COM Exam 3

Explain the third person effect

the tendency to believe that media messages have a minimal impact on you, but greater influence on other people (for example, thinking violent video games don't make you more violent, but make other people more violent).

List and explain the 4 tips for spotting fake news

1. Be careful of pages with biased agendas 2. Check photos with reverse image search 3. Sound can be faked 4. Check for graphic manipulation.

Explain and provide examples of media affordances (capacity, durability, speed, message accessibility and availability, control over message casting and message presentation)

1. Carrying capacity (how much can the media hold?) Ex: carrying capacity of paper is pretty big, you can fit a lot on paper (though you may need a lot of it). 2. Message durability (how long will the message survive?/how much will the message degrade) Ex: archives preserve messages; radio is not very durable bc you can't hear it after a certain range. 3. Message distribution speed (how fast can you get the message to its destination?) 4. Available modalities (what is primarily emphasized in this message medium?) Ex: with a book, you can visualize, touch, smell it (can't hear a book). Different messages can be emphasized with different mediums. If you want to emphasize something in writing, use italics. Can't use italics in spoken speech. 5. message accessibility (how easily/quickly can you find the info you're looking for?) and message availability (how much of the message are you seeing at once?) ex: newspaper has a bunch of info on one page (large message availability). On phone, you have to scroll through many pages. 5. Source control over message casting (how much can you pick who gets your message?) Ex: if you broadcast, you can't really pick who listens to the message. Over the internet, for example Facebook message, you have control over who is the recipient. 6. Message presentation (how much control do you have over presentation?) ex: if you buy a book, don't have control over font, size of book, page numbers, layout, etc. but if you read it online, you can change font size, zoom in/out, etc.

Explain some of the concerns for media representation (inclusion, roles, and control of production).

1. Inclusion: does the media include different groups or is there more of a symbolic annihilation (when a group isn't represented in a text)? Ex: in 2016, 1/3 of the top grossing films had less than 10% of minority cast. 78% of hollywood film roles are made up by whites. but more minorities in broadcast TV than in movies. 2. Roles: when groups are included, how are they depicted? Stereotypically? Are they small roles or large roles? In US population, 13.9% of films have minority lead actors. 31% have female leads. 3. Control over production: do different groups have control over the creation and production of media messages? Ex: 1.3/10 film directors are POC, less than 1/10 directors are female. OVERALL: Women and minorities remain significantly underrepresented in US media inclusion, roles, and control over production.

Discuss some of the features of fake news (news format, degree of falsity, and intention)

1. Its news format (it masquerades as news) 2. The degree of falsity (partially true/completely false) 3. The intention behind it (to mislead readers for political or economic purposes)

List, define, and provide an example for each of the three privacy types (Westin, 1996).

1. Privacy fundamentalists: protecting privacy first. An ideological commitment to privacy. 2. Privacy pragmatists: Trading some privacy for some benefit. 3. Privacy unconcerned: benefits are far greater than any threats. Willing to give lots of information for small benefits.

Discuss some of the challenges to the cultural imperialist thesis (different types of media, oppositional reading, regulation, competition, development of local media)

1. We should distinguish different types of media. 2. Imported media is subject to negotiated and oppositional readings. 3. Local media can compete: the south korean film industry is quite strong. 4. American products are sometimes made with an international audience in mind. 5. Corporations import media, but also develop local media. Ex: Titanic is the third highest grossing movie of all time. Made twice as much internationally as it did domestically.

Summarize and explain the three major research traditions

1. knowledge by discovery: Reality apart from our perceptions. We can discover what's going on. This reality is discoverable. Minimize role of researcher to find what's out there. 2. knowledge by interpretation: There is more than one reality that can be known. The knower's perception affects what is known. Not about truth--just making an interpretive claim. 3. knowledge by criticism: Everything we know is shared by our values. We should make people aware of these constructions (ideological formations), potentially changing them (to reduce damaging effects).

List, define, and provide an example for each of the three types of audience readings (dominant-hegemonic, negotiated, oppositional)

1. preferred/dominant-hegemonic readings: seeing the preferred encoded meaning (seeing the dominant message). The encoded text and the decoded text are similar. Ex: a TV program shows a heteronormative family where husband works and wife stays at home and there is power imbalance. Viewer would then agree with that sort of lifestyle. 2. Negotiated readings: seeing the preferred encoded meaning, but also challenging parts of it. The encoded text and decoded text are different. Ex: person watching that same show is a single mother, so she may not agree with parts of it. 3. Oppositional readings: produced thru transgressive and counter-hegemonic perspectives, critique or transform the preferred meaning. Encoded and decoded texts are different.

