Blog #13

1.The earliest types of media studies were media effects research and cultural studies. Media effects research studies and explains an individual’s effect on media. This research usually focuses on the connection between violence and aggressive behavior in the media of children and teenagers. Cultural studies is the understanding of how people apprehend, articulate, and how they make meaning of culture. This type of study normally focuses on the way groups in our society, such as political and corporate leaders, use the media to publicize their message to the community and to sustain the public’s interest.

2. The major influence that led to scientific media research was the journalist Walter Lippmann. He told journalists to work like they were scientists when they were gathering information. Lippmann was the first to apply journalism with psychology which led to a better understanding the effects of media by focusing more on the collection of data and numerical measurement. Propaganda, public opinion research, social psychology studies, and marketing research has also influenced with the increase of media research.

3. Content analysis is a study of experiments and surveys that focus particularly on the relationship between violence and the media.  This study uses surveys and experiments to see if the surveys and experiments correlate with the media.

4. The difference between the hypodermic-needle model and the minimal-effect model is the amount of people a story effects an audience.  The hypodermic- needle model is when the media gives stories to a huge population and they are affected by it.  The minimal-needle theory is when the media alone can’t change people’s attitudes and behaviors. Instead, people expose themselves to media messages that they are more familiar with and hold onto those messages that already support their values and attitudes. The minimal-effect model doesn’t effect a large population like the hypodermic-needle model. Instead, it mostly affects uneducated people and children.

  

5. The social learning theory basically explains that people don’t display certain actions due to the media. Rather, an individual learns these behaviors through other people. Agenda setting is when the media pays more attention to a certain event and they make an agenda for when society should see the event. It says that the more stories the news does on a certain subject, the audience will become more and more attached to the subject. The cultivation effect says that the more people watch T.V., the more people will view the world that is consistent with television portrayals. The cultivation effect focuses more on how the audience views the media. The spiral of silence theory is when people who have their own beliefs keep their views to themselves if the rest of society has a different view on the subject. The third-person effect is when people get concerned with the media because events that happen in the media could possibly happen to them.

6. The strengths of modern media research is that is has the freedom to interpret the impact of mass media. The limitations of modern media is that they focused more on the meaning or the text of media programs and neglect the effect it has on their audiences.

7. Cultural studies developed to oppose media effect research because media organizations only looked at an individual’s behavior rather than questioning where is the media taking us. Cultural studies were more interested in learning how people understand reality, and how media shapes history, politics, and economics.

8. Cultural studies were created from the writings of political philosophers. Cultural studies are more focused on the daily experience, especially the problems of hierarchy, gender, sexuality, race and inequality of power. Cultural studies research use audience studies, political economy studies, and textual analysis.

9. Specialization in academic research started to become isolated at universities. The reason for this isolation is because people were concerned that the public couldn't understand what these academic researchers were saying and couldn't relate. These academic studies don’t focus on the everyday problems and they aren't practical.

10. Public intellectuals contributed to societies debates about the mass media because they encouraged the discussion about the media production in today’s digital world. For example, Lawrence Lessig started rewriting the copyright laws to allow noncommercial to spread throughout the internet. Pat Aufderheide worked with independent film-workers so that they can have access to copyright material for their films. Public intellectuals helped keep the conversations about society and culture alive, spreading new important ideas of today’s world and being a model for how to engage in public life.