Mass Media and Pop Culture

Mass Media and Popular Culture

The mass media have come to play a fundamental role in modern society. The mass media are media of communication – newspapers, magazines, television, radio, cinema, videos, CDs and other forms – which reach mass audiences.

The newspapers were among the most important of early mass media. They continue to be significant, but other, newer media, particularly radio and television, have supplemented them.

The influence of the mass media on our lives is profound. The media not only provide entertainment, but provide and shape much of the information which we utilize in our daily lives.

In spite of many studies of television and violence, it is still not clear how far, and in what ways, the portrayal of violence on TV encourages aggressive behavior in real life. Most of the research has underestimated how far viewers selectively interpret what they see, and the complex ways in which the “fictional” and the “real” interrelate.

A range of different theories of media and popular culture have been developed. Innis and McLuhan argued that media influences society more in terms of how they communicate than what they communicate. In McLuhan´s words, “the medium is the message”: TV, for example, influences people´s behavior and attitudes because it is so different in nature from other media, such as newspapers or books.

Other important theories include Haberman, Baudrillard and Thompson. Habermas points to the role of the media in creating a “public sphere” – a sphere of public opinion and public debate. Baudrillard has been strongly influenced by McLuhan. He believes that new media actually change the “reality” we experience.

The sense today of inhabiting one world is in large part a results of the international scope of media of communication. A world information order – an international system of the production, distribution and consumption of informational goods – has come into being. Given the paramount position of the industrial countries in the world information order, many believe that the Third World countries are subject to a new form of media imperialism.

The media industries worldwide tend to be dominated by a small number of very large companies. Several of these are headed by celebrated media entrepreneurs. Many critics worry about the concentration of media power in the hands of such powerful individuals, who they say are not accountable to democratic procedures.

“Multimedia” refers to the combination on a single medium of what used to be different media needing different technologies, so that a CD-ROM, for example, can carry both visuals and sound and be played on a computer.

Vocabulary

Public Opinion: The views which members of the public hold on issues of the day.

Genre: a concept applied in media studies to refer to a distinct type of media product or cultural item. In the world of television, for example, different genres include soap opera, comedy, news programs, sports and drama.

Global Village: a belief that the world becomes like a small community. For instance, people in many different parts of the world follow the same news events through television programs.

Public Sphere: it refers to an arena of public debate and discussion in modern societies.

Hyperreality: as a result of electronic communication, there is no longer a separate “reality” to which TV programs and other cultural products refer. Instead, what we take to be “reality” is structured by such communication itself. For instance, the items reported on the news are not just about a separate series of events, but actually themselves define and construct what those events are.

Face-to-face Interaction: interaction between individuals who are physically present in the same context with one another.

Symbolic Power: Power exercised by means of symbols rather than by direct control. Those who run the culture industry, for instance, have a great deal of symbolic power over the audiences who watch their TV programs or read their newspapers.

  

Criteria of Pop Culture

1. Originates from the people

2. Moves from subculture to mainstream

3. Mass produced

4. Or created for the "people" (mainstream)

5. Widely favored by many people

6. Associated with commercial products

7. Constantly changing and evolving

Distribution: Delivery of product to distributor and marketing.

Social Identity: Self-concept based on group membership and the emotional attachments associated with the membership. People use pop culture to develop their identity. When an individual identifies him/herself as a group member, his/her beliefs, interests and actions tend to become aligned with those of the group.

Subculture: Small groups inside cultures - we can belong to many. Members share beliefs and common experiences that set them apart from other members of a culture (different parts of your identity come to play in diff subcultures).

Membership Reference Group: Brand Communities (Harley Davidson). Fan Communities/Fandom.

Aspirational Reference Group: Change your behavior to be like those you aspire to be.

Fans and Fandom: Identification with a media product, star or style - fans or follower of media fads or fashions. Varying levels of commitment. Consumer, fan clubs, fanzines, conventions, communities.

