Daniel (1919-): American sociologist, journalist. A founding father of the information society thesis, his work is also associated with post-Marxism, especially his ‘end of ideology’ argument. KEY READINGS: The Coming of Post-industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting (1973); The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties (1960). KEY WORDS: post-industrialism, cultural conservatism.
Benjamin, Walter (1892-1940): German literary critic, critical theorist. A founding member of the Frankfurt School along with Adorno et al., he was also an influential figure in Bertolt Brecht’s theatre. KEY READINGS: ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ and ‘What is Epic Theatre?’ in Illuminations (1973). KEY WORDS: aura, ritual function/exhibition function.
Bernays, Edward (1891-1995): American public relations pioneer, propagandist. Though critical of most propaganda, he supported and practiced certain forms of it in the belief that ‘good propaganda’ could improve people socially and economically. KEY READINGS: Crystallising Public Opinion (1923); Propaganda (1928).
Blumer, Herbert (1900-87): American sociologist. He coined the term ‘symbolic interactionism’ – but his early research on the influence of Hollywood films on young audiences was distinctly behaviourist in approach. KEY READINGS: Movies and Conduct (1933); Symbolic Interaction: Perspective and Method (1969). KEY WORDS: modelling/imitation.
Boorstin, Daniel (1914-2004): American cultural historian. His main contribution to media theory is his analysis of how the communications revolution in visual media, advertising and public relations led to a phony age of romanticism, spectacle and celebrity. KEY READING: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America (1961). KEY WORDS: pseudo-event.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1930-2002): French sociologist, literary critic. His concepts of ‘habitus’ and ‘field’, as they relate to structure (cultural consumption) and agency (cultural production) respectively, have been widely applied in media and cultural studies. KEY READINGS: Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1984); The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (1993); On Television and Journalism (1996). KEY WORDS: cultural capital, social capital.
Cantril, Hadley (1906-69): American behavioural and social psychologist. Best known for work on public opinion and the psychology of radio, especially his analysis of audience reaction to the famous 1938 Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds. KEY READINGS: The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic (1940); (with Gordon Allport) The Psychology of Radio(1935); Gauging Public Opinion (1947). KEY WORDS: mass panic.
Carey, James W. (1935-2006): American communication and cultural studies specialist. His argument about how the electric telegraph transformed ’communication’, separating the term from its association with ‘transportation’, remains noteworthy. KEY READING: Communication as Culture (1989). KEY WORDS: technology and ideology.
Castells, Manuel (1942-): Spanish sociologist. His work what he calls ‘the network society’ is an important rejoinder to advocates of the information society thesis. KEY READINGS: The Rise of the Network Society (1996); The Internet Galaxy (2001). KEY WORDS: informational city, the space of flows.
Chomsky, Noam (1928-): American linguist, political commentator, media theorist. His media analysis cuts across theories of political economy, propaganda, hegemony and globalisation. KEY READINGS: (with Edward Herman) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media(1988); Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda (1997). KEY WORDS: the propaganda model.
Cohen, Stanley (unknown): South African sociologist, criminologist. His seminal work on deviance and the manufacture of news is still widely discussed. KEY READINGS: Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers (1972); (ed) Images of Deviance (1971); (with Jock Young, eds) The Manufacture of News: Social Problems, Deviance and the Mass Media(1974). KEY WORDS: moral panic.
Curran, James (unknown): British communications theorist, media historian. A prolific author, his astute analysis of rival narratives in media history is now a standard reference point. KEY READINGS: Media and Power (2002); (with Jean Seaton) Power Without Responsibility (2010, 7th edn). KEY WORDS: liberal narrative/feminist narrative/populist narrative/nationalist narrative/libertarian narrative/radical narrative/technological determinist narrative.
Debord, Guy (1931-94): French social theorist, Marxist. His argument about how the media-fuelled, spectacular society of advanced capitalist economies disseminates false appearances and expectations of happiness, success and so on, still remains persuasive. KEY READING: The Society of the Spectacle (1967). KEY WORDS: the spectacle.
Debray, Regis (1940-): French mediologist, journalist, Marxist. Rejecting semiotics and post-structuralism, his theory of mediology shows how images and technologies transmit cultural meanings in ways akin to religious artefacts – not merely through shared linguistic codes a la semiotics. KEY READINGS: Transmitting Culture (2000); Media Manifestos: On the Technological Transmission of Cultural Forms (1996). KEY WORDS: mediology, technological transmission.
