Let’s talk about “Lou”I asked for critique (“a critical estimate

or discussion,” according to the dictionary)

What I got from several of you: a synopsis. That’s not enough.

Relate the dramatic action in the episode to real-life communication concepts and events.

Tell me what this episode says about media and culture

How-toRossi states, “Appearance of something wrong

can ruin credibility.” This statement relates to the real media because if they provide inaccurate information, it could potentially be the downfall of that newspaper or news station.

This episode examines the blur between relationships and professionalism … This concept is actually still relevant to any news source today. New York Times reporter Ray Hernandez covers the U.S. Congress. It was discovered that he was sleeping with the communications director for Edolphus Towns, a Democratic congressman from Brooklyn.

What are you critiquing?Not the episode itselfI didn’t take off this time if you did thatBut in the future, refer to my prompt

from two slides ago. It’s about relating the episode to media issues.

Your paperIt’s 1,500 words. Not 1,200. Not 800.

Anywhere outside +/- 5% will receive 20 points off – one letter grade.

To conform with APA style, your paper must include the following: title page, in-text citations, reference list, page numbers in the upper right corner, a “running head” and the title in the header of every page.

No footnotes or end notes.No abstract.

More on your paperNo “I,” “me,” “us,” or other first-person pronounsA strong thesis will get you everywhere. Thesis

statements are almost always found at the end of the first paragraph (the intro). The rest of your paper should deal with your stated thesis.

Cite early and often. If you go much more than a paragraph without citing something, you should be worried.

Cite when you paraphrase. Cite when you quote. Don’t cite if it’s common knowledge.

Communication Theory

CMAT 101Prof. Jeremy Cox

What is a theory? It’s based on a hypothesis and supported by

EVIDENCE. In this way, it is not a guess, hunch, speculation or

other colloquial synonym.Theory is a set of assumptions, propositions, or

accepted facts that attempts to provide a plausible or rational explanation of cause-and-effect (causal) relationships among a group of observed phenomenon.

The word’s origin (from the Greek thorós, a spectator), stresses the fact that all theories are mental models of the perceived reality. (Credit: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/theory.html)

What is a theory?Examples of theories: gravity, Einstein’s

relativity, evolution, plate tectonics, germ theory of disease.

Theories may be change, be improved upon, be discarded in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (see heliocentric universe).

Theories, by definition, cannot be proven (except in math). Improving on theories is what science is all about.

In short...theory just helps explain how the world works.

What is communication?... Is the synthesis of three different

activities. (see http://www.euro.ubbcluj.ro/filosofii/fil/luhmann_what_is_communication.pdf)

1. The selection of information

2. The selection of utterance of information

3. The selective understanding understanding or misunderstanding of this utterance and its information.

Components of communication Input: The intention to communicate, which makes up

the content of the messageSender: The sender encodes the message, arranging it

into sentences.Channel: Spoken words go through air. In mass media:

newspaper, pixels, television.Receiver: Decodes the message, translates it and

receives the...Output: The content decoded by the receiver.Code: Sender and receiver must have common ground in

their outputs and inputs to make communication work.

4 eras of mass communication theoryEra of mass society theory (outdated)Era of limited effects perspective

(outdated)Cultural theory era (contemporary)Era of the meaning-making perspective

(contemporary)

Mass society theoryThe late 19th and early 20th century was a scary

time for traditionalists in Western society. Industrialization, migration from farms to cities,

new technologies such as radio and talkies were upending the status quo.

The theory: the media are corrupting influences that undermine the social order and that “average” people are defenseless against its influences.

“Average” = people who did not hold the theorists’ superior tastes and values (Barran, p. 362)

Mass society theory evidence?Journalism was sensational and

simplistic (this being the Yellow Journalism era), catering to the basest of tastes.

The success of propaganda efforts by totalitarian governments in Europe, particularly the Nazis, demonstrated media’s powerful effect on the masses.

Also known as the hypodermic needle theory or magic bullet theory.

Central figure Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), Harvard

graduate and former socialist, was an influential newspaperman and commentator.

Main work: “Public Opinion.” (1922)“I argue that representative government ... cannot be worked successfully ... unless there is an independent expert organization for making the unseen facts intelligible to those who have to make the decisions ... [thus] allow[ing] us to escape from the intolerable and unworkable fiction that each of us must acquire a competent opinion about all public affairs.”

