Comm 101 Final Exam
Gender
- A social organizing system with sets of socially constructed roles - Socially constructed roles viewed as binary - The cultural meanings we attach to being male/female - Not the same as sex (biological traits we associate with being male/female)
Patriarchy
- A social system that favors men (special privileges and authority) and reinforces men's dominant gender status in society
False consciousness
- A term used by Marxists for the way in which material and ideologies in capitalist societies mislead members of the working class - Marx and Engels use ideology to emphasize a distortion of ideas/beliefs - Where does the working man's labor end up?
Attributes of democracy
- Access and inclusivity - Requires accurate, reliable information and education - Deliberative public process - Ways for citizens to place their concerns on the public agenda - Requires active participation from the people
Louis Althusser
- French Marxist philosopher who emphasized the structural aspects of ideology - Develops theory of ideology concerned with structures: Ideology is embodied in the structures and institutions of society (not just "beliefs and ideas") - Interpellation
Michael Foucault
- French philosopher (1960s - 70s) - Examined the relationship between power and knowledge - Rejected "ideology" because it implies true/false. - Instead, used "discourse" as a system of representation that regulates and produces meaning in historical contexts - On gender: we internalize the judgement and become our own discipliners
Trends in online gaming audiences
- Games are traditionally a medium for boys (video games kept targeting boys as a safe audience that already existed) - PC and Console games more male oriented because of the online environment (competitive, trash-talking, bullying, frequently sexist, racist or homophobic)
Newsworthiness
- Gatekeepers determine newsworthiness (reporters, editors, publishers, advertisers, news consumer)
Ideology
- The way that particular meanings and explanations are 'naturalized' as common sense. - Does not refer to individually held personal beliefs - A set of beliefs gathered in a particular culture at a particular time, usually by dominant institutions
Genre
- Tool for analyzing TV. - Conventional system for structuring cultural products. Conventions help maintain a culture's stability while inventions help it respond to changing circumstances.
Minstrelsy
- Traveling plays/performances that drew on racist conventions. Ridiculed slow-witted black men and often relied on civil war stereotypes. - Justified racial oppression
Influences on the news
- Trends in news rely on sources, dominant media firms are big business who want to reach quality audiences, social circles between publishers, socialization of journalists, getting a good story first
Queer
- Umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities that are not heterosexual or cisgender. - Originally meant "strange" or "peculiar" - Often used as a broader, less conformist, and deliberately ambiguous alternative to LGBT
Game addiction (contributing factors)
- Uneven rewards - Immersive environments - Social interactions * Players are more likely to be addicted if facing other personal problems/impulse control issues
GamerGate
- Was supposed to be a Twitter campaign focusing on game journalists, encouraging ethical game reviews - Actually a harassment campaign directed at female game developers, critics and players
Media affordances
- What technology enables - Ex: Can transmit messages from opposite sides of the world in seconds, used to take days/weeks. Significance: Changes the way the world interacts/works together
Plot
- What we see/hear on the screen is all we know. - The order things are revealed to the audience through camera work and editing.
Symbolic annihilation (and video games)
- Women are underrepresented in video games - Women are also misrepresented (they are oversexualized)
Virgin/wh*re binary
- Women cannot be both pure and promiscuous --> women experience a sense of identity conflict. (Fragmented Subjectivity?)
Femininity
- a set of culturally determined behaviors assigned to being "feminine"
Stereotypes as signifying practice
- black stereotypes that originated in the 19th c. - racial grammar of film. representation based on 5 main stereotypes: Uncle Toms, Coons, Tragic Mulatto, Mammies, Bad Bucks
Story
- everything that we know - all events as they occur in chronological order
How are working class queer characters represented on prime time TV?
- gays/lesbians had to appeal to mainstream notions of the average american family (They had to be attractive, uphold basic traditional family values, etc.) - Queer working class were underrepresented on TV
What kinds of stories are important?
- government - health - crime/scandals - rites of passage - war - national ceremonies - disasters
What kinds of people are important?
- high ranking officials - actors/celebrities - violators of law - victims - participants in unusual activities - voters/poll respondents
Who is favored in the news and who is not? Who is absent from the news?