Define communication and explain the relevant terms

A systemic process in which people interact with and through symbols to create and interpret meanings (Wood, 2017). 1. Process. Communication is ongoing and dynamic. 2. Systems. Communication exists within preexisting webs of meaning. 3. Symbolic. Communication represents through things and words. 4. Meanings. Communication affects our social reality.

Define and explain the direct effects theory.

An early fear that audiences passively accepted media messages and would exhibit predictable reactions.

As it pertains to communication technologies, what is an algorithm?

Analytical models that allow machines to learn without explicit instruction. Systems can learn from data, rely on patterns, and make decisions.

Explain the fairness doctrine

Background: comes out of a tradition of radio and TV broadcasting -- using the public's air waves. TV station gets a license to use the public air waves. if they are found in violation of usage, license gets revoked. This is so that the stations don't interfere with each other, and bc it's in the public's air waves, it should be in the public's interest. In 1949, the FCC required, under fairness doctrine: 1. public issues broadcasting 2. diversity of views.

Define copyright

Copyright is enforced by governmental laws and make it illegal to copy and sell material without permission. Constitution gives copyright power to the congress.

Explain and provide an example of McLuhan's "global village"

Electronic media have made distance irrelevant, bringing the population into a global village. Such an information environment "compels commitment and participation. We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other." This expanded community leads to new connections, but also new tensions and violence.

Explain the process of encoding and decoding cultural texts.

Encoding: a writer takes frameworks of knowledge, structures of production, and technical infrastructure (which make up their social views/standpoint), and use that to encode messages into some media. This message then circulates as "meaningful discourse." Then, there is someone who decodes it. Like person who encodes, decoder decodes the message using their social position (their frameworks of knowledge). The encoded and decoded message, therefore, could be the same, opposing each other, or any combination in between, depending on the encoder and decoder's social position.

Define fake news

Fake news refers to a "wide range of disinformation and misinformation circulating online in the media" (Marwick and Lewis, 2017)

Define and explain Marxist false consciousness

False consciousness: how the ruling class imposed their worldview on the subordinate class. All the ways in which the working class was lead into a false belief about what was in their best interest. The working class needed to break free and adopt a revolutionary consciousness.

Explain filter bubbles and discuss how they online political content (from discussion section)

Filter bubbles are essentially the "bubble" of information that you are exposed to online. It is formed by your personal usage patterns which the algorithm takes in and creates a tailored online experience for you. In terms of political content, then, if you read mostly liberal political content, the algorithm will produce a liberal filter bubble in which the info you are exposed to becomes all liberal (very limited conservative info).

Explain what fin syn rules were and what they were trying to avoid

Fin syn rules (financial interest and syndication) prevented the major three networks from financial interest or syndication rights in the shows they aired. The fear was about monopolizing broadcasting and content.

Explain "demassification."

How much do we see a mass audience for TV media anymore? Back before streaming sites with archived TV episodes became popular, mass audiences would tune into the same, limited number of TV channels. But now, there is a demassification where there's not much of that because people can watch other shows.

Define ideology and discuss how media normalizes ideology

Ideology: a system of ideas and ideals. As ideological texts, media suggests what should be seen as normal and not normal. Media texts are often places where people fight over meaning.

Explain hegemony (its role in everyday culture, how it operates as common sense, but also how it is alterable)

In every day culture, hegemony plays a role by encouraging dominant ideological thoughts in citizens. For example, textbooks. US textbooks have a certain narrative that encourages dominant ideology, ex. explaining the US as an "immigration nation" or ignoring many social issues in history. When education in the US is affected by hegemony, hegemony becomes "common sense" or common knowledge because it is what we are taught in schools. Hegemony is alterable because it is a system of the way of thinking about the social reality of a culture. it is an ideological formation.

Define and explain strategic impression management

Involves trying to shape the version of us that lives online. May be highly curated (making up fake profiles, using others' photos, etc) Audio example (study "performing a vanilla self"): people of minority low-SES people only taking photos when looking professional, successful, put together (but this only further reinforces racism/white superiority).

Explain what the France's "cultural exception" does.

It is a mechanism to subsidize French film makers and foster locally produced media. A french law that places tariffs onto imported media (taxes it) and uses that money to subsidize french film makers. Regulations of how much locally produced content can be run on french TV. Continues to be a source of trade negotiations between US and France. France regularly has far fewer American imports. (so it has worked in the sense that the role of american media in French media system has been minimized).

Explain why algorithms tend to promote predictability.

Many algorithms are homophilic, they like more of the same and thus channel predictability.

