Chapter 2 - Mass Comm Effects

Assignments:

Due Tuesday Oct. 7 - Take home Chapter 2 quiz. If you were not in class today or if you forget to bring in the quiz on Thursday, you will be able to do a make-up quiz (later in the quarter).

Also for Tuesday - read Chapter 3 - The Media Business. What's important: All learning objectives (p. 49) except "Name and explain the major media companies in the United States." You do not need to memorize the names of the major companies or what each company owns.

Blog comments - due Sunday midnight. Respond to classmates' Media Autobiographies (their blogs from last week). These are the classmates at your table, not the whole class. Your response may include differences or similarities with your own Media Autobiography, something that resonated with you, or something you learned. Two to three sentences recommended.
 

We discussed in class: 

Chapter 2  - Mass Communication Effects - very dense chapter looks at many ways that people study mass media and their effects on society.

• Wikileaks as an example of how "new media" (instant availability of e-documents) can be a game-changer (challenge to government and traditional journalism).
• How media effects research began.
• How researchers look at different media effects: message, medium, ownership and active audience.  
• Theories of media and society including functional analysis, agenda setting, uses and gratifications, social learning, spiral of silence, media logic and cultivation analysis.
• George Gerbner's theory of the Mean World Syndrome.
• How news media may have a liberal or conservative bias, and journalism tends to adhere to and perpetuate certain values (which can be good or bad): ethnocentrism, altruistic democracy, responsible capitalism, small-town pastoralism, individualism, moderatism, social order and leadership.