Deleuze, Giles (1925-95): French philosopher, film theorist. His ideas about cinema and its different types of movement-image (v. Charles S. Pierce) have grown in significance in recent times. KEY READING: Deleuze on Cinema (Ronald Bogue) (2003). KEY WORDS: perception-image/affection-image/impulse-image/action-image/reflection-image/relation-image.
Fiske, John (1939-): British media and communication specialist. A proponent of active audiences and popular cultural resistance, especially as applied to television studies. KEY READINGS:Television Culture (1987); Understanding Popular Culture (1989); Reading the Popular (1989). KEY WORDS: consumer resistance.
Foucault, Michel (1926-84): French social historian, sociologist. In media theory, his ideas about discursive formations, discipline and panopticon-like surveillance are particularly influential. KEY READINGS: The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972); Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975). KEY WORDS: discourse, surveillance.
Gerbner, George (1919-2005): American communication theorist. Noted for his cultivation theory – an attempt to analyse the gradual, long-term effects of television on social conceptions of the real world. KEY READING: ‘Living with Television: The Dynamics of the Cultivation Process’ inPerspectives on Media Effects (eds J. Bryant and D. Zillmann) (1986). KEY WORDS: cultivation, mainstreaming.
Gitlin, Todd (1943-): American sociologist. His research on the Hollywood television industry is a classic insider account of media economics and politics. KEY READINGS: The Whole World is Watching: Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left (1980); Inside Prime Time (1983);Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives (2002). KEY WORDS: social management.
Goffman, Erving (1922-82): Canadian sociologist. Associated with the Chicago School of sociology and criminology, his theories of self-presentation – originally focused on face-to-face social interaction – were later developed to encompass mediated interaction rituals and contexts. KEY READINGS: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959); Gender Advertisements (1979);Forms of Talk (1981). KEY WORDS: front/back region, gender display.
Habermas, Jurgen (1929-): German sociologist. A second-generation Frankfurt School scholar, notable for his historical analysis of the declining, culture-debating (bourgeois) public sphere in the face of a culture-consuming, mass-mediated one. KEY READING: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962). KEY WORDS: public sphere.
Hall, Stuart (1932-): British sociologist, cultural theorist. A founding father of post-war British cultural studies and director of the Birmingham School of Contemporary Cultural Studies during its most productive period (1968-79), his encoding/decoding model of television discourse/communication is a touchstone in the media theory canon. KEY READINGS: (with Dorothy Hobson et al., eds) Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-79(1980); (ed) Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (1997). KEY WORDS: encoding/decoding, grammar of race.
Hoggart, Richard (1918-): British literary and cultural critic. Following his autobiographical account of the rise of mass literacy/mass media within working-class culture, he made a major impact on British broadcasting and educational policy. KEY READINGS: The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of a Working-class Life with Special Reference to Publications and Entertainments (1958);Only Connect: On Culture and Communication (1972). KEY WORDS: cultural classlessness.
Innis, Harold A. (1894-1952): Canadian communication theorist, political economist. A key influence on McLuhan‘s medium theory, he argued that, historically, media communications have played a fundamental political role in determining how information is disseminated in societies by rulers to ruled. KEY READINGS: The Bias of Communication (1951); Empire and Communications(1986). KEY WORDS: space-biased media/time-biased media.
Jameson, Fredric (1934-): American literary critic, cultural theorist, Marxist. Most notable for his work on postmodernism, he argues that the expansion of mass media and culture has brought about the disappearance of artistic originality in the contemporary era. KEY READINGS:Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991); The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern 1983-98 (1998). KEY WORDS: pastiche, intertextuality.
Jenkins, Henry (1958-): American media specialist. Well-known for his work on fan cultures and convergence, his argument in favour of consumer/audience power places him in the cultural optimism (as opposed to cultural pessimism) camp. KEY READINGS: Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (1992). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide(2006). KEY WORDS: participatory culture, fan art.