- management (over labor) - Corporatism (over non-corp) - Affluent (over the poor) - Private enterprise (over gov. programs) - Whites (over people of color) - Males (over females) - Officialdom (over protest)
Anti-feminism
- opposition to feminism - Says feminist theories of patriarchy and disadvantages suffered by women in society are incorrect or exaggerated The belief that women are unequal to men. Significance: Directly opposes feminism, signifies the ongoing struggle between anti-feminists and feminists. Also, women are represented as lesser to men due to their anti-feminist beliefs.
Ethical considerations
- revealing vs. protecting sources, deception, whistleblowing stories, privacy, conflict of interest. With accuracy of sources (whistleblowing, privacy) • Edward Snowden • 1971: Daniel Ellsberg leaked pentagon papers to the NYTimes (top secret Vietnam war docs) • 2010: Wikileaks published 1.73 gb of classified state and diplomatic cables exposing corruption ("cablegate") surveillance • 2016: Panama Papers - German paper releases biggest leak in journalistic history (11.5 million docs) from panama law firm exposing tax avoidance and money laundering among world's most powerful) o Most news based on official sources (reliance on experts) o Undisclosed Sources: those close to power that are eager to be sources and are proved reliable. Their names are not revealed (to protect them)
Masculinity
- something traditionally considered to be male; what culture expects from men. - Ex. Men are tough, ambitious, strong, aggressive, self reliant, stoic. - Significance: what it means to be a man is held to a certain standard. Masculinity is defined by race and class, and interact with notions of femininity/feminism. - Masculinities are constantly evolving. Some core assumptions about money, success, emotions are changing. - Based on sexual identity - Illustrates that gender is actually a performance.
What is television?
- technology - text - industry - delivery mechanism -policy/law/regulation - social imagination - cultural form
Intersectionality
- the idea that discourses of race, gender and class intersect or interrelate in their influence/how they shape people's positions and social outcomes - Creates overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage (Kimberle Crenshaw)
Shared culture
- the idea that everyone watches the same things on TV, and therefore is united by common ideologies (Network Era)
Post-feminism (and irony)
An ideology that insists feminism's goals have already been achieved and that feminism is now irrelevant. Thus, sexist images of women are OK. - (relies on repudiating feminism.) "I'm not a feminist, but..."
Race
Constructed meaning layered on top of inherited differences in appearance, not real in nature. - Race is not biological, it is socially constructed. - Race is a modern idea, not a category of nature. - Race has no genetic basis - Slavery predates race (long history of societies enslaving others but not because of physical characteristics or natural inferiority)
Napster, Gnutella, Kazaa, Grokster
File sharing and P2P networks
Associated Press
First Wire service established in 1848
Formula
Formula variations: variations in a given genre
Politics of representation
If representation can shape how people are seen, then changing representations/signification practices can shape cultural politics & material outcomes. (gender, race, masculinity, class, sexuality.) - the burden of representation - Identity and stereotypes - Framing, the gaze, identification
"Peak TV"
In 2015, 409 original scripted series between broadcast, cable, SVOD services - no one can watch it all. Too much TV?
Rise of News Analysis
In news analysis, reporters try to explain what lies behind the surface of events and what they mean
Bricolage
Taking an object and altering its meaning by changing the way it is used - "playing with meaning" - Expectations can be exploited - Meanings can be transferred
Power
The capacity or agency to influence
Discourse
The creation of a topic of knowledge, what can and cannot be said about the topic
The Fourth Estate
Mainstream media - an unofficial social and political force, as important as the official sources of power (3 estates: legislative, judiciary, executive)
Mainstream vs. minority media
Mainstream media: serves the interests of the public. Minority media: African american press & civil rights, Native-american reporting, feminist movements.
Crisis in News (what is changing?)
Major trends have reshaped the news business: - declining circulation/ratings - declining advertising - technological changes and fragmentation • Radio & TV • Cable and 24 hour news cycle • Internet
Common sense
The embedded beliefs and assumptions characterizing the conformist thinking of the masses, established by the ruling class
Hypermasculinity
The exaggeration of "traditional" masculine traits (characterized by physical strength, violence, aggressive heterosexuality)
Copyright
The exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film or record literary, artistic, or music material, and to authorize others to do the same.