Cognitive Branding: Functional Benefits. Focus is on how the brand's performance fulfills your practical needs.

Cultural Branding: Iconic Brands. Symbolism - strategic focus is on what the brand stands for. They succeed b/c they forge a deep connection with the culture and compete for culture share.

Objectification: Any presentation emphasizing sexually suggestive body parts or not including the head (this decreases feelings of guilt and demeans and dehumanizes the model - making it like an object).

Ritualization of Subordination: A classic stereotype of humble submission and respect is that of lowering oneself physically in some form. Defenselessness, submissive, powerless and vulnerable.

For class discussion: http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/3833?e=lulemedia_1.0-ch01_s06

Social Interaction and Everyday Life

Social Interaction and Everyday Life

               Important Terms

Civil inattention: the process where individuals acknowledge each other's presence.

Social Interaction: the process by which we act and react to those around us.

Ervin Goffman: this person developed the concept of civil inattention and believed that sociologists needed to concern themselves with trivial aspects of behavior.

Charles Darwin: he believed that all emotional expressions are the same for all humans.

Eibl Eibesfeldt: he conducted a study of six children born deaf and blind to see how far their facial expressions were the same as those of sighted and hearing individuals in particular emotional situations (1972).

Harold Garfinkel: he created the field of ethnomethodology. He argued that in order to understand the way people use context to make sense of the worlds, sociologists need to study the background expectations with which we organize regular conversation.

Paul Ekman: developed FACTS (Facial Action Coding System) for describing movements of the facial muscles that give rise to particular expressions.

Microsociology: day to day interactions.

Macrosociology: the study of large-scale groups, organizations or social systems.

Nonverbal communication: the exchange of information and meaning through facial expressions, gestures, and movements of the body.

Body language: an example of nonverbal communication.

Roles: socially defined expectations that a person in a given status follows.

Status: the social honor or prestige that a particular group is accorded by other members of a society.

Social position: the social identity an individual has in a group or society.

Impression management: preparing for the presentation of one's social role.

Unfocused interaction: whenever individuals exhibit awareness of other's presence.

Focused interaction: interaction between individuals engaged in a common activity or in direct conversation with one another.

Audience Segregation: when individuals show a different face to different people.

Back region: when individuals are able to relax and behave informally.

Front region: when the settings of social activity in which people seek to put on a definite performance for others.

Ethnomethodology: the study of the folk, or lay, methods people use to make sense of what others do and particularly of what they say.

Conversation analysis: a methodology that examines all facets of a conversation for meaning from the smallest filler words to the precise timing of interchanges, pauses, interruptions, and overlaps.

Interactional vandalism: where a subordinate person breaks the tacit rules of everyday interaction that are value to the more powerful.

Talk: the carrying on of conversations or verbal exchanges in the course of day-to-day social life.

Conversation: verbal communication between two or more individuals.

Shared understandings: the common assumptions which people hold and which allow them to interact in a systematic way with one another.

Response cries: seemingly involuntary exclamations individuals make when, for example, being taken by surprise, dropping something inadvertently, or expressing pleasure.

Slips of the tongue: the mispronunciation of words, as when someone means to say “six” and instead says “sex.” Freud believed that slips of the tongue conceal hidden anxieties or emotions.

Dramaturgical model: an approach to the study of social interaction based on the use of metaphors (images, symbols) derived from the theatre.

Personal space: the physical space individuals maintain between themselves and others when they know them on a personal basis.

Social distance: the level of spatial separation maintained when individuals interact with others whom they do not know well.

Public distance: the physical space individuals maintain between themselves and others when engaged in a public performance, such as giving a lecture.

Time-space convergence: the process whereby distances become “shortened in time,” as the speed of modes of transportation increases.

Regionalization: the division of social life into different regional settings or zones.

Clock time: time as measured by the clock – that is assessed in terms of hours, minutes or seconds. Before the invention of clocks, time-reckoning was based on events in the natural world, such as the rising and setting of the sun.

