COJO3040 Chapter 10 The Media: Critical Tradition

1. Chapter 10: The Media
The Critical Tradition
COJO3040-01
Michael Gross, Jamie Hageman, Miles Hunter, Kelli Jones, Sean Jones

2. Media Theory
Semiotic theories
Sociocultural theories
Sociopsychologcial theories
Cybernetic theories
Critical theories

3. The Critical Tradition on Media
The critical tradition focuses on power structures,
beliefs, and ideologies.
Critical theorists are also concerned with
uncovering oppressive social conditions.
Critical tradition views media as a tool heavily
manipulated by dominant cultures and ideologies.

4. McQuail’s Approach to Mass
Communication
Three approaches to the study of mass
communication in the social sciences
Holistic- top down approaches
Content orientated – The Message
Public orientated

5. McQuail’s Five Branches
• 1. Classical Marxism
• 2. Political-economic media theory
• 3. Frankfurt School
• 4. Hegemonic theory
• 5. “Cultural studies”

6. McQuail’s Marxist Approaches
All of the McQuail’s Marxist approaches stem
from a common declaration that can be found in
Marx’s The German Ideology: “the ideas of the
ruling class are in every epoch of the ruling ideas”
(McQuail, 1983).

7. Classic Marxism & the Media
Media is a tool used by the dominant class to
marginalize minorities and further profit making
interests perpetuating the dominant culture.

8. Classic Marxism & the Media
Language usage:
Universal Health Care
Pro-life/Pro-choice

9. Classic Marxism & the Media
Media ownership in the United States:
CBS Corporation: 2011 revenue $14.2 billion, 29
television stations and 130 radio stations
Time Warner, INC: 2011 revenue $29 billion, Time
Warner is the world's second-largest entertainment
conglomerate with ownership interests in film, television and
print, including CNN News.
Comcast Corporation: 2011 revenue $55.8 billion, 24
television stations and NBC television network.
News Corp.: 2011 revenue $33.4 billion, 27 television
stations including FOX news.

10. Political-Economic Media Theory
Political-economic media theory, like Marxism,
blames media ownership and distribution for
continuing class disparities.
Media is viewed as a commodity to be purchased
by the highest bidder.

11. Media Biases
Mainstream: Tendency to report what everyone
else is supporting, ignoring extreme or potentially
offensive material.
Corporate: Information is slanted toward the
interests of corporate media owners
Liberal/Conservative: ideas have undue influence
on the coverage or selection of news stories

12. Frankfurt School
History:
This school of thought was focused on the
failed predictions of Marx’s social revolution,
and looked to the superstructure (media) of
society in explaining how historical processes of
economic change were avoided. (McQuail,
1983)

13. Frankfurt School
Theory:
In this theory, media lead to the domination
of the ideology of the elite.
This outcome is accomplished by media
manipulation of images and symbols to
benefit the interest of the dominant class.

14. Hegemonic Theory
Theory:
Hegemony is the domination of a false
ideology or way of thinking over true
conditions.
Ideology is not caused by the economic
system alone but is ubiquitous.
The dominant ideology perpetuates the
interests of certain classes over others, and
the media is obviously a major cause of this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMzjJjuxQI

15. “Cultural Studies”
Theory:
Relying on semiotics, this approach focuses
on the cultural meanings of media products;
they look at the ways media content is
interpreted, including both dominant and
oppositional interpretations.
Sees society as a field of competing ideas
It can be used to integrate several insights
from a variety of schools of thought.

16. Feminist Media Studies
Within cultural studies, feminist media studies
have been a particularly strong research area.
Feminist media studies have changed significantly
over the years.
Gender Depiction Studies Gender Reception
Studies
Media studies are interested in how audiences
mold, or negotiate the meanings of media messages.

17. Gender-Depiction Studies
Critiquing gender stereotypes:
Early studies of stereotypes in the
media show gender was stable in
distinguishing between
characteristics and portrayals
of men and women
Ex: Men were depicted in more powerful roles
and women were depicted in more subservient
roles.
I Love Lucy

18. Gender–Reception Studies
How are depictions of women in the media are
understood by audiences?
Social and cultural factors in the family, institutions
and other forces that influenced how media
depictions are received or understood.
For example, when seeing someone on television,
your perception would be influenced by a raft of
social forces that you have experienced in your
life.
• Ex: Desperate Housewives

19. Guerrilla Girls

20. Gender-Reception Studies
Meanings for what you view are not solely
determined by depictions themselves, but by what
you bring out of it
Your own “norms”
Grandma’s and Grandpa’s views
These norms can be based upon generational,
geographical, cultural, etc.

21. Negotiation
Negotiation is how individuals reach an
understanding of gender roles and stereotypes
through the media.
Individuals do this by making choices about how
they wish to familiarize to various media
programming.