24-hour news cycle (pros & cons)
The idea that news must always be circulating --> Constant pressure to produce stories all the time. Pros: Easy access to news, up to date Cons: News can be irrelevant, meaningless, elaborated, lack of nuance
Racism
The idea that these outward differences indicate inner differences; people can objectively be divided into races (that are ranked)
Interface (and interface metaphors)
The means through which we interact with the machine system - hardware: mouse, keyboard, touch-screen - Software: command-line interface, graphical user interface Interface metaphors shape the ways we imagine computing: - "burrowing, surfing" town, mall, house, desktop - cultural assumptions are built into interfaces - they are not neutral!
Mixed messages
The messages we receive through media show women as both strong and objectified. - Struggle between embedded feminism and enlightened sexism (why do we accept depictions that were once sexist?)
SLUMPY demographic
Social-liberal urban-minded professionals (Becker) - Becker argues that gay-themed TV in 1990s targets the SLUMPY audience. Big 3 faced pressure to improve audience demographic profiles in order to impress advertisers eager to reach their core consumer niche. - If it wasn't for advertisers, would these networks have to work hard to include LGBT content?
Source journalism vs. Investigative journalism
Source: all information comes from official sources Investigative: reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest (conducted by freelance journalists, newspapers)
The "scoop"
The penny press tried to include "the scoop," or the gossip.
Challenges of Post-Network Era
- For TV: internet technology disrupts established TV norms - Loss of "shared culture"
The press
"The news media" - Mainstream tv/newspaper/magazine outlets that cover current events - Journalist and editors that work at these outlets, as well as their editors & owners - "Freedom of the press" = key component of democratic governance
Hegemonic masculinity
- "Normative" male behavior: Aggressive, ambitious, physical strength, tough, emotionless, etc. - Significance: sets a standard for men's self expectations and let's the audience associate certain qualities with men. - Several ways to be masculine, but some are more privileged than others
Marxism
- "The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas." - Power is held and works hierarchically (vertically, Pyramid model)
Narrative complexity
- - The idea that there can be more than one ongoing plot line and that there is not always knowledge of everything that goes on. Differs from conventional narrative. - Context in which complex storytelling arose: Changing perceptions of tv's cultural legitimacy, changing industrial climate (syndication demanded interchangeable episodes but fragmentation meant smaller cult audiences were appealing), complex stories are re-watchable (DVDs). Technological context: time-shifting A mode of television storytelling that emerged in 1990s (mittel.) - Redefines episodic forms of storytelling under the influence of serial narration.
Continuity conventions (180 degree rule, 30 degree rule, 3-to-1 rule)
- 180-degree rule: when filming characters using shot-reverse-shot, camera should stay on one side of the line of action to keep spatial relationship consistent - 30-degree rule: move camera at least 30 degrees each time you switch angles (to prevent jarring jump cuts) - 3-to-1 rule: Don't cut from LS to MCU. Better option: LS→ MS → CU
Interpretive Era
- 1920s Limits of objectivity - reporters acknowledge their own bias - more interpretive pieces - News analysis emerges (reporters try to explain what lies behind the surface of events/what they mean)
What kinds of stories and values does TV tell about race and class?
- 1950s: TV portrayed blacks as servants/sources of entertainment - Post civil rights, blacks began to appear more frequently on primetime TV, suggesting there is room for everyone on TV. - Struggles for social justice reduced to a matter of inclusion - TV shows that included blacks dealt with the self-made man, NOT the reality of social/economic hardships. (No discussion of affirmative action, welfare, social support) - 90s: TV shifted to portrayals of successful blacks as role models for working-class blacks
Feminism
- 1st wave: 19th - early 20th c. "suffragettes" - 2nd wave: 1960s - 70s "women's liberation" - 3rd wave: Girl power, Riot Grrrls
Binary oppositions
- A conflict between two qualities or aspects. Binaries are unequal, have values attached, provide points of identification. Difference create meaning. - Ex: Rich vs. Working class, Young vs. old, Virgin vs. ***** binary
Audience Labor
- A model that describes over-air broadcast with magazine advertising: Says that TV is not "free" because advertisers pay for audience attention, and audience works for TV.
