Explorations in

Mass
Communication:
Issues and
Controversies
Catherine Murray
Fall 2003

CMNS-130

Course Team
Diana Ambrozas
Doris Baltruschat
Wei Gao
Natalie Tkachev

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Course Objectives
To provide a map to navigate
the field
history & political economy
Popular culture & media analysis
Society and technology

Locate contemporary
controversies

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Course Skills
Develop the Four stages of
critical thinking:
Description
Analysis, Framing of
Arguments and Proof
Interpretation & Debate
Evaluation/Originality
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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
Comparisons and analogies. Judgement. Argument and
Illustration.
Evaluation
A-A+ range
Values. Understanding
If creative originality or thought leadership an A plus

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Course Tools
Framing arguments
Organizing proof
Writing persuasively
Developed in tutorial debates
Short essay paper

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Lecture & Tutorial Support

Notes for lectures available from TA: Friday
Lectures are audiotaped and available in library
READ before lecture

Tutorials
Attend each tutorial
Participate in debate
Essay assignments: start by week 4
EXAMS
Mid Terms are Pop Quizzes in Tutorial
Workshop for final exam available

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The Big Picture

Communication is a battleground of
power
Historically, allied with state or business
corporations ( & now entertainment
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
consumers?
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Recent Issues &

Controversies

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Key Concepts
Media & Communication defined
Mass Communication defined
Model of the Communication
Process
Mapping the Flow

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The Definition of Media

Broadly, what enables communication to
take place
May be interpersonal and one on
one( speech, writing, facial gesture)
which is beyond scope of CMNS 130
May be technical/broader in scale
Specifically, a technological
development that extends the channel,
range of speed of communication
among large groups of people

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Media of Mass
Communication
Print

Newspapers
Magazines
Books

Audio

Radio
Music/Sound Recording

Visual
Film
TV
Videogames

Digital
Internet

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The Definition of
Communication
From Latin Communicare
Verb: to share, impart, to make
meaning common
To give or receive information, signals,
messages in any way
Using talk, gestures, writing or other
means
Definition: Fleras page 36
a meaningful exchange of information

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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 WW2

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Mass Communication
Communication from one person,
group or institution through a
transmission system or medium to
large audiences or markets
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?

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Transmission Model of
Communication
Sender.Message.Receiver
Based on Harold Lasswells model ( 1948)
Helps identify the stages through which
communication passes so each one can be
properly studied
Modern models recognize networks are more
complex, no longer one way and there is more
interaction and feedback between sender and
receiver

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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 social control, or marketing
Implies the study of state or government
policies, economic processes of advertising
and commodification of popular culture

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Characteristics of Mass
Communication
1.
2.
3.

Message produced in complex organizations

Message fixed in some form with information
and symbolic content ( either in digital bits or
commodity form)
Message is sent/transmitted or diffused widely
via a technological medium
Newspaper, magazine, CD or videocassette, radio,
television, satellite or Internet

4.
5.
6.

Message is delivered rapidly over great space

Message reaches large groups of different people
simultaneously or within a short period of time
Message is primarily one-way, not two way

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Transformation of Mass
Communication
Arrival of computers and switched twoway interactive technology digitization
Internet
From one to one, from many to
many--almost infinitely
Rise of transactional media ( pay per
bit)
Resistance of media piracy:swapping
and downloading
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Nature of the Mass

Communicator/Sender
Mass communication is produced in
complex formal organizations
With multiple gatekeepers
Using a great deal of money
Increasingly in private sector
institutions in the West
Existing to make a profit
In a highly competitive market,
working to reduce risk by merging
and oligopoly
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7 Trends in
Communication
1. Compression of space and time

Larger and larger territories covered: networks of networks

emerging (www)
Mobile, wireless untethered access: ubiquity
Communication across borders virtually instantaneously

2. Commodification

Spread of private and not public enterprise, interpenetration of

marketing, consumption and media
Widespread ideology of consumption/consumer sovereignty

3. Deregulation and Concentration and Conglomeration

Withdrawal of public sector, less regulation, more role for market

Trend to mergers and acquisitions
Multi media holdings

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7 Trends Contd
4. Globalization :

Growth in international trade in cultural products, rise of 6 or 8 main

companies dominating markets and merging industries
AOL Time Warner;Disney;Vivendi, Viacom, Sony, News, Bertelesmann

5.

Digitization and Convergence

6.

Specialization ( part of demassification)

7.

Conversion of sound pictures and text into computer readable formats by

representing them as strings of zeros and ones
Now, telecommunication providers involved in TV and cable
Digitization enables the production, circulation, manipulation and repurposing or storage of information on unprecedented scale

Narrowly casting or targeting communication to particular interests

shrinking share of general interest TV

Personalization

The daily me: personal tailoring of media diet/media products

Ideal type: MP3 downloading of custom music

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A Different Approach: the

Cultural Model
Encode meaning-----decode meaning
Involves Creation of the Text, design of
the sign. symbol or codes and
signification or interpretation
Fleras, p. 36:
Communication is much more than message
exchange.. The enrichment that
communication brings in terms of culture,
cohesion and connectedness is widely
acknowledged.

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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 are
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

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CMNS 130
Looks at issues of policy and political economy
Interaction of technology, organization of
cultural industries and cultural power
Text: Augie Fleras, Mass Media and
Communication in Canada
Fleras a sociologist

His agenda: This text intends to out the mainstream

media as a persuasive dynamic that manipulates and
conceals even as it enlightens and informs.
Contradictions prevail: to the one side the media
reflect, reinforce and advance the interests of the
powerful. To the other side, there are sufficient
openings for oppositional forces to transform the
mediavii.

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Next Week: Media and

Modernity
Read Fleras
Tutorial: Introduction to the Media
BACK TO LECTURE NOTES
BACK TO INDEX

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