Define medium and distinguish carrier from conduit media

Medium is the stuff between communicators, the means by which a message is delivered (paper, air, radio waves, etc). Two types: 1. Carrier: physical media (such as a paper letter) 2. Conduit: the message moves in the medium (such as electric cables)

Discuss how economic news can function hegemonically.

Most of the coverage of the economy is by and about the business community. And coverage focuses primarily on the interest of investors. If people buy into this type of business news, then it becomes a "common sense" type of news. Thus, this news begins to function hegemonically.

Distinguish corporate opt-in policies from opt-out policies.

Opt-in policies: every time a corporation wanted to get data from you (ex: facebook), they would have to ask you to opt-in to the data collection. Opt-out policies: you have to ask to opt-out of the data collecting.

Explain how industrial self-regulation of media content might avoid governmental regulation (using the comics code as an example)

Out of fear, comic industry created comics code because they were afraid that if they didn't the government would start to regulate comic books. These regulatory decisions matter and affect the way people receive messages. (whether these regulatory decisions are internal or external, they both have an impact).

Explain panopticonism and how it relates to modern participatory surveillance.

Panotpiconism: Prisoners are aware of the presence of an authority constantly. They never know when they are being observed, but internalize the sense of being observed. This, Foucault, suggests leads the prisoners to discipline themselves (form of social control). Moden participatory surveillance: We live in surveillanced cultures. Most of our online practices are "participatory surveillance." We generate information about ourselves and surveil others. We are active participants in this practice.

Explain the contextual approach to privacy concerns

Subject: an article Sender: editor Recipient: writer Information type: decision to reject article Transmission principle: writers deserve to know the fate of their submissions

Explain what the FFC regulates

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) regulates US interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. There are changes within the FCC that mirror the political appointment process. It is a regulatory body. FCC also works to regulate private broadcasters, to make sure they don't interfere with one another on the same waves.

Explain why the FCC is particularly concerned with broadcast airwaves

The FCC is particularly concerned with regulating broadcast airwaves because they want to avoid interference, but this might also reduce the diversity of opinion

Define and provide an example of cultural imperialism

The cultural imperialism argument suggests that a large volume of media products flow from the West, especially the US, and thus shape other cultures in a form of domination.

Define and provide an example of the global digital divide

The gap between developed and developing countries in terms of access to communication and information technologies and resources. ex: In the developed world, 81% of people are internet users while in developing world 41% are. Not an even distribution.

Explain some of the consumerist implications of making digital devices "frictionless."

The implication is that they want digital devices to run smoothly and to operate on a level that is tailored to its best capacity for the consumer. Ease of use. But this type of convenience aims "to short-circuit the process of reflection that stands between one's recognition of a desire and its fulfillment via the market."

Explain the implications of the statement, "The medium is the message."

The medium (the way you're receiving the message) fundamentally affects what's going on inside the message. The affordances affect how the message gets across.

Explain the statement, "If you aren't paying (much) to use it, you're the product."

The reason why you aren't paying much to use it is because you are paying the companies back in a different way; by giving them information about your usage on that specific app. This helps the companies better their technology and thus you become the product.

Explain why these traditions are important

These epistemological traditions are frameworks for communication about knowledge claims. Any time you read anything that reports on some type of study, it comes from one of these traditions. They have ways of speaking about knowledge that are embedded in these traditions. All traditions generate useful, albeit different, knowledge. It's important to know these so that we can accurately evaluate different types of knowledge claims.

Explain vertical and horizontal integration for media companies

Vertical integration: buying up properties for the purpose of controlling production, distribution, and exhibition. Ex: disney owns studios, parks, etc. Moving from TV broadcasting --> subscription is also another vertical integration tactic. Horizontal integration: purchasing other outlets at the same level of production. There used to be regulation on how many outlets a company could own, but now there's not. SBC owns over 100 (I think), but this leads to the same message presented multiple times over different outlets.

Define and explain social comparison theory

We assess our social and personal worth based on how we stack up against others seen as above or below us. This is not always bad; sometimes can be useful as a source of improvement/motivation. Can be bad if leading to feelings of isolation, depression (which some studies suggest). Social media allows us to easily socially compare and place ourselves on a hierarchy.

Define and explain technological determinism

Where we assume a lot of power in tech to cause things. This determinism suggests that there's something in the tech that causes some outcome. Ex: "tinder" isn't ruining marriages, cheating partners (who might use tinder) ruin marriages.

Discuss Lewis's insights into how YouTube algorithms might move a viewer from mainstream political content to fringe content.

Youtube (YT) recommendation engine (its algorithms) learns who is connected to these videos and keeps serving more of the same. You can start in a mainstream place, but wind up in a fringe place because of the choices YT offers you.