Media, culture and society – Paul Hodkinson
Summary chapter 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13
Chapter 1 (introduction)
Media = the artificial forms of media to enhance and extend our communicative
capacity
Culture = creative expressions and a way of life
Society = the body of institutions and relationships within which a relatively large
group of people live (Williams, 1988)
3 approaches to media influence:
1) Media as a shaper / constructer: Media -> Society
Example: media depictions of sex and violence influence viewers in their real
lives
2) Media a reflection / mirror of society: Society -> Media
Reflect things that are already important in society: ‘don’t shoot the
messenger’
3) Circular model of representation and influence: media -> <- society
Even though media content often relates closely to social trends and cultural
values, they offer a selective set of representations of the world.
Shannon & Weaver’s model of communication:
-Semantic problems = recipient might misunderstand message due to ambiguities in
its content
-Effectiveness problems = failure of the message to have the desired impact on
recipient
-focuses of efficiency of technical apparatus
-treats communication as transport of a pre-existing message: one-way, linear
process: sender is active, receiver is limited
-hypodermic syringe = messages are automatically injected into recipient’s mind
-Social and cultural context left out
Laswell’s communication model:
who? (sender) -> says what (message) -> in which channel? (medium) -> to whom
(recipient) -> with what effect? (effect)
-Each factor is equally important for outcome
-Can be applied to all forms of communication
-Does consider status of recipient, unlike Shannon & Weaver’s model, but is linear
as well: recipient is passive.
,Chapter 2
Marshall McLuhan: ‘the medium is the message’, content is not that
important
Each media technology enables a different extension of our communicative senses.
Because of the ease which we can communicate across the world through electronic
media, we live in a ‘global village’.
Hot media are high in information intensity and low in audience participation e.g.
print media: responsible for capitalist society with cultural hierarchies,
standardization and individual isolation.
Cool low information intensity and high in audience participation: e.g. electronic
media, like television (stimulates two senses, but not intensively and leaves gaps):
multi-directional, decentralized electronic communication across the world.
Critique on this: Hot and cool is confusing, some media have both characteristics.
Technology determines use and impact, but content and context is left out.
Postman: print media requires level of concentration that encourages a rational,
serious engagement with local issues: undermined by technological developments.
Critique on photographs and television: both are superficial, allows us to think that all
we have seen all there is to know. It has profound social impact: ‘How television
stages the world becomes the model for how the world is properly staged’
Critique: broader cultural context is left oud a well.
Both are technological determinism views: inherent biases of technologies dictate
their cultural content.
Technology is seen as independent objects, when in reality they are developed,
manufactured, controlled and used by people in particular social contexts.
Contrasting view: technologies should be regarded as tools whose development and
use is dependent on social contexts and human priorities, they are not
predetermined by inherent technological biases.
Study the significance of context in which technologies circulate, Paul Du Gay: we
must examine each of a series of interlinked processes = circuit of culture.
Production = the institutional and social circumstances in which a technology
is developed, manufactured and distributed
Representation = media discourse about the technology
Regulation = various forms of control imposed by government or other bodies
Consumption = importance of the contexts in which users engage
Identity = how consumption practices are connected with the development of
individual and collective subjectivities.
Communication media do have their own capacities and constraints (=affordances),
which have implications for the way they are used and their social impacts.
Categorizing technologies:
, mass media (communication with large groups of people) and interpersonal
media (two persons or small groups)
one-directional and interactive communication
synchronous media (operate in real time) and asynchronous media
Convergence of communication because of digitalization. Also increases cross-
compatibility between previously separate technologies.
Boundary between internet and other forms of digital media is blurring.
Increasement of:
Interactivity: especially due to ‘Web 2.0’
Before this, one-way relationship. Allocutionary medium: content is distributed in a
single direction from a powerful centre. Interpersonal technologies were only true
interactive media.
Diversification: diversification and expansion of media content and of the
relationships between content and consumers.
Mobility: media outlets are mobile: not fixed to one location
Impact (theories) of internet and digitalization:
Democracy and freedom: better society because of internet
-Decentralization of power, individualization, global harmony
-Democratization of television: ordinary people can become producers and
distributors of their own content
-Citizen journalism and public conversation and activism
Isolation and superficiality: problematic social consequences because of
the internet
-Inappropriate content for children, hostile content, surveillance, social
isolation and superficiality
-Sherry Turkle: impacts genuine interaction and relationships; people choose
convenience of online interaction, we are ‘alone together’: the more alone we
feel, the more we turn to the individualized worlds inside our technological
devices
-Rosen: consume anything we want when we want, this means we live in our
individualized comfort zones
-Social isolation and superficiality were there before modern media: e.g.
television.
The more time we spend in mediated environments, the more we are liable to
be shaped by their properties. Howard Rheingold: the ways the technology is
controlled, disseminated and used are liable to reflect the economic, social
and cultural relations into which it has become embedded as much as to
shape them.
Technological determinism places blame on object, negative effects of
technology might have been there without these technologies, content and
context in which technologies are used are not considered.
Technical features of digital technologies are important, but their social
outcomes will depend upon the interaction of these with existing relations of
culture and power.
Chapter 5
