spring 2007cmns 1301 explorations in mass communication: issues and controversies catherine murray

Spring 2007 CMNS 130 1

CMNS 130

Explorations in Mass Communication: Issues and

ControversiesCatherine Murray


Agenda

• Course Introduction & Expectations

• The Writing Assignments• The Logic of Course Design• Introductory Lecture

– What is Mass Communication?


Course Team

• Xinren Li• Carolyn Liu• Sherry Yu• Heather Fleming• Tara McFarlane (Writing Intensive Learning Office:LIDC)


Course Support

• www.sfu.ca/cmns/faculty/murray_c/– Click on current courses CMNS 130

http://www.sfu.ca/cmns/faculty/murray_c/

http://www.sfu.ca/cmns/faculty/murray_c/


CMNS 130 Course Objectives

• To provide a map to navigate the field of communication studies– history & political economy– Society and technology

• To identify different perspectives on contemporary controversies

• To teach the design of effective arguments in academic writing in this discipline


CMNS 130

• A gatekeeping course for majors• Leads to a range of courses which study the *institutions of the media– *institution:

• A relationship or behavioral pattern of importance in the life of a community or society

• An ever-present feature• An enduring organization, or set of organizations bound formally or informally by rules

• See custom courseware, page 40


Protocol for lectures

• Attend often• Read before• Switch off cell phones• Use laptops for notes only• ASK questions or take notes of questions to ask your TA

• This is a cumulative course: understand a unit before you move on


Lecture & Tutorial Support

Outline for lectures available midnight Wednesday– Download and Use outline as a guide to your own note taking in class

– Lectures are audiotaped and available in library

– READ before lecture

• Tutorials– Attend each tutorial– Participate in debate– Writing assignments: total 5– ONE FINAL EXAM

• Workshop for final exam available


Guide to Writing

• See Guidelines for Writing Assignments Spring 2007

• Consult Margaret Northey et al. 2005. Making Sense: A Student’s Guide to Research and Writing. 2nd edition. Oxford University Press.

• Use the style manual used in the Canadian Journal of Communication


Writing Assignments

• Two due in Tutorial:– Date to be assigned – 10% each – length: 350-500 words

• Article Analysis – due Feb 1,2007– 15%– Length: 750 words ( 3 pages)


Writing Assignments Cont’d

• Major Course Essay– Due March 15, 2007– 25%– Length 2,000-3,000 words or 8-12 pages /space and a half

• Creative Public Commentary– Due March 29, 2007– 10%– 150 words


DAIE for Course Skills

Develop the Four stages of critical thinking and academic writing :– Description– Analysis, Framing of Arguments and Proof

– Interpretation & Debate– Evaluation/Originality


The Alchemy of Grades• Description

– C+– Basic facts mastered and patterned

• Analysis– B range– Meaning of patterns probed, knowledge applied. Hierarchy

of patterning proofs• Interpretation

– High B to A-– Comparisons and analogies. Judgement. Argument and

Illustration.• Evaluation

– A-A+ range– Values. Understanding– If creative originality or thought leadership an A plus

• TIP: GUIDE YOUR EDITING BY THE MARKING RUBRIC WITH EACH ASSIGNMENT


Course Writing Assignments

• Frame arguments• Organize proofs• Write persuasively• Develop a unique expressive voice


The Logic of the Course Design

• Definitions & Disciplinary Distinctions

• Technology and History• Ideology & Propaganda• Law and Policy• Economics & Labour Processes• Culture & Symbols• Issues & Interests• Positions and Debates


STUDY QUESTIONS FOR THIS WEEK

• What is the main theme for CMNS 130?

• Watch for 4 key definitions• What is the transmission model of communication? How does it differ from the cultural model?


The Big Picture

• Communication is a battleground of power– Harold Adams Innis: Empire of Communication

• If knowledge is power, it becomes power only through communication

• Historically, allied with religious, or secular state powers and now business corporations

• Central to institutions of democracy and capitalism

• 130 outlines how media work, how they are shaped by and shaping the economic, political and social worlds around us

• Do the media create critical citizens or passive consumers?


Themes of CMNS 130• Propaganda& Persuasion is increasing• Citizens need to understand power over

communication and its hidden techniques of control

• Battles are between :– Censorship and Freedom of Expression– State and Market control– Information and Propaganda– Empowerment and Enslavement

• Frequently, at the expense of the citizen• Learn to decode the democratic deficit• Make the case for democratic communication


Recent Issues & Controversies

• Globally:– Danish papers right to publish cartoons of Mohammed

– Embargoed cell phone pictures of the hanging of Saddam Hussein

– Italian print media voluntarily restrict pictures of underweight models


Issues and Controversies Cont’d

• In Canada– Protests over application to import CCTV in Canada

– Licensing of Al Jazeera for importation in Canada if broadcast is previewed for compliance with hate laws

– Local Surrey radio station plays a role in holding town hall meetings about violence against women in the South Asian Community


The Paradox of Mass Communication

• Never more apparent choice– 500 channels, podcasts, blogs and Youtube

• Never over larger space, or shorter times, more convenient to the user

• Yet never more social controversy over morals and political impacts on human security, democracy and intercultural understanding


The Policy Conundrum

• Pendulum of power has swung away from direct state regulation of the economic structure or technology: rise of media behemoths, challenges ( eg Mp3s)

• But, a time of ‘war on terror’ which excuses state control of information on a scale not seen since the major world wars


Key Concepts

– Definitions of:•Communication•Mass Communication •Media

– Two models of the Communication Process


The Definition of Communication

• From Latin Communicare• Verb: to share, impart, to make meaning common

– To give or receive information,entertainment,signals, messages in any way

– Using talk, gestures, writing or other means• Everyday Definition:

