MEDIA THEORIESReview

NOAM CHOMSKY Propaganda is used to control the masses Propaganda Model

Owndership Funding Government The Enemy

DAVID MANNING WHITE The Gatekeeper –

between the world and the media

Agenda Setting – Media does not reflect but shapes public interest.

Media Bias – We judge bias based on if we agree with the gatekeeper.

NEIL POSTMAN Amusing ourselves to

Death News & Information is

watered down as entertainment.

By keeping people uninformed they don’t care about losing their freedom.

PAUL LAZARSFELD Two Step Flow of Communication Mass Media

Opinion Leader

Everyone else

THEODOR ADORNO Cultural Industry Standardization – Art

succumbs to formula Pseudo-Individualization We’re all different! I am a

rebel! (Adorno: No, not really)

Manipulative – The media manipulate the audience and thus distract us from more serious issues.

WALTER BENJAMIN

Aura of art is lost in reproduction.

But, Art is designed for reproducibility.

Artificial build-up of personality – The cult of the star.

“reality” is an artifice (therefore artificial)

FEMINISM Belief in the social,

political, and economic equality of the sexes.

Feminist readings challenge the cultural notions of masculine society.

Media perpetuates dominant masculine stereotypes.

QUEER THEORY Challenge the cultural

notions of "straight" ideology

Gender, sexual acts and identities are socially constructed.

Imprinting of heterosexual norms manufactures heterosexuality as the dominant sexual format.

Media perpetuates dominant masculine stereotypes.

MARXISM Exploitation of an entire class of society by another

The ruling class controls the means of production

Subjectification of working class

Who is producing the message?

What is the message?

Who is consuming the message?

POST-COLONIALISM The East is “created” by the West. “other” or “othering” The identity of the “other” is created by our

Western interpretation. Thus, our view of the world is artificial.

STRUCTURALISM/SEMIOTICS There must be a

structure in every text Structuralism rejects

the concept of human freedom and choice; behavior, is determined by various structures.

We must be able to read texts so to unmask their meaning (symbolic).

MARSHALL MCLUHAN any technology or “medium” is an

extension of some human qualityEx. A book is an extension of the eyes

2 messages The overt content The covert meaning

“the medium is the message”. The message (overt content) is

not nearly as important as what the medium is doing to us.

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