Narrative
- A series of events in a cause-and-effect relationship that occur in time and are motivated by characters. (Characters and events = basic elements)
Slow news day
A time where media organizations publish trivial stories due to the lack of more substantial topics.
Roles/functions of TV (including cultural roles)
- Addresses current anxieties and fears - Open up/explore those anxieties but also manage them metaphorically (sometimes answer with utopian visions, scarcity answered by abundance, exhaustion by energy, dreariness by intensity, fragmentation by community, etc.) - Interplay of realism but also fantasy/desire - Sometimes TV responds to specific inadequacies in society by answering them with utopian visions
News agencies (wire services)
- An organization that gathers news and sells to other media outlets - Cooperative venture among NYC papers
Types of video games
- Arcade - stand alone machines, public - PC Games - on computers - Console games - hardware specific to gaming - Handhled games - hardware specific to gaming, portable, built in screen - Social games - facebook, kids' sites like club penguin - Mobile games - smart phones, tablets, etc.
Simplified Complex representations
- Asultany reading - New standard in racial and cultural representations involves balancing negative + positive representations - If a storyline represents an Arab/Muslim as a terrorist, then it also includes a "positive" representation to offset the potential stereotype.
Embedded feminism (and characteristics of)
- Beginning in 1970s The idea that because feminist ideals are present in media messages, we have accepted them as gains, attitudes and achievements woven into cultural fabric. - A way in which women's achievements or desires are now simply part of the media landscape
Press releases and their impact on news
- Between 40-45% of content in newspapers originate with a public relations press release
Network Era (1940s - 1970s)
- Big 3 broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) are available channels - TV is a non-portable domestic medium - Everyone watches the same things, typically together as a family unit. (Idea of shared culture)
Genre
- Both repetition and difference are at play - Pleasure/satisfaction in something predictable - Excitement of new spin on a genre - Repertoire of elements in combination • Semantic elements: signs • Syntactic structures: plot/themes
Capitalist mode of production
- Capitalist (owner of means of production) appears to buy workers' labor for money, but what workers really sell to the capitalists is their labor power
Why do representations change?
- Changing society - New markets & shifting industrial context requires new programming strategies - Niche markets & audience segmentation - Industry conception of "quality" and "national" audiences - SLUMPY audience
Types of Masculinity
- Classic masculinity: Men are tough, ambitious, strong, aggressive, self-reliant, etc. - Masculinities are defined by race/class, interact with notions of femininity/feminism. - Masculinities are constantly evolving
Storytelling models
- Classic storytelling model: • Act I: routine, inciting incident, tackles problem • Act II: Numerous struggles (failures! Successes!), the darkest moment (90 mins into film) • Act III: Third act twist, more struggles, problem resolved
How did the cartoon genre change?
- Classical movie studio era (1930s - 50s): cartoons had mass appeal; block-booked with features - 1950's TV: movie shorts re-edited for content & recycled, scattered throughout TV schedule - 1960s TV: Saturday morning cartoon blocs (disappear from prime time) - Fringe programming slot, target kids = children's genre - Low programming costs, re-runs
Crisis in Masculinity
- Confusion of identity (what does it mean to be a man?) - Men's gender becomes "marked" and denaturalized - 1990's reaction to embedded feminism - Significance: Led to variety in their representations in society
Decentralized network
- Contains several main nerve centers - Peers connected to other peers without being directed by a server (the network in theory, is infinitely large.) - In reality, this size of a network is constrained by layers of computers a message has to travel through
Tecno Brega music scene (as alternative to copyright protection as economic model)
- Copyright is not a part of business model, CD's are distributed to street vendors - CDs distributed to street vendors by local recording studios - CDs used to promote sound system parties - street vendors make money from CD sales, artists make money from "sound system" parties (admission, record music at party and sell CD's at the end, shoutouts)
Karl Marx
- Das Kapital analyzed economic patterns underpinning capitalist mode of production - Emphasized labor power and critiqued capitalism - Used ideology to emphasize a distortion of idea/beliefs ("false consciousness")
Relationship between internet and democracy
- Decentralized network, distributed power (not top down - Marx?) - Many-to-many communication - Not owned by one company or government - Easy/quick info access → the informed citizen - Diversification of communication channels - Goal of Web 2.0! Is freedom/democracy an inevitable consequence of digital technology? NO! New media is also shaped by institutions that grow up around it (Mainstream media, capitalism, government)
Perfect copies (how does this technical quality relate to industrial, political, economic, cultural issues?)