22. Negotiation
There are five parts of negotiating gender roles:
1) A person may pay attention to and
idealize a certain stereotype
Ex: Brittany Spears,
Jessica Simpson
or Barbie
• Barbie

23. Negotiation
2) Ignore “negative” depictions of women such as:
Boys who think its not cool to pay attention
to female stars
Ex: chick flicks
Mothers who want
something different for
their children (not allowed
to have barbies as a child)

24. Negotiation
3) Enjoy these images on an ironic level
ex: desperate housewives and sex and the
city

25. Negotiation
4) Use these depictions to empower them to take
social action
Activism
Slut walks

26. Negotiation
5) Combination of the above
Gender is important to
the production of
meaning
Importance depends
on how the viewers
negotiate their
orientation to the
production

27. Four Core Principals
The main objective of negotiation is to create
social change.
Feminism theory came up with these principals to
achieve that goal

28. Four Core Principals
The first principal focuses on:
teaching and understanding social events
concerning gender and their contexts
emphasis on individual observation of gender
behavior

29. Four Core Principals
The second principal is the recognition of multiple
realities
Argument that reality is subjective and that
meanings result from social experience
And varies according to one’s social position

30. Four Core Principals
The third Principal:
emphasizes that the distribution of social
power gives experiences and privileges to
some at the expense of others.
Lindsey Lohan goes in and gets out of jail
once a week at the expense of our tax
money
Congressmen are adulterers at the expense
of their wives

31. Four Core Principals
The fourth principal (and underlying objective):
is the goal to redistribute social power and
achieve social fairness
is the central goal is to destroy forms of
subordination such as sexism, racism,
heterosexism and class oppression

32. Three Forms of Feminism
Liberal Feminism
Emphasis on equality
Does not feel like society needs complete
overhaul
But rather laws and opportunities need to
be created to better allow women to
become equals
Most mainstream form of feminism
• Ex: women get the right to vote and work outside
the home

33. Three Forms of Feminism
Socialist Feminism
Mostly the same as liberal but does require
the need to drastically change society
Believes that true social equality won’t be
achieved unless there is change
Mainly economic change
Focus on collective change and
empowerment

34. Third Wave Feminism
Focus on personal empowerment
as a start for social change
Popular among our generation
Very individualistic
Invites women to define
themselves as they wish

35. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
Critical Tradition
Feminist theories
bell hooks’s Critique of Media

36. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
“bell hooks” is the pen name of Gloria Jean
Watkins
hooks is a Distinguished Professor of English at
City College in NYC image from: myblackhistory.net

37. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
hooks helps to narrow the definition of feminism
if feminism means everything, it means
nothing
feminism is "rooted in neither fear nor
fantasy... 'Feminism is a movement to end
sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression'"
(hooks, 2000, p.8).

38. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
communication should be used to disrupt and
eradicate the idea of domination
domination is “white supremacist capitalist
patriarchy”
domination involves interlocking systems of
sexism, class elitism, capitalism, heterosexism
youtube video: hooks on white supremacist capitalist patriarchy

39. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
The critique of media is important:
media is pervasive and powerful
media spreads oppression
BUT, the media is not responsible for the
ideology of oppression
youtube video: hooks on media and oppression

40. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
Everyone contributes to the ideology of
oppression, even those who are oppressed
Marginalized persons have a special responsibility
to disrupt oppressive discourse
• persons at margins look “both from the
outside in and from the inside out.”

41. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
• hooks says decolonization is the way to disrupt
domination
• decolonization is the process of breaking with the
assumptions of the reality of the dominant culture,
including internalized inferior status
• decolonization is a personal and personalizing
process enacted in everyday life

42. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
• There are two forms of decolonization:
• Critique
• Invention

43. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
• Critique is the interrogation, challenging, and
confrontation of media’s socialization of oppressive
ideology
• critique is important due to the pervasiveness of
the media
• “We have to critique imperialist white supremacist
patriarchal culture because it is so normalized by
mass media and rendered unproblematic” (hooks,
Mesa-Bains, 2006, p. 174).

44. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
• hooks is not content to applaud visibility of blacks
in the media or the fact that a movie was made by
a black person... she questions every aspect of the
representation.
• objectification of women of color
For more information on media’s spreading of oppression check out the Media Education
Foundation videos featuring Jean Kilbourne called “Killing Us Softly.”

45. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
• Invention is the creation of nondominating cultural
forms through enactment
• enactment is living and acting in
nondominating and nonexploitive ways
• individual choices about media consumption
are
• critique is meaningless ‘“without changing
individual habits of being, without allowing
those ideas to work in our lives and on our
souls in a manner that transforms.”’

46. bell hooks’s Critique of Media
• hooks suggests resistance pedagogy as important
part of enactment
• hooks says resistance pedagogy should be
taught at all levels of public school
• Rethinking Schools is a movement to include
elements of social justice in every subject in every
grade of public schools

47. Traditions in Media Study
• Critical tradition on media is influenced by the
cybernetic, sociocultural, and semiotic traditions
• Cybernetic: lends that domination is reproduced
by any interacting forces
• not one force creates all of society’s
power structures; power structures are a
product of society-wide interaction of
many institutions
• Critical theories reject old-style system
theory

48. Traditions in Media Study
• Sociocultural: interpretation and social interaction
are processes in which structures and meanings
are made and emphasizes discourse
• Semiotic: symbols are powerful in producing
cultural forms, including oppressive arrangements