WCC COMM 101-Chapter #1 Focus

1. AGENDA:
*Real World Media Example
*Review Chapter One and
discuss its main concepts
*Chapter One Study Focus
Questions

2. Introduction to Mass
Communication:
Media Literacy and Culture
9th edition Stanley J. Baran
Chapter 1:
Mass Communication,
Culture, and Media Literacy

3. FUNDAMENTAL COURSE THEME:
Media inform us, entertain us, delight us,
annoy us – the move our emotions, challenge
our intellects, insult our intelligence – media
often reduce us to mere commodities for sale
to the highest bidder – media help define us
and shape or realities…BUT media does
nothing alone. It does it with us as well as to
us through mass communication, and it does it
as a central – many would say THE central –
cultural force in our society.

4. What Is Communication?
COMMUNICATION =
The process of creating
shared meaning

5. What Is Communication?
Communication: the transmission
of a message from a source to a
receiver.
• All messages are encoded (transferred
into an understandable sign and symbol
system)
• Once received, all messages are
intended to be decoded (the signs and
symbols are interpreted)

6. What Is Communication?
 LASSWELL EARLY MODEL OF
COMMUNICATION:
 Who?
 Says what?
 Through which channel?
 To whom?
 With what effect?

7. Basic Elements of Communication
1-7

8. Interpersonal Communication
Osgood and Schramm’s Model of Communication
Source: From The Process and Effects of Mass Communication by Wilbur Lang Schramm, 1954.
Reprinted by permission of Wilbur Schramm’s heirs.

9. What Is Mass Communication?
Schramm’s Model of Mass Communication
Source: From The Process and Effects of Mass Communication by Wilbur Lang Schramm, 1954.
Reprinted by permission of Wilbur Schramm’s heirs.

10. Appendix: Schramm’s Model of Mass
Communication
Input from news sources, art sources,
etc. goes to the organization to decode
and interpret. The organization then
encodes many identical messages to send
to the mass audience. Many receivers
decode, interpret, and encode. Each is
connected with a group in which the
message is reinterpreted and often acted
upon. Delayed inferential feedback goes
back to the organization.

11. What Is Mass Communication?
•Media plural of medium (the
means of sending mass
communication/many identical
messages to a mass audience)
•Mass Media communication
ALWAYS involves technology
of some kind

12. Mass Communication Definition
MASS COMMUNICATION =
The process of creating
shared meaning between
the mass media and their
audience

13. What Is Mass Communication?
(Interpersonal vs. Mass)
Interpersonal
Communication
 Message: Highly flexible
 Between one person and
another (or a few people) in
direct contact
 Feedback: Immediate and
direct
 Result: Flexible, personally
relevant
Mass Communication
 Message: Inflexible,
mechanically produced
 Between an organization
and a large audience
 Feedback: Delayed and
inferential
 Result: Constrained by
almost all aspects of the
communication situation

14. Communication Definition
“Communication is a
symbolic process whereby
reality is produced,
maintained, repaired and
transformed.”
– James W. Carey,
Media Theorist (1975)

15. Communication Definition
Communication and reality are
linked – communication
informs the way we perceive,
understand and construct our
view of reality and the world.
Communication is the
foundation of our culture.

16. Communication Definition
“Communication is a symbolic
process whereby reality is
produced, maintained,
repaired and transformed.”
TED TALK EXAMPLE

17. STUDY FOCUS QUESTION #1
Describe a situation in which
you find that reality is
“produced, maintained,
repaired and/or transformed”
by mass media
communication

18. What Is Culture?
Culture: the learned behavior of members of
a given social group.
Culture as Socially Constructed Shared
Meaning = CULTURE IS LEARNED AND
MAINTAINED VIA COMMUNICATION
Functions and Effects of Culture:
 Limits our options and provides guidelines
 Culture’s limiting effects can be negative
 Creates a Dominant/Mainstream Culture
and, in turn, Counter-Cultures

