COMM 226 STUDY GUIDE Berger Gresham s Law o The economic hypothesis that states that bad money drives good money out of circulation the superior currency will tend to be hoarded and the inferior will thus dominate the circulation o TV waters things down oversimplifies things and avoids important issues in effort to please as many people as it can The lower you go the more people you attract o Bad programming drives out good programming Media Saturation Criticisms of the Mass Media and its Potential Effects o One common criticism of mass media is that we abandon or greatly diminish our critical faculties and our capacity for clear thinking and rational decision making This is because of the constant bombardment of our sensorium by rapidly moving images music and sound effects make it difficult to make rational decisions about anything o We are desensitized to violence s real nature leading to a lack of concern about violence and a tendency by some viewers to rely on violence in their own lives to solve problems o TV shows a highly distorted picture of reality Ethnic minorities are underrepresented The media don t mirror the world but instead project a world as interpreted by editors and others who control the images we are allowed to see and the words we are allowed to hear on news shows o Serious creative artists diverted TV pays high salaries seduces serious writers directors and performers into working for it diverting them from the theater and elite art forms and depriving audiences for this kind of art of their contributions Fewer serious dramatic and literary works are created o Escapism TV provides essentially escapist fare material with little redeeming social and aesthetic value Since they are so superficial people can consume enormous amounts of this material We are escaping from ourselves and finding all of our answers from consumerism o False consciousness created suggest that the American Dream is alive and that anyone with enough determination will succeed Implies that we live in a society that is classes or all middle class Brainwashing to convince people to accept the status quo and assume nothing can be changed o Formulaic nature script writers use conventional stereotyped characters and story lines TV avoids material that might be challenging because it is original and inventive and requires effort on part of the viewers TV requires little intellectual effort kids and adolescents find it hard to put in effort to read a book o Fragmentation shows are broken up with commercials and station promos variety of commercials for different products one after another a number of different kinds or genres of programs life is fragmented cluttered lacking coherence and disorderly Pastiche or hodgepodge a metaphor for understanding contemporary American culture Commercials decrease in attention span o Homogenization TV film and American pop culture are spreading all American culture over the world Imperialism hypothesis cultures are more or less like Americans Our pop culture spreads our capitalist ideology o Hyperactivity as a result of the rapid bombardment of images and instant gratification TV provides TV viewing contributes to hyperactive behavior in kids Kids don t develop the skills to be quiet in classrooms and concentrate on their studies Neglect social matters o Irresponsibility people who decide what to show on TV are irresponsible and more interested in profit than the well being of their audiences o Isolation kids have TV in their room they cut themselves off from others o Lowest common denominator TV waters things down and avoids important issues in an effort to please as many people as it can o Manipulation using humor sexuality and anything else it can to attract audiences and get people to purchase the products and services it advertises News manipulates public opinion since it only shows certain perspectives on news events o Obsession with narrow range of topics TV doesn t give us what we want but teaches us to want what we can get o Passivity induced leads to obesity o Privatism viewers of TV focus on their own lives and personal concerns and neglect social matters and the public realm in general Leads to materialism o Sentimentalism neglects tragic dimensions of human life o Sexploitation women aren t portrayed in realistic ways Leads to negative feelings towards real world partners Defenses of Mass Media and Popular Culture o There are still good programs on TV o Critics of mass culture neglect anything good and focus on the o Little evidence that the media have the effects they are held to have by mediocre and bad critics o Mass media have positive effects for their audiences since they brought elite media that they wouldn t have seen otherwise Postmoderism o Characterized by a lack of adherence to overarching philosophical o Incredulity toward metanarratives o Eclecticism and pastiche have become the dominant metaphors for systems and beliefs postmodern societies o People can have multiple identities which means they can be members of many different audiences o Breaks down the barrier between elite culture and popular culture o If pop culture and elite culture are more or less the same the debate over the effects of pop culture and the mass media becomes irrelevant The Fiji Study o Skinny legs used to be an insult but now since TV is introduced people are referring themselves as fat and that they need to lose weight Sparks Spanish American War Propaganda and the CPI o Remington wrote Hearst a memo saying there would be no war Hearst responded with please remain You furnish the pictures and ill go to war Congress eventually declared war it might ve be related to the coverage in Hearts s NY journal Hearst stirred up public opinion in favor of war and helped to provide congress with a public mandate o George Creel led the CPI The CPI advised Wilson on how public relations could be used to influence public opinion about WWI It used movies speakers articles and posters as wartime propaganda which sensitized the public to the fact that mass media might be used to influence public opinion on a large scale o Charged with getting US public support for WWI Used propaganda as o Public opinion was swayed into not supporting the war and main tool supporting the UD War of the Worlds o Orson Welles 1938 science fiction radio broadcast about aliens o About 1 million people though it was real 5 million knew it was a invading New Jersey hoax o Those who mistook it for