Media theory I: Mediatization and effects – summary of all required
readings
Course code: LJX020B05
Table of Contents
Week 1: Introduction to the Course Unit and The Topic of Media Effects............................2
Potter, W. J. (2012). Media Effects. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage. Chapter 1, Why study
media effects? (pp. 5-14), chapter 2, Defining key ideas (pp. 17-31), and chapter 3, What is a
media effect? (pp. 35-49). E-book available via SmartCat...........................................................2
Week 2: The Historical Development of Theories and Models of Media Effects...................8
McQuail, D. (2010). McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory (6th edition). London: Sage.
Chapter 17, Processes and models of media effects (only read pp. 453-462)...............................8
Yeo, S. K., Cacciatore, M. A., & Scheufele, D. A. (2015). News selectivity and beyond:
Motivated reasoning in a changing media environment. In O. Jandura, C. Mothes, T.
Petersen, & A. Schielicke (Eds.), Publizistik und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung: Festschrift
für Wolfgang Donsbach. Springer. Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274567687_News_Selectivity_and
_Beyond_Motivated_Reasoning_in_a_Changing_Media_Environment...................................12
Week 3: Examples of Media Effect Theories.........................................................................18
- Potter, W. J. (2012). Media Effects. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage. Chapter 5, Media
theories (pp. 67-83) and chapter 12, Macro level effects on the public (pp. 241-254)...............18
Chapter 12, Macro level effects on the public.............................................................................22
Week 4: Cultural Studies Approaches to the Societal Impact of Media...............................26
- Raymond, W. (1961). The Long Revolution. London: Chatto & Windus. Chapter 2, The
Analysis of Culture (pp. 41-71). Retrieved from:
https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/88660/original/Williams+-
+The+Analysis+of+Culture.pdf....................................................................................................26
Shaw, A. (2017). Encoding and decoding affordances: Stuart Hall and interactive media
technologies. Media, Culture & Society, 39(4), 592-602...............................................................27
Week 5: Media Logic...............................................................................................................31
Altheide, D.L. (2015). Media Logic. In Mazzoleni G. (Ed.), The International Encylopedia of
Political Communication. Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313386386_Media_Logic.........................................31
Van Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding social media logic. Media and
communication, 1(1), 2-14. Retrieved from: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?
abstract_id=2309065.....................................................................................................................33
Week 6: Mediatisation.............................................................................................................38
Krotz, F. (2017). Explaining the mediatisation approach. Javnost-The Public, 24(2), 103-118.
........................................................................................................................................................38
Week 7: Different Approaches to Mediatisation....................................................................42
, - Hjarvard, S. (2008). The mediatization of society. Nordicom review, 29(2), 102- 131.
Retrieved from: https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/nor.2008.29.issue-2/nor-2017-
0181/nor-2017-0181.pdf.................................................................................................................42
Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2013). Conceptualizing mediatization: Contexts, traditions,
arguments. Communication Theory, 23(3), 191-202...................................................................54
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,Week 1: Introduction to the Course Unit and The Topic of Media Effects
Potter, W. J. (2012). Media Effects. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage. Chapter 1, Why study
media effects? (pp. 5-14), chapter 2, Defining key ideas (pp. 17-31), and chapter 3, What is a
media effect? (pp. 35-49). E-book available via SmartCat
Chapter 1
This chapter focuses on the big picture of media effects by emphasizing 3 trends:
1. media message saturation
2. the growing challenge of coping
3. the growth of knowledge about media effects
1. Media message saturation
Increasing use of media
Driven by younger people who are shifting away from traditional media toward
electronic forms of media (‘M generation’).
Accelerating production of information
Information easily available and keeps getting produced at an ever-increasing rate
Biggest drivers of this accelerating increase in information are the growing
popularity of social networking and digital television and cameras that are not
only used by hobbyists by in surveillance of public places.
Accelerating generation of information and the sharing of that information
through the increasing number of media channels and the heavy traffic of media
vehicles traversing those channels. Saturated with information, impossible to keep
up
2. The challenge of coping
To navigate our way efficiently day-to-day through our information-saturated culture,
we rely on automatic processing
Automaticity: a state wherein our minds operate without any conscious effort
from us.
Advantage: Help us to get through great many decisions with almost no effort.
Disadvantages: when our minds are on automatic pilot, we may be missing a lot of
messages that might be helpful or enjoyable to us. We might not have programme
Several factors influencing our automatic routines and mental codes.
Media Influence is pervasive and constant: continually and constantly
programming and re-programming our mentol codes.
3. The growth of knowledge about media effects
Much research on media effects. Instead, we need to develop an appreciation for the wide
range of effects that show up in the full spectrum of the population. Many of these effects
are subtle to observe at any given time, but this does not make them unimportant.
Chapter summary:
1. a great deal of information being produced each year and that production of new
information continues to grow at an accelerating rate. We cannot avoid massive
exposure to media messages in our information-saturated culture.
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, 2. This continual flood of information influences us whether we pay conscious attention
to it or not.
3. There is a large base of knowledge that clearly demonstrates that there is a wide range
of media effects that are continually occurring in all kinds of people across the full
span of our population.
Chapter 2
How do humans process media messages?
2 sides:
1. The human mind is a machine that automatically processes meaning from the
outside, then stores those learned meanings in the brain.
2. People are interpretive beings who have the freedom to construct any kind of
meaning they want out of any message.
1. The Human mind as a machine:
human mind is efficient at making sense of all the chaos of stimuli we encounter
every day in our lives
must acquire many common meanings for words, pictures, sounds, smells, and
sensations (mental codes.
allows us to navigate through thousands of messages every day with almost no
effort
2. Humans as interpretive beings
We have a great deal of freedom to think for ourselves, and this allows for a wide
variety of opinions, experiences, and lifestyles
We as humans have the power to reject the common meanings and wander off in a
completely new direction of meaning.
3 kinds of exposure:
1. Physical exposure: proximity (in time and space) to the media message, occupying
the same physical space
2. Perceptual exposure: human's sensory bandwidth or the ability to receive
appropriate sensory input through the visual and auditory senses
also consider the connection between the sensory input and the processing in the
brain
Subliminal messages can leave no psychological trace because they cannot be
physically perceived; that is, humans lack the sensory organs to take in stimuli
and/or the hard wiring in the brain to be sensitive to them.
3. Psychological exposure: In order for psychological exposure to occur, there must be
some trace element created in a person's mind (e.g. sound, emotion, pattern etc.).
Brief-term or long-term memory, enter the mind conscious or unconscious
Only when all three conditions of exposure are met can there be attention.
And also conscious awareness of the media message.
Differences in experiencing the exposure to media messages, depending on the psychological
state we are in when we encounter a message, 4 possible exposure states:
1. Attentional: conscious awareness of the messages during exposures.
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