19. Mass Communication and Culture
Our stories help define our culture – a culture’s
values and beliefs reside in the stories it tells –
these stories help shape the ways we think, feel,
and act. We use them to learn about the world
around us, to understand the values, the way
things work, and how the pieces fit together.
Therefore, “storytellers” may have a
responsibility to tell their stories in as
professional and ethical way as possible…

20. Mass Communication and Culture
ETHICS = The rules of conduct recognized
in respect to a particular class of human
actions or a particular group or culture.
“Because society says it is the right thing to
do.”
MORALS = Principles or habits with
respect to right or wrong conduct. While
morals also prescribe dos and don'ts,
morality is ultimately a personal compass of
right and wrong. “Because we believe in
something being right or wrong.”

21. Mass Communication and Culture
Imagine a giant courtroom in which we
discuss and debate our culture—what it is,
and what we want it to be. What do we
think about welfare? Single motherhood?
Labor unions? Nursing homes? What is the
meaning of “successful,” “good,” “loyal,”
“moral,” “honest,” “beautiful,” “patriotic”?
We have cultural definitions or
understandings of all these things and
more. Where do they come from? How do
they develop, take shape, and mature?

22. Mass Communication and Culture
 Mass communication has become a, if not the, primary forum
for the debate about our culture.
 Logically, then, the most powerful voices in the forum have
the most power to shape our definitions and understandings.
 Where should that power reside—with the media industries or
with their audiences?
 If you answer “media industries,” you will want members of
these industries to act professionally and ethically.
 If you answer “audiences,” you will want individual audience
members to be thoughtful and critical of the media messages
they consume.
 The forum is only as good, fair, and honest as those who
participate in it.

23. Scope and Nature of Mass Media
Mass Consumption of Media at all-time highs;
TV viewing accounts for more than half of all the leisure-
time activity for Americans 15 years and older
Americans spend 159 hours a month watch video of some
kind (including traditional TV, online, and mobile viewing)
97% of all U.S. homes own at least one TV set
42 million have their TV directly connect to the Internet
70% of viewers say they “binge watch” and watch three or
more episodes of a series in one sitting

24. Scope and Nature of Mass Media
Mass Consumption of Media at all-time highs;
On Facebook alone people watch more than 3 BILLION
videos a day
If Facebook were its own country, its 1.4 BILLION users
would make it the largest country in the world
Facebook alone accounts for 6% of all the time the world’s
Internet users spend online
59% of Americans play video games, with over half of all
U.S. homes own a video game console, averaging two per
home

25. Scope and Nature of Mass Media
Mass Consumption of Media at all-time highs;
On average, we listen to more than four hours of music a
day
We spend more than $10 BILLION at the movies annually
Three BILLION people in the world are connected to the
Internet, 35% of the global population and a 566% increase
since 2000
88% of North Americans use the Internet
By 2018 nearly a MILLION minutes of video content will
cross the Internet every second and it would take you more
than 5 million years to watch all the videos that cross the Net
each month

26. Scope and Nature of Mass Media
(Average Daily Minutes with media)
© Digital Vision/Getty Images

27. Scope and Nature of Mass Media
The role of technology
 Technological determinism = machines and their
development drive economic and cultural change
The role of money
It shifts the balance of power; it tends to make
audiences into products rather than consumers
by adding Advertisers into the communication
mix and changing the primary goal of the process
from “shared meaning” to making money

28. Mass Communication, Culture, and Media
Literacy
Media Literacy = the
ability to effectively and
efficiently comprehend
and use any form of
mediated communication

29. Being Media-Literate
Media-literate people develop an
understanding of media content as
a text that provides insight into our
culture and lives and they have an
awareness of the impact of media
on the individual and society.

30. STUDY FOCUS QUESTION #2
Who were your childhood heroes and
heroines and/or favorite characters
derived from MASS MEDIA? Why
did you choose them? What
cultural lessons did you learn from
them?