Washington turns to Hollywoodhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBU

KRAE2O9c

Mass society theory problemsIt was a grand theory, one designed to

explain all aspects in a given phenomenon.

Not based on rigorous study.People do make consumption choices

and interpret media content.Some media effects were good.

Limited effects perspectiveTraced to one day in history: the night

before Halloween 1938The night of Orson Wells’ broadcast of

“The War of the Worlds.”1 million people were frightened

enough to take some action. Proof of mass society theory?

Not really. Another 5 million people who heard it did nothing.

Central figurePaul Lazarsfeld

(1901-1976), Austrian-born sociologist.

Using advances in survey research, polling and other social scientific techniques, he applies research to his theory.

Lazarsfeld’s 2-step flow theoryIdeas “flow” from mass media to

opinion leaders and from them to a wider population.

Unlike the direct impact of the hypodermic needle, Lazarsfeld posited a human intermediary.

Opinion leaders are people with most access to the media (the head of the family, your boss, your mayor) who explain and diffuse the content to others.

Two-step problemsUnavailable at the time of the theory’s

creation in 1940, television gave everyone a relatively equal opportunity to consume media firsthand.

We still count of friends and others to share mass media with us (“Have you seen the new ‘Transformers’ movie? It sucked!”), but their role isn’t nearly as central to the communication process as it was back in the day.

Limited effects theoriesDissonance theory: when confronted

by new or conflicting information, people experience a kind of mental discomfort (dissonance), causing them to consciously or subconsciously work to limit or reduce that discomfort. (Limited because of the filtering.)

People do that in three ways1. Selective exposure (skip over FOX

News)2. Selective retention (quickly forgetting

FN)3. Selective perception (“FN is full of

liars!”)

Agenda settingPosits that media may not tell us what to

think, but it tells us what to think about.Involves how much space or time is

devoted to the issue and placement in the broadcast or page. An A1 story is more important than one on A26.

In this way, agenda-setting is related to the gatekeeping function of media – its power to select what it deems “news” and filter out all that isn’t up to snuff.

Agenda setting in actionMedia tend to “herd” around major

stories. So, it’s one thing for a major paper to

have coverage of an event on its front page, but if most other papers – big and small – do it too, you have a whole nation looking at the same agenda.Republican Super Tuesday coverage:

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=DC_WP&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=1http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=DE_NJ&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=1http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=AL_TN&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=1

Cultural theoryWe’re back to powerful effects.Television grew in popularity and impact in the

1960s, coinciding with a time of great social change – racial strife, increasing coarseness of political rhetoric, the so-called sexual revolution.

Limited effects seemed kind of limited.Cultural theories assume that our experience

with reality is an ongoing social construction. Audiences actively process the information, reshape it and store only what serves their needs.

Critical cultural theoryPosits that “media operate primarily to

justify and support the status quo at the expense of ordinary people.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Hey, who let that guy in here?!

1. A “Leftist” orientation

2. Wants to throw the bums out

3. Elites control the media

News production research

Focuses on how economic and other influences shape, distort and bias news coverage.

Media members become enculturated into news production (a.k.a. “professionalization)

4 news production conventions

1) Personalized news: stories revolve around people, which may be interesting but reduces important issues to soap opera-level that ban be easily dismissed.

How this convention drove but ultimately undercut one of the biggest projects in my life: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-01-30/story/hope-raising-our-children-amid-stresses-life

News conventions2) News must have drama, especially on television.

How about a dramatization to illustrate this point? Volunteers to help read?

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/99/99anewswatch.phtml

4 news conventionsNews is fragmented. TV spots are short. Most newspapers

have only a small amount of space to tell a story.

Result: The reader/viewer gets only a small part of the story, and what’s usually missing is the context.

4 news conventionsNews is “normalized.”Media tend to follow newswriting conventions

that necessarily overlook certain angles. Example: reporting on human-made

disasters. Media focus on what officials say. In a plane crash, that would be the FAA’s actions to investigate, find the black box, keep the scene clear, etc.

It says, “What happened here is bad, but authorities are sorting it out.”