- Digital (perfect) copies: every time you make a digital copy, it is a perfect copy of the original. With analogue, every time you make a copy, it degrades. Digital copies privilege replication, changing manufacturing/distribution, copyright, piracy, public domain, etc.) - Easy and essentially cost free to make a copy
DMCA
- Digital millenium copyright act (1988) - designed to update copyright of digital age - made it illegal to circumvent anti-piracy measures built into commercial software - outlaws the manufacture, sale or distribution code-cracking devices used to illegally copy software
Media representations of class over time
- Early day TV shows dealt with the middle-class. - More lower class/working class (blue collar) featured in media today
Feminine Mystique
- False belief system that women find identity and meaning in life through their husbands and children. Assumes all women have built-in maternal instincts, are nurturing, passive, inherently domestic
What kind of alternative business models exist that don't depend on copyright and CD sales for making money on music?
- Goes from production to distribution (remix) - Man listens to song on radio and downloads it from a filesharing device. Music producer invites artists to studios and make CDs --> deliver to street vendors so they can replicate the CDs. - Only people making profit from CDs are street venders - Sound systems compete amongst themselves about who has the best equipment. They realize CD's are not a good business model, they are merely an advertisement! - Artists make money through sound system parties (admission, record money at party and sell CD's at the end, shoutouts.) - Copyright not a part of business model
Naturalization
- Ideological structures appear to be natural, according to the order of things
Web 2.0 (including characteristics and buzzwords associated with this term)
- Industry term to describe shift in web content, attitudes about users and social meaning of the web - A term first popularized by O'Reilly Media at "FOO (friends of O'reilly) camp - Industry insiders rethink the future of the internet after the dot-com bust. KEYWORD: democratization of media info, knowledge, content, audience, author!
Fragmented subjectivity
- Inhabit multiple personas, some in conflict, identify with contradiction itself
Impact of cable and the internet on news
- Internet is seen as more "democratic" - Personalization and news filtering
Post-Network Era (2000s - Present)
- Internet technology disrupts TV norms/conventions - Cable TV providers like Comcast, Time Warner become near-monopoly providers of Internet service! - Proliferation of screens/devices (more electronic machines like DVDS and laptops) - Audience is highly fragmented, loss of shared culture? - Increase of niche programming (narrowcasting) - Expansion of media space, industrial strategies, new modes of storytelling
Antonio Gramsci
- Italian Marxist imprisoned in 1926 because of his politics by Mussolini - How does ideology work? How does distortion happen? - Cultural Hegemony: Coercion through consent (domination of the ruling class who manipulate the culture of diverse society) -
Literary/Narrative Journalism
- Journalism as art - Stories that speak to human experiences, styles of story telling that draw from narrative fiction (descriptive details, extensive character dialogue, etc.)
Langue and parole (Saussure)
- Langue: language structure, system of rules, grammar, shared meanings. Not just linguistics - think tv/film grammar - Parole: an individual utterance, which can shift meaning (how would this shot be different if a different camera angle was used?)
Serial Storytelling
- Longer, ongoing storyline
How are genres produced? (techniques)
- Marketing (ad campaigns, trailers, posters, etc.) - Distribution (packaging, targeting markets, international releases, re-releases) - Exhibition (location of theaters, show times, rating)
Social media vs. mass media
- Mass media: 1 to many broadcast - Social media: many to many - talks about problem of terminology b/c social media are mass and mass are social,) so what is the distinction?
How are working class men/fathers represented on TV?