               Questions

·        What is the first reason it is important to study daily social interactions?

Our day to day routines give us structure and form to what we do, and we can learn a great deal about ourselves as social beings, and about social life itself.

·        What is the second reason it is important to study daily social interactions?

The study of everyday life reveals to us how humans can act creatively to shape reality.

·        What is the third reason it is important to study daily social interactions?

Studying social interaction in everyday life sheds light on larger social systems and institutions.

·        What does the FACS stand for?

               Facial Action Coding System

               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G7IRRydpVA

               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUXtGQkJcQ0

·        Who came up with the FACS and what is it?

Paul Ekman and the FACS describes the movements of the facial muscles that give rise to particular expressions.

·        How we act depends on what?

The roles we are playing at a particular time.

·        How does Goffman distinguish between the expressions individuals give and those they give off?

Words and facial expressions individuals use to produce certain impressions on others. The clues that others may spot to check their sincerity or truthfulness.

Summary

1.      Social interaction is the process by which we act and react to those around us. Many apparently trivial aspects of our day-to-day behavior turn out on close examination to be both complex and important aspects of social interaction. An example is the gaze – looking at other people. In most interaction, eye contact is fairly fleeting. To stare at another person could be taken as a sign of hostility – or, on some occasions, of love. The study of social interaction is a fundamental area in sociology, illuminating many aspects of social life.

What happens if you stare at your mom, your neighbor, your classmate, a stranger?

Look at, stare, gaze, stare into somebody.

The Study of Everyday Life – why should we concern ourselves with such seemingly trivial aspects of social behavior?

i.                 We can learn a great deal about ourselves as social beings through the structure of our day-to-day routines. Our lives are organized around the repetition of similar patterns of behavior.

ii.                We can learn about others

iii.               Studying social interaction in everyday life sheds light on larger social systems and institutions. All large-scale social systems, depend on the patterns of social interaction we engage in daily.

2.      Various different expressions are conveyed by the human face. It is widely held that basic aspects of the facial expression of emotion are innate. Cross-cultural studies demonstrate quite close similarities between the members of different cultures both in facial expression and the interpretation of emotions registered on the human face. “Face” can also be understood in a broader sense to refer to the esteem in which an individual is held by others. Generally, in our interaction with other people, we are concerned to “save face” – protect our self-esteem.

3.      The study of ordinary talk and conversation has come to be called ethnomethodology, a term first coined by Harold Garfinkel. Ethnomethodology is the analysis of the ways in which we actively – although usually in a taken-for-granted way – make sense of that others mean by what they say and do.

4.      We can learn a great deal about the nature of talk by “response cries” (exclamations) and studying slips of the tongue (what happens when people mispronounce or misapply words and phrases). Slips of the tongue are often humorous, and are in fact closely connected psychologically to wit and joking.

5.      Unfocused interaction is the mutual awareness individuals have of one another in large gatherings, when not directly in conversation with one another. Focused interaction, which can be divided up into distinct encounters – or episodes of interaction – occurs when two or more individuals are directly attending to what the other or others are saying and doing.

6.      Social interaction can often be studied in an illuminating way by applying the dramaturgical model – studying social interaction as if those involved were actors on a stage, having a set and props. As in the theatre, in the various contexts of social life there tend to be clear distinctions between front regions (the stage itself) and back regions, where the actors prepare themselves for the performance and relax afterwards.

7.      Social roles are socially defined expectations of an individual in a given status or social position.

8.      All social interaction is situated in time and space. We can analyze how our daily lives are “zoned” in time and space combined by looking at how activities occur during definite periods and at the same time involve spatial movement.

9.      The study of face-to-face interaction is usually called microsociology – which is contrasted to macrosociology, which studies larger groups, institutions, and social systems. Micro and macro analysis are in fact very closely related, and each complements the other.