Chapter 12: Mass Communication and Media Literacy

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Chapter 12 Mass Communication and Media Literacy
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Content

• Chapter check
• Defining Mass Communication and Mass Media
• Theories of Mass Communication
• Developing Media Literacy
• Understanding the Influence of Mass Communication
• Analyzing Mass Communication
• Question to Ponder On
• Activity

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Chapter Check

• Define Mass Communication, Mass Media and Media
  Literacy

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Mass Communication

• Messages that are transmitted by a source through
  a mass medium to a large group of people who may
  not be in direct contact with the source of the
  messages
• Major source of information, companionship and
  entertainment
• Shapes our attitudes, values, and perceptions of
  people, situations and events

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Mass Media

• Channels of mass communication
• Newspapers, radios, books, etc.

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Theories of Mass Communication

• Uses and Gratification
• we choose to attend mass communication to gratify
  ourselves
• States that we make conscious choices of media to
  fulfill our needs and desires
• Assumes that people are active agents who make
  deliberate choices among media to gratify
  themselves

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Theories of Mass Communication

• 2. Agenda Setting
• establishes an agenda for us by spotlighting some
  issues, events and people downplaying others
• Selecting and calling to the publics attention
  ideas, events and people
• Gatekeeper - person/group that decides which
  messages pass through the gates of media to reach
  consumers

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Theories of Mass Communication

• 3. Cultivation Theory
• claims that TV promotes a worldview that is
  inaccurate but that viewers nonetheless assume
  reflection of real life
• Claims that TV creates a synthetic reality that
  shapes heavy viewers perspectives and beliefs
  about the world

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Theories of Mass Communication

• Means by which Cultivation occurs
• Mainstreaming
• process by which mass communication stabilizes
  and homogenizes social perspectives
• 2. Resonance
• extent to which media representations are
  congruent with personal experience

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Theories of Mass Communication

• 4. Ideological Control
• Critical media scholars study how cultural elites
  use media to maintain their dominant positions in
  society
• Mass media are particularly powerful in
  representing the ideology of privileged groups as
  natural and good

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Developing Media Literacy

• What is Media Literacy?
• Ability to understand the influence of mass media
  and to access, analyze, evaluate, and respond
  actively to mass media in informed, critical ways

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Understand the Influence of Mass
Communication

• Media literacy begins with deciding how much mass
  communication influences people
• Access Mass Communication
• Democratic Access
• 2. Expose yourself to a range of media sources

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Analyze Mass Communication

• Learning to recognize patterns in media empowers
  you to engage media in critical and sophisticated
  ways
• Critically evaluate messages from mass comm.
• be thoughtful and skeptical
• Respond actively
• truth presented are partial and subjective

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Question to Ponder On

• Do you think there will come a time when media
  will present people of different races, sexual
  orientation, gender, culture, age, and class
  equally? Why or why not?

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Activity

• Think about race, ethnicity, sex and age in the
  entertainment industry and answer the following
  questions
• What type of media do you consume and why do you
  choose to turn to these media?
• What kinds of stereotypes exist in media?
• Are there certain sectors of our society
  over/under represented by media? Which ones?
• Do you think you need/want to change some of your
  media habits? Which ones? Why?