– “ a meaningful exchange of information”


Origins of Communication

• Part of human search to transcend time and space

• One of the oldest of human practices:– Essential for social survival, economic

organization– Formal study rooted in classical politics from

times of Ancient Greece and Rome under a different title: rhetoric, literary criticism, persuasion (humanities)

– Development of the study of Mass Communication allied with rise of social sciences and mass marketing after WW2( social science influence)


Mass Communication

• Communication from– one person, group or institution – through a transmission system or medium

– to large audiences or markets • which are dispersed, anonymous and unknown to each other

• Usually on a very large scale• Often heterogenous

– READING REFERENCE: MCQUAIL PAGE 9 CUSTOM COURSEWARE

– ANALYTIC NOTE: SOMETIMES ASSOCIATED WITH A MASS SOCIETY CRITIQUE OF ALIENATION CC:10


Medium Defined

• Something intermediate• A middle state• An intervening thing through which something( an act or effect) is produced– CC:14– Colloquial: an intermediary mediates, translates, intercedes between adversaries


Key Characteristics

•From one (or few) to many– Implies concept of gatekeeper: controller of transmission/message design

– Implies concept of effectiveness and efficiency: is messaging achieving what it intended?


Media

• The social or market institution that enables communication to take place

• More specifically, a technological development (eg. Sound recording, photograph, telegraph) that extends the channels, range or speed of communication

• STUDY AID AND SOURCE: KEY CONCEPTS IN COMMUNICATIONS AND CULTURAL STUDIES ( 2ND ED.).


The Mass Media

• Books• Newpapers• Magazines• Sound Recording• Radio• Film• TV• Videogames


The Shapers of the Mass Media

• States and Regulators• Economic owners and controllers of the Media

• Creators and Analysts of the Media• Audiences/Citizens and Consumers


Characteristics of Mass Communication

1. Message produced in complex organizations ( sender)• Formally constituted institutions• Rule based• With ‘specialist’ vocations/professions

2. Message fixed in some form with information and symbolic content ( technology of delivery is either in digital bits or commodity form) (material)

3. Message is sent/transmitted or diffused widely via a technological medium

Newspaper, magazine, CD or videocassette, radio, television, satellite or Internet

4. Message is delivered rapidly over great space5. Message reaches large groups of different people

simultaneously or within a short period of time( mass audience of receivers)

6. Message is primarily one-way, not two way, although this is now being challenged at the margins1. STUDY AID: COMPARE AGAINST TABLE 2.1 PAGE 14 CC


Transformation of ‘Mass’ Communication

• Arrival of computers and switched two-way interactive technology …digitization

• Internet• From one to many to one to one … from many to many--almost infinitely

• Rise of transactional media ( pay per bit)

• Resistance of media piracy: swapping and downloading


Transmission Model of Communication

• Sender› Message› Receiver• Based on Harold Lasswell’s model in the discipline of political science in the US( 1948)

• Helps identify the stages through which communication passes so each one can be properly studied

• Modern models recognize process is more complex, no longer one way and there is more interaction and feedback between sender and receiver


Transmission Model II

• Central Questions:– Who says what to whom with what effect? ( transmission model)

– Useful in early study of propaganda, and advertising ( stimulus response assumption)

– Sees mass communication as a process of transmitting intentional messages for the purpose of changing behavior, persuading, social control, or marketing

– Implies the study of gatekeepers, symbolic producers, contents, dissemination, trade and impacts


A Different Approach: the Cultural Model

• The Media Encode meaning-----Decode meaning

• Involves Creation of the Text, design of the sign, symbol or codes and interpretation

• But NOT synonymous with the wider idea of popular culture – Communication is much more than message exchange.. The enrichment that communication brings in terms of culture, cohesion and connectedness is widely acknowledged.

– Communication unlocks the ideas of a culture– Intimately tied up everyday existence


Cultural Model II• Central Question:

– How does communication construct a map of meaning for people in everyday life? (cultural model)

– How do people negotiate common meaning and remain bound by it?

– Starts from the assumption that:Any attempt to understand the power of the media requires us first to understand how these products are located within and work to construct meaning in everyday life (Grossberg et al, p. 237).

– Embraces ideology/belief systems and ritual: mass communication is the representation of shared beliefs where ‘reality’ is produced maintained, repaired and transformed


Differences between the Two models

• Transmission Model• tends to focus on things,

structures• Derived from

transportation (CC:42)• Analytic: rational & linear• Focus on Gatekeepers,

Owners, Professionals• Objective: focus on

players, things, interests

• Cultural Model• Tends to focus on humans,

processes• Derived from

linguistics/humanities tradition

• Holistic: irrational & nonlinear

• Focus on receivers, audience

• Ideology/meaning is central so subjective, often critical


Implications of the Two models


How different authors bridge the two

• Lorimer and Gasher ( reading one) combine them:– Mass communication is the transmission and transformation of meaning on a large scale

– ( but?)

• Grossberg et al(reading two) argue they are complementary

• QUOTE FOR THE DAY:– WE LIVE IN A WORLD OF MEDIA BUT NOT IN A MEDIA WORLD ( CUSTOM COURSEWARE: P.37 GROSSBERG ET AL)


Next Week: Media and Modernity

• Read • Tutorial: A Survival Guide to 130 so prepare your questions

• Tutorial: Introducing Chomsky Assignment( A Propaganda Model of Communication): look up Chomsky bio– TUTORIAL TIP: CUSTOM COURSEWARE PP. 36-38 and 44-45 ARE KEY

– WRITING TIP: MEDIUM IS SINGULAR, MEDIA ARE PLURAL CC P. 38

spring 2007cmns 1301 explorations in mass communication: issues and controversies catherine murray

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