IBCOM Year 1
MIA Notes
Chapter 1
Multitask - Using more than one form of media at a time
Total Media Exposure - Sum of time spent with all media
Multitasking proportion - Proportion of media time that is spent using more than one medium
concurrently.
Total media use - Actual number of hours out of the day that are spent using media, taking
multitasking into account.
Social construction of reality - The process of actively creating meaning
While reality exists, we must negotiate the meaning of that reality.
The process of shaping reality through social interaction.
Mass media - Media that reach a relatively large audience of usually anonymous readers.
The first form of mass media: the print medium
Then the phonograph followed which was the first new mass medium since print, and then the
cinematograph. (Sound recording and the film medium)
Radio was the first broadcast medium which presented new opportunities for communication.
Micro level of media - The role of media in our individual lives
Macro level of media - The role of media in the economy, politics, and technological development.
Socialization - The process whereby we learn and internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of our
culture and, in doing so, develop a sense of self.
Culture shock - Suggests we are not equipped or socialized in the ways and norms of a particular
culture. (Different from our own)
The individual is, to a varying degrees, a product of social relations.
Three types of social relations:
1. Relationships between institutions - Ex. Interaction between the media industry and
the government.
2. Relationships within an institution - Involves the interaction of individuals occupying
their institutional roles and positions. Ex. The relationship between a screenwriter and
the head of a motion picture studio.
3. Relationships between institutions and individuals - Are always part of a larger social
group. Ex. The use of media products by audiences or readers.
Social Structure - Describes any recurring pattern of social behavior
What choices were influenced or constrained by other things and thus not
autonomous.
Agency - Intentional and undetermined human action
What choices were based purely on your autonomous decisions, actions and
creativity.
, Structural constrains limits agency.
Human agency reproduces social structure, it only continues if new generations accept the roles
they are asked to fill.
Human agency both maintains and alters social structure.
Each medium produces a different experience for the readers, this is one effect of technology.
Movies require more attention (Both sound and images), then radio (Only sound).
People are the medium through which media messages and technology affect each other.
Chapter 2
Production perspective - Media products are a result of a social process of production that occurs
within an institutional framework.
Concentration of ownership - Fewer corporations own the media.
Media ownership is becoming increasingly concentrated.
Conglomeration - Media companies have become part of much larger corporations, which own a
collection of other companies.
Vertical integration - The process by which one owner acquires all aspects of production and
distribution of a single type of media product.
Horizontal integration - The process by which one company buys different kinds of media,
concentrating ownership across different types of media.
Concentrating ownership across differing types of media.
Synergy - The dynamic where components of a company work together to produce benefits that
would be impossible for a single, separately operated unit of the company.
Media owned by a few big corporations will lack diversity, and the content of media will become
increasingly uniform.
Consequences of economic structures:
Media moguls/tycoons
Ownership
Dominant production logic
Homogenization
Bagdikian:
The homogenization hypothesis - The absence of competition
Will lead inevitable to homogeneous media products and only serve the interest of the
small number of owners.
Media pluralism - The degree to which there is diversity in media content readily available to
audiences.
Entman:
The local newspaper monopoly - Looked at local newspaper competition and whether monopoly
matters.