Katz, Elihu (1926-): Israeli-American sociologist. He has contributed to a rich array of theoretical inquiry including the two-step flow model, uses and gratifications, cultural imperialism/resistance and media events. KEY READINGS: (with Lazarsfeld) Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications (1955); (with Jay Blumler, eds) The Uses of Mass Communications: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research (1974); (with Tamar Liebes) The Export of Meaning: Cross-cultural Readings of Dallas (1990); (with Daniel Dayan) Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History (1992). KEY WORDS: two-step flow, uses and gratifications.
Kracauer, Siegfried (1889-1966): German film theorist, cultural critic, journalist. A realist film theorist who analysed the material content of a film rather than its form or style, he shared much the same Marxist outlook and cultural pessimism as his friend Adorno. KEY READINGS: The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays (1963); Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (1960). KEY WORDS: melange, mass ornament.
Lacan, Jacques (1901-81): French literary theorist, Freudian psychoanalyst. His famous theory of ‘the mirror stage’ set the agenda for studies of identity and identification, particularly in relation to cinema/film. KEY READING: Ecrits: A Selection (1966). KEY WORDS: mirror stage, jouissance.
Lasswell, Harold D. (1902-78): American political and communication theorist. His famous ‘formula’ - ’Who, says what, in which channel, to whom, with what effect?’ – is a linchpin of media studies. He also developed the method of content analysis as a means of reading propaganda. KEY READINGS: ‘The Structure and Function of Communication in Society’ in The Processes and Effects of Mass Communication (eds Schramm and Roberts) (1971); Propaganda Technique in World War 1(1971). KEY WORDS: chain of communication.
Lazarsfeld, Paul (1901-76): Austrian-American sociologist. As well as his pioneering study of interpersonal influence with Katz, he co-wrote (with Merton) an essay on the social functions of media that sowed the seeds of agenda-setting research. In contrast to this essay, Lazarsfeld’s radio research – deploying the focus-group interview method which he pioneered – identified limited media effects on audiences. KEY READINGS: Radio and the Printed Page: An Introduction to the Study of Radio and Its Role in the Communication of Ideas (1940); (with Merton) ‘Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organised Social Action’ in The Communication of Ideas (1948); (with Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet) The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign (1944). KEY WORDS: ‘status conferral’, ‘enforcement of social norms’, ‘narcotising dysfunction’.
Leavis, F. R. (1895-1978): British literary and cultural critic. Alongside his wife Q. D. and in sympathy with T. S. Eliot, Leavis was an elitist who argued that mass media and culture had a detrimental effect on society – and needed to be counteracted by a minority culture of great art and literature. KEY READINGS: (with Denys Thompson) Culture and Environment: The Training of Critical Awareness (1933); Mass Civilisation and Minority Culture (1930). KEY WORDS: scrutiny, minority culture.
Lippmann, Walter (1889-1974): American political commentator, journalist. A pioneer in the analysis of public opinion, he was a keen libertarian who valued the freedom of the press – despite its power over people’s minds. KEY READINGS: Public Opinion (1922); Liberty and the News (1920);The Phantom Public (1925). KEY WORDS: stereotype, public opinion.
McChesney, Robert W. (unknown): American political economist of communications, media critic, broadcaster. An anti-capitalist media commentator, he argues that government and multinational corporations conspire to deter competition from alternative media provision. KEY READINGS: Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times (2000); (with Edward S. Herman) The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism (1997). KEY WORDS: political economy.
McLuhan, Marshall (1911-80): Canadian literary critic and media theorist. His famous phrase – ‘The medium is the message’ (my emphasis) - asserted that the form/properties of any given communication technology determine their impact on society, not their content (i.e. message). KEY READINGS: Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964); The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962). KEY WORDS: hot/cold media, retribalisation.
McRobbie, Angela (1951-): British cultural theorist. Affiliated with the Birmingham School underHall‘s directorship, she is a well-known commentator on feminism and gender, postmodernism, popular music and the cultural industries. KEY READINGS: Feminism and Youth Culture (1991);Postmodernism and Popular Culture (1994); The Uses of Cultural Studies (2005). KEY WORDS: gender, structuralist feminism.
Mander, Jerry (unknown): American media commentator, advertising executive. He wrote a powerful polemic against television, especially advertising on television, arguing that the medium has inherent effects akin to autocratic control over the minds of its viewers. KEY READING: Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978). KEY WORDS: media effects.
