Aya Ahlalouch
LANGUAGE AND MEDIA - SUMMARY
Voor Taal, Communicatie & Media
,Aya Ahlalouch
OPZET
Voor het tentamen behandelen we uit het boek Language and Media hoofdstuk 1, 3, 4,
8, 5 en 6 (op volgorde).
Ieder hoofdstuk bestaat uit 4 delen:
A. Introduction
Hier worden de hoofdzaken binnen de taal in de media behandeld.
Hoofdstuk 1 ⇒ Language and mediation
Hoofdstuk 3 ⇒ Media genre style
Hoofdstuk 4 ⇒ Media story telling
Hoofdstuk 8 ⇒ Truth lies and propaganda
Hoofdstuk 5 ⇒ Media & discourse processes
Hoofdstuk 6 ⇒ Audience, interaction and participation
B. Development
Betrekking met taal en media
Hoofdstuk 1 ⇒ Language, mediation and sites of engagement
Hoofdstuk 3 ⇒ Analyzing genres and styles in media
Hoofdstuk 4 ⇒ Telling and retelling stories
Hoofdstuk 8 ⇒ Persuasive discourse and media rhetoric
Hoofdstuk 5 ⇒ Production formats and discourse representation
Hoofdstuk 6 ⇒ Participation frameworks
C. Exploration
Analyse van taal en media
Hoofdstuk 1 ⇒ Media uses and users
Hoofdstuk 3 ⇒ Analyzing news stories and media interviews
Hoofdstuk 4 ⇒ Analyzing narratives in the media
Hoofdstuk 8 ⇒ Detecting biased, fallacious and fake news
Hoofdstuk 5 ⇒ Analyzing media production
Hoofdstuk 6 ⇒ Participation frameworks
D. Extension
Onderzoeken naar taal en media
,Aya Ahlalouch
Chapter 1
Contains A1, B1, C1 and D1.
A1: LANGUAGE AND MEDIATION
Talking about language in the media can be complicated: understanding a message in
the media requires figuring out how the language in the message interacts with visual
communication and with the kinds of expectations we bring to the message as a result
of being members of our society.
Social media allow ordinary people to produce and broadcast messages, and share
messages of others.
Digital media usage results in multitasking ⇒ constantly paying attention to
more than one thing at a time.
Mobile phones are combining different kinds of media ⇒ this is called media
convergence.
Media are complicated:
● They include all sorts of things.
● They are often connected or used together with other media in complex
ways.
● They affect the kinds of messages we can transmit to others, how those
messages can be formulated, who can formulate those messages, who
can receive them, and what recipients can do with them.
● They have an effect on the way people experience the world.
● People often have strong feelings about where, when, and how different
media are supposed to be used.
Language is complicated:
● It can include all sorts of things (like verbal and non-verbal, but also
images, sounds, music, and emojis).
● Different kinds of language are often used together and understanding
what a message means depends upon how these different kinds of
language work together.
● We don't just use language to make meaning, but also to do things with
and to other people (thanking, apologizing, requesting, etc.) to show that
we are certain kinds of people and to create certain types of relationships
with the people we are communicating with or communicating about.
● Messages communicated through different kinds of language never just
communicate facts, they always communicate someone’s POV.
, Aya Ahlalouch
Mediation
Definition of media ⇒ anything that comes between one entity and another and helps
to facilitate communication or interaction (= interconnectedness) between those two
entities.
- The process of facilitating the interaction between two entities is called
mediation.
Media can be:
- Mass media ⇒ television, newspapers, and the internet.
- Coins, maps, sculpture, stamps, clothes, seals and stones.
- Even the human voice and body can be considered media.
Psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1962, SU):
● all interactions between people and their environments are mediated through
cultural tools. This contains:
1) Physical tools (like hammers, telephones).
2) Mental tools (like language, systems of counting).
For example: a person who uses a hammer is able to do things that a person without a
hammer is unable to do. The same goes for language.
Media scholar Marshall McLuhan (1964, CAN):
● Media are ‘extensions of man’, because they extend our ability to do things in the
world.
○ Because they extend our abilities to do things in the world.
○ Microphones extend what we can do with our mouths, and computers
extend what we can do with our brains.
Media affect how we communicate, but Vygotsky and McLuhan take this further: they
say media don’t just affect how we communicate, but what we can do more broadly.
● Technical determinism = the view that the media determine what we can do,
think and communicate.
Media affect human actions, but humans are also creative in the way they use it.
Around the media, certain social conventions take place. These affect how media are
used, but are also a part of the way different groups consume media.
● Anthropologist Ilana Gershon calls these conventions media ideologies.
○ They include people’s beliefs about how different media should or
shouldn’t use them, whether they should be used alone or with other
people, and what sorts of messages should be communicated through
them.