Lecture notes

UvA Milestones in Communication Science all notes

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Module
Milestones in Communication Science

Institution
Milestones In Communication Science

Book
McQuail\'s Mass Communication Theory

UvA Milestones in Communication Science full lecture notes, part of the Communication Science minor. My grades for this course are 8.5, 8.5 and 10.

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Uploaded on October 20, 2023
Number of pages 60
Written in 2022/2023
Type Lecture notes
Professor(s) Dr. r. de graaf
Contains All classes

communication science
lectures
milestones in communication science
notes
summary

Book Title:McQuail\'s Mass Communication Theory

Author(s):Denis Mcquail

Edition:Unknown
ISBN:9781849202916
Edition:6

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NOTES FOR MILESTONES IN COMMUNICATION SCIENCE

Reading materials

Week 1 Reading: Chapter 1
1) Object of study:
- Nothing outside of media anymore: all experiences are connected to media
- Sonia Livingstone (2011: 1472): “Everything is mediated - from childhood to war,
politics to sex, science to religion - and more so than ever before [...] Nothing
remains unmediated
- (mass)communication has always been constitutive of society, fundamental
to all human action
- Expanding media technologies have amplified and accelerated human
communication on an unprecedented scale
- “Mediation of everything”: media have permeated not only the world but
also the ways in which we have access to, act in, and make sense of that world
- The role of media has increased significantly in these recent years, making theorists
have to rethink and re-theorize the profound role media and mass communication
play in every day, in politics, and in the construction of reality itself
- The “double hermeneutics” typical of the field: media scholars interpret a reality
that has already been interpreted by the senders and receivers of media: both theory
and practice are changeable
- Fundamental assumptions in the study of media and mass communication (Lang,
2013):
- Media and mass communication are pervasive and ubiquitous
- Media and mass communication act upon (and are acted upon by) by people
and their social environment
- Media and mass communication change both the environment and the
person
- The primary goals and questions of media and mass communication
researchers are to: demonstrate the various elements
(production-content-reception), roles, influences, and effects of media and
mass communication, and, explain how they come about
- Mass communication: refers to messages transmitted to a large audience via one or
more media. Media are the means of transmission of such messages. Media theory

, considers how these messages mean different things to different people as
determined by the different channels used to communicate them.
- It is crucial to appreciate the role that the specific media play in bringing
about certain meanings and impact
- The term “mass communication” was coined and born into the context of the early
20th century: an age of mass migration into cities and across frontiers and also of
the struggle between forces of change and repression and of conflict
- The key features of mass communication since the 20th century:
- The capacity to reach a large swath so of the population rapidly
- The universal fascination they hold
- Their stimulation of hopes and fears in equal measure
- The presumed relation to sources of power in society
- The assumption of great impact and influence
- Mass self-communication: self-directed in the elaboration and sending of the
message, self-selected in the reception of the message, and self-defined in terms of
the formation of the communication space:
- The political realm becomes accessible to a variety of actors
- Culturally: the media is the main channel of cultural representation and
expression and the primary source of images of social reality and materials
for forming and maintaining social identity
- Media have become a playground/battleground
- There is no absolute line between what is private and what is public, and a key
observation about our current media environment must be that: “It used to take
effort to be public. Today, it often takes effort to be private”
2) Themes and Issues in Media and Mass Communication
- Time:
- Communication takes place in time and it matters when it occurs and how long it
takes
- Increased the speed at which a given volume of information can be transmitted
from point to point
- Stores information for recovery at a later point in historic time
- Places
- Communication is produced in a given location and reflects features of that context
- It serves to define a place for its inhabitant and to establish an identity
- Connect places, reduce distance
- A delocalizing effect/Establish a new global ‘place’

, - “Placeless place”
- Power
- Social relationships are structured and driven by power
- Communication serves as an invariable component and a frequent means of the
exercise of power
- Combat and enhance existing social inequalities
- Social reality
- We inhabit a ‘real’ world of material circumstances and events that can be known
- Media provides people with reports or reflections of this reality, with
varying degrees of accuracy
- The notion of ‘truth’: applied as a standard but blurred by fake news and
disinformation
- “Mediation of everything” as collapsing the boundaries of online and offline life,
between public and private communication, between mediated and non-mediated
lived experiences
- MIXED REALITY
- Meaning
- Most theories of mass media depend on some assumption being made about the
meaning of what they carry
- An endless potential for dispute and uncertainty
- Causation and determinisim
- Concern and ask for explanations that link observations or by directing inquiry to
determine whether one factor caused another
- Not only reflected on individuals but also on the society and history etc.
- Mediation
- Consider the media to provide occasions, links, channels, arenas, or platforms for
information and ideas to circulate
- Meanings are formed and circulated during such processes
- The process of mediation influences or changes the meaning received
- An increasing tendency for ‘reality’ to be adapted to the demands of media
presentation rather than vice versa
- Identity
- Refer to both an individual sense of wholeness and a shared sense of belonging to a
culture, society, place, or social grouping
- The mass media are associated with different aspects of self- and social-identity
formation, maintenance, and dissolution

, - Drive/reflect social changes and lead to either more or less integration
- Cultural difference
- How much the workings of mass communication and media institutions are
affected by differences in culture at the level of individual, subgroup, nation etc.
- Governance
- All the means by which the various media are regulated and controlled by laws,
rules, customs, and codes, and market management
- Relations with politics and the sate
- Political campaigns and propaganda
- Citizen participation and democracy
- Media role in relation to war and terrorism
- Influence on the making of foreign policy
- Serving or resisting sources of power
- Cultural issues
- Globalization of content and flow
- Promoting the quality of cultural life and cultural production
- Effects on cultural and social identity
- Social Concerns
- The definition of reality and mediation of social experience
- Links to aggression, crime, and violence
- Relation to social order and disorder
- Promotion of information and media-literate society
- The use and quality of leisure time
- Social and cultural inequality
- Normative questions
- Freedom of speech and expression
- Social and cultural inequality: class, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality
- Media norms, ethics, and professionalism
- Media accountability and social responsibility
- Economic concerns
- Degree of concentration
- Commercialization of content
- Privacy and surveillance capitalism
- Global imperialism and dependency
3) Manner of Treatment
4) Limitations of Coverage and Perspective

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