Merton, Robert K. (1910-2003): American sociologist. In addition to his essay on the social functions of media (with Lazarsfeld), he wrote a seminal book on the social psychology of mass persuasion,which evaluated the power of a radio celebrity on her audience. KEY READING: Mass Persuasion: The Social Psychology of a War Bond Drive (1946). KEY WORDS: persuasion, anomie, role model.
Meyrowitz, Joshua (unknown): American communication specialist. An exponent of McLuhan’s medium theory and Goffman’s self-presentation theory, he combined the two theories in his well-known study of media in a placeless society. KEY READING: No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behaviour (1985). KEY WORDS: placelessness, middle-region behaviour.
Miller, Mark Crispin (unknown): American media critic, political activist. Not unlikeMcChesney, he argues that US media are anti-democratic in the way they toe the line of government and dominant political interests. KEY READINGS: Boxed In: The Culture of Television(1988); Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (2005). KEY WORDS: democratic reform.
Milton, John (1608-74): English poet, political activist. Puritanical and republican in his beliefs, Milton was a vocal critic of censorship as it was imposed by the monarch prior to the English Revolution. He is therefore lauded as an early campaigner for press freedom. KEY READINGS:Areopagitica (1644). KEY WORDS: freedom of speech.
Modleski, Tania (unknown): American feminist, literary critic. Best-known for her feminist criticism of popular television drama, she has identified a lack of positive female roles in prime-time soaps. KEY READING: Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-producced Fantasies for Women(1990). KEY WORDS: the ideal reader.
Morley, David (unknown): British media and cultural studies specialist. His groundbreaking work on domestic television consumption has made a major contribution to media audience studies. KEY READINGS: (with Charlotte Brunsdon) The Nationwide Television Studies (1999); Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies (1992). KEY WORDS: encoding/decoding, genre theory.
Mulvey, Laura (1941-): British film theorist. Combining Lacan with post-structuralist ideas, she wrote a seminal essay on the ‘male gaze’ in Hollywood narrative cinema. KEY READING: ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ in Visual and Other Pleasures (1989): KEY WORDS: the male gaze.
Packard, Vance (1914-96): American consumer psychologist, journalist. He was an influential analyst of the subliminal ploys used by media promoters and advertisers to influence consumer behaviour. KEY READINGS: The Hidden Persuaders (1957); The Naked Society (1970). KEY WORDS: the depth approach, manipulation.
Park, Robert E. (1864-1944): American sociologist, journalist. Founder of the Chicago School of sociology and criminology, his best-known media analysis was of how foreign-language newspapers helped (and hindered) immigrant assimilation into urban US communities. KEY READINGS: The Immigrant Press and Its Control (1922); Race and Culture (1950). KEY WORDS: assimilation, race.
Plato (428 BC-348 BC): Classical Greek Philosopher. His dialogues on rhetoric remain an important reference point for theories of persuasive communication as well as the relationship between media and memory (see McLuhan in The Gutenberg Galaxy). Plato’s Allegory of the Cave has been used to understand the relationship between reality and (media) representations of reality, not least by Lippmann. KEY READINGS: ‘Phaedrus’ in Plato: Complete Works (ed. John M. Cooper) (1997). KEY WORDS: Plato’s Cave.
Poster, Mark (1941-): American media and critical theorist. His work on postmodernism (especially Baudrillard) and new media is particularly noteworthy. KEY READING: The Second Media Age (1995); What’s the Matter With the Internet (2001). KEY WORDS: the second media age.
Postman, Neil (1931-2003): American media theorist, cultural critic. He argued that the historical shift from print media to audiovisual forms (especially television) led to a deterioration in learning and cultural appreciation. KEY READINGS: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1987); Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1993). KEY WORDS: Age of Exposition (versus Age of Show Business).
Riesman, David (1909-2002): American sociologist. Notable for his analysis of popular music among other cultural forms, he argued that mass media had come to replace parents/teachers as ‘tutors’ for the young. KEY READINGS: (with N. Glazer and R. Denney) The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (1950); ‘Listening to Popular Music’ in On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word (eds. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin) (1990). KEY WORDS: other-direction / other-directed character.
Rogers, Everett (1931-2004): American communication specialist. His diffusion of innovations theory is a key model in understanding societal adoption of new technologies. KEY READING:Diffusion of Innovations (1962). KEY WORDS: innovator/early adopter/early majority/late majority/laggard.
