Chapter 5
Communication and Culture
❖ James Carey (1975) → ritual model (alternative to the dominant view of
communication)
➢ defined communication as a symbolic process whereby reality is
produced, maintained, repaired and transformed
➢ defined culture as a process, but it can also refer to shared attribute of a
human group, texts, and symbolic artifacts (works of art) that are encoded
with particular meanings by and for people with particular cultural
identifications
❖ Cultural theory- culture comprises ideas, customs, and social behavior of a
specific group/society
Towards defining culture
➔ it is not possible to give a precise definition of culture because the term cover so
many things and is variously used
➔ culture must have the following attributes:
◆ collective and shared with others (no purely individual culture)
◆ must have some symbolic form of expression (intended or not)
◆ there is a dynamic continuity over time (cultural lives and changes has a
history and potentially a future)
◆ has some pattern, order or regularity, therefore some evaluative
dimensions
◆ most general and essential attribute of culture is communication
● cultures cannot develop, survive, extend and succeeded without it
➔ places to look for culture:
◆ in people
◆ in things (texts, artifacts)
◆ in human practices (socially patterned behaviors)
➔ the role of people:
◆ producers of culturally significant media publications
◆ consumers of media publications
Themes of media-cultural theory
*the main questions and theoretical issues:
1. the quality of mass culture→ the initial tendency was to view mass culture in a
negative light, nearly always involved a view of people as a mass- new form of
social collectivity
2. the nature of popular culture→ seen now not just as a cheap alternative, mass
produced for mass consumption, but as a vital new branch of cultural creativity
and enjoyment
3. the impact of technology→ before, cultural experience was mediated by
personal contact, religious ceremonies, public performance or printed texts→
, now, mediated cultural experience is accessible to virtually all in great variety of
forms
4. political economy and culture→ media thought of as consciousness industry,
driven by economic logic and cultural changes
5. globalization→ increase in internalization of cultural production and
distribution
6. identity→ relates to cultural identity and class (defined in various levels as
national/ethnic/local/linguistic)
7. ideology→ particular attention is paid to convert or unconscious meanings that
stem from cultural context or the language or coding system employed
The Beginnings: The Frankfurt School and Critical Cultural Theory
● examines media content- the cultural aspects of media messages
○ applies content analysis and borrows theories and methods from
literature and art
● founded to investigate the failure of Karl Marx’s prediction of the revolutionary
social change
● belongs to a Neo-Marxist school of thought- had members like Max
Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno
● critic of pop culture and opposition against the commercial background of
cultural debasement
○ critical cultural theory→ examines cultural products, their production,
and analysis in a fault-finding way to disclose and object to the
power-structure of society
■ populist and radical version of critical theory
○ theory of commodification (Karl Max)→ objects are commodified by
obtaining an exchange value, not an intrinsic use-value. Cultural products
are produced/sold/exchanged by consumers to receive short-term
satisfaction
■ creates false consciousness (specially in working class)
○ Herbert Marcusse (1964)- mass consumption society is
one-dimensional, founded on commerce, advertisement and faulty
egalitarianism
■ critique against mass culture due to uniformity, reduction of
individualism to mere customers, removal or all ideological
choices, worship of technique, monotony, escapism, and
production of false needs
Ideology and resistance→ change of perception from pessimistic approach to
consumer society to an optimistic one
★ Birmingham School- founded by Richard Hoggar and Stuart Hall
○ analysis of pop culture that focused on examining cultural topics
■ subjective opinions and the birth of popular culture
, ○ focused on reception analysis, meaning-making and audience decoding
○ Stuart Hall→ semiotic approach introduced called ‘encoding-decoding
model of communication’
■ investigated the different roles of media publications
■ theoretical approach to understanding ways media messages are
produced, transmitted, and interpreted
● proposes that audience members (relying on social
contexts), use differential decoding to interpret the contents
of media publications in different ways
■ Hall does not deny ideology is embedded into media messages
● he provides contarstic view by emphasizing the role of the
recipient- the way audience members interpret ideology in
the media texts
★ revaluation of pop culture→ diminished stigma
○ “popular culture is a hybrid product of numerous and never-ending
efforts for expression in a contemporary idiom aimed at reaching people
and capturing a market”
The Redemption of the Popular Culture
the change in perception regarding the role of pop culture
caused pop culture to be seen as a significant component of people’s lives,
affecting individuals in different ways
pop culture was no longer regarded as a shallow and superficial things,
representing poor taste of the masses (like the Frankfurt School thought)
Mass media & postmodern culture
➢ media play a notable role in people’s life
○ effects are wide-raging because people have a degree of semiotic
power→ the power to shape meaning to individual desires
Chapter 6
New Media and Mass Communication
● Mass media has changed -> there are social, economic, and technological
reasons for this shift
● newer media and their uses do not replace
○ they tend to act as accelerators and amplifiers of long-term trends in the
socio-technical history of other media
○ no necessary end-point
○ different media are usually transformed through a complex interplay of
real and perceived needs, competitive and political pressures, and
continuous social and technological changes
○ Fidler, 1997
■ mediamorphic process
, ● Fidler warns against technomyopia: the tendency of people
to overestimate the short-term impact of technology, while
simultaneously underestimating its long-term potential
What is New about the New Media?
To determine the level of “newness” of any medium -> decide what approach to tak
- technological characteristics and affordances of the technology involved
- perspective of the user and the particular social context within which the
medium gets used
- content and services being offered through a particular device, platform, or
interface
The most fundamental aspect of information and communication technology (ICT)
❖ is digitalization
➢ process by which all texts can be reduced to a binary code and can share
the same process of production, distribution and storage
➢ the general institution of mass media survives a distinct element of public
social life
➢ the new electronic media do not necessarily replace the existing spectrum
The internet deviates from the typification on three of fix points considering the
main features of media institution:
- the internet is not only or even mainly concerned with the production and
distribution of messages- is at least equally concerned with processing, exchange
and storage
- the new media are as much an institution of private as of public communication
and are regulated (or not) accordingly
- their operation is not typically professional or bureaucratically organized to the
same degree as mass media
- these are quite significant differences that underscore the fact that the new
media correspond with mass media primarily in being widely diffused, in
principle available to all for communication, and to some extent free from direct
control
- Poster (1999)-> describes the essence of the internet as its very
underdetermination, not only because of its diversity and uncertainty in the
future, but also because of its essentially post-modernist character.
- points to key differences with broadcasting and print
New media differences from old: The internet incorporates radio, film and television
and distributes them through ‘push’ technology… it transgresses the limits of the print
and broadcasting models by:
1. enabling many-to-many conversations
2. enabling the simultaneous reception, alteration and redistribution of cultural
objects