- Minorities and working class whites are shown as deviant and threatening - TV reinforces the notion that the absence of a father figure contributes to minority youth becoming dangerous
Fragmented Era
- More interpretation - More news outlets - News media fragmented, little agreement on even basic facts, let alone interpretation
File-sharing and P2P networks
- Napster: Central server in US to manage directory - Gnutella: radically de-centered, no central directory. Couldn't handle heavy traffic - Kazaa: "super peer" system. Organized outside US. Grokster licensed its software
Magazine Format Advertising
- Network owns the show, advertisers buy small 30-60 second spots (segment, variety) ex. Tonight show (90 mins)
Networks & affiliates
- Networks are paid by affiliate to broadcast a show - Ex: NY affiliate that broadcasts gossip girl
Big data, visualization and journalism
- New mode of storytelling - data visualization and journalism in the age of big data brings the rise of online news videos to raise ad revenue
Why do we get the news we do?
- News values w/ bias towards conflict - Agendas of public officials (news management) - Journalistic ambition "the scoop" - Press releases - Profit pressures - Entertainment values - Pressure for advertisers - Censorship - Time - Technological/economic constraints - News routines - Frames of reference
What is news? How is it constructed?
- News: events and stories of importance and relevance to people (social, economic, political) - What is considered "news" is shaped by social expectation, public interest, sensationalism
Craft traditions
- Objectivity, neutrality: Inverted pyramid model - Often viewed skeptically: the belief that pure objectivity is not possible to achieve o Objectivity o Neutrality o Verification o Fairness o Truth
What defines success for men?
- Occupy high status positions - Initiate action - Rational rather than emotional - Financially successful Significance: Puts pressure on men to meet these standards
Racial formation
- Omi & Winant The process of assigning meaning to racial difference and constructing racial categories - As a theoretical model, this approach emphasizes ongoing contestation, struggle and change
Stereotype
- Originally a printing term (a printing plate/block) - reducing a person/people to a few characteristics/traits - Adds emotional value/judgement
Surveilling femininity and masculinity
- Panopticon (all seeing) - Individuals have to act certain ways all the time in order to maintain the identity of masculine/feminine
Biology is destiny
- Part of feminine mystique - All women are nurturing, passive, domestic, and maternal according to biology.
Origins of news: Partisan Press, Penny Press
- Partisan Press: early news in America, primarily political opinions. Newspapers designed for property owning, politically active commercial elites. Sold by subscription, expensive (6 cents). Focused on politics and commercial transactions - Penny Press (19th c.) • Starts in early 1830s with Benjamin Day's The Sun • Tries for bigger market: sold on street corners, cheaper price, increased coverage of upper/lower classes, inclusion of crime news, emphasis on events rather than opinions • Essays, scandal, gossip, business, letters, fashion, sports, etc. • Trying to sell more often → emphasis on competition and speed (who's got "the scoop?")
The gaze
- Passive vs. active - Women are "to be looked at" - Men act, women appear
Homonormativity
- Perceived privileging of homosexuality - Addresses the problems of privilege in the queer community as they intersect with white privilege, capitalism, sexism, etc., all of which exclude many people from the movement towards greater sexual freedom/equality.
Representation (as a construction of meaning)
- Representation is not a mirror or reflection of reality - Representation can shape understanding
Enlightened sexism
- Resurrects sexist stereotypes of women, insisting this is okay because equality as already been achieved. - Invites the viewer to be ironically sexist
Multichannel Era (1980s - 2000s)
- Rise of cable = dramatic increase in number of channels - cable is not limited by the spectrum, cable revenue comes from both advertising and subscription fees - Number of broadcasting networks increase: FOX, UPN/WB (merged to CW in '07) join the big 3 - Direct Broadcast Satellite becomes another option for consumers - Cable networks create original programming (less content regulation, more sex/violence, often seen as higher quality)
Relationship between representation and industrial context
- Rise of cable diminishes "Race as a social problem" because cable assumes the "national" audience is white, middle class (aligns with broadcast nets hegemony.) - In fragmented universe of cable, nets must compete with narrowcasting strategies of cable - Leads to