Said, Edward (1935-2003): Palestinian-American literary theorist, cultural critic. A major figure in postcolonial thought, Said argued that non-Western cultures (‘the Orient’) have been largely misrepresented and negatively stereotyped by dominant Western discourses, including those of Western media. KEY READINGS: Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (1978); Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (1981). KEY WORDS: orientalism.
Schiller, Herbert (1919-2000): American sociologist, media and cultural critic. Advocate of the media/cultural imperialism thesis, his scathing analysis of the corporate capitalist economics of US mass media is rarely been matched. KEY READINGS: Mass Communications and American Empire(1969); Culture, Inc.: The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression (1989). KEY WORDS: cultural imperialism, cultural homogenisation.
Shannon, Claude (1916-2001): American mathematician, information theorist, communication theorist. His mathematical model of the communication process – source-transmitter-signal (and noise)-receiver-destination – inspired research in the communication sciences. KEY READINGS: (with Warren Weaver) The Mathematical Theory of Communication (1949). KEY WORDS: noise, redundancy, entropy.
Silverstone, Roger (1945-2006): British sociologist, media theorist. His work on media consumption in everyday life, as well as his earlier ethnographic accounts of television production, remain standard reference points. KEY READINGS: Television and Everyday Life (1994); Why Study the Media? (1999). KEY WORDS: cycle of consumption.
Smythe, Dallas (1907-92): Canadian political economist of communications. His most notable work conceived media audiences as commodities, reduced to mere statistical facts by commercial broadcasters as a means of selling their advertising space. KEY READINGS: ‘Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism’ in Counterclockwise: Perspectives on Communication (1994);Dependency Road: Communications, Capitalism, Consciousness and Canada (1981). KEY WORDS: audience as commodity.
Thompson, John B. (unknown): British sociologist, publisher. He wrote an important theoretical account of mass-mediated communication, placing emphasis on the value of interactionist sociological perspectives. KEY READINGS: The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media (1995); Political Scandal: Power and Visibility in the Media Age (2000). KEY WORDS: mediated quasi-interaction.
Todorov, Tzvetan (1939-): Bulgarian literary theorist. His concept of ‘equilibrium’ is central to narrative theory. KEY READING: The Poetics of Prose (1971). KEY WORDS: equilibrium, disruption, recognition.
Tunstall, Jeremy (unknown): British sociologist, media critic. Renowned for his ideas on media/cultural imperialism, Tunstall has argued that Anglo-American media dominate the global market for news, television drama, films, etc. – though he has subsequently revised his original thesis. KEY READINGS: The Media Are American: Anglo-American Media in the World (1977);Communications Deregulation: The Unleashing of America’s Communications Industry (1986);The Media Were American: US Mass Media in Decline (2007). KEY WORDS: cultural imperialism, deregulation.
Turkle, Sherry (1948-): American sociologist of technology. Well-known commentator on the psychological effects of computer technologies, including gaming and the internet. KEY READINGS:The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (1984); Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (1995). KEY WORDS: sociable robots.
Virilio, Paul (1932-): French cultural theorist. Notable for his work on war and media, and the relationship between technology, speed and power. KEY READING: War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception (1989). KEY WORDS: the war model, newshound.
Williams, Raymond (1921-88): British literary and cultural critic. Although not principally a media scholar, Williams is arguably the most influential media theorist of modern times. His social histories of culture and communications, criticism of technological determinism, and ideas about television ‘flow’ and ‘mobile privatisation’, are stand-out contributions and evidence his interdisciplinary prowess. KEY READINGS: Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1974);Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1976); Communications (1966). KEY WORDS: (see Williams’s Keywords).
Williamson, Judith (unknown): British media critic. She wrote a seminal semiotic analysis of advertising in which she argued that the ideology of ads is to appeal to ‘you’ as ‘someone special’ – when in truth all ads are designed for mass appeal. KEY READING: Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising (1978); Consuming Passions: The Dynamics of Popular Culture (1988). KEY WORDS: referent system.
Zizek, Slavoj (1949-): Slovenian cultural theorist, film critic. Following Lacan, he applies psychoanalytic theory to a range of film and popular cultural phenomena. KEY READING: Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (2007). KEY WORDS: theoretical psychoanalysis.