Key Media Concepts:
- Media (plural of medium) are Channels of Communication.
- Media involve "technology connecting sender to
receiver."
- Technology alters and "forms" part of the message.
"The medium is the message." said Marshall McLuhan
- Each medium use different "codes." (e.g. The "indexes"
are different.)
Becoming a Critical
Receiver of Media Messages
- Media messages are edited versions of
reality. What you get is both more and less than the real world from
which mediated messages come.
- Media serve as gatekeepers.
Editorial decisions involve selecting some things to include and others to
ignore -- and for reasons other than merely what is objectively
important or valuable.
- Media seek viewers, readers -- they want to
attract attention so they can "sell" audience members to advertisers.
- Media exist to make money -- they serve
advertiser and owner interests
- Media seek to save time and money -- they go
for the easiest and cheapest sources of information and programming that
will attract an audience.
- Media are targeted. Each media
channel/outlet has a particular target audience it wishes to attract and
whose interests it must serve.
- Media frame content -- they give news/
information (and entertainment) a theme or
context or "spin" that is added to the objective facts.
- Media can set agendas and influence behavior
or reinforce stereotypes, if you aren't a
critical receiver.
- Media sources need to be evaluated just like any
other -- particularly when they are chosen for viewing because they are
provocative, or readily available or "connected." Being a
critical receiver of media is undermined by "cocooning."
- New Media (internet based - Web 2.0, wireless based,
etc.) are interactive and "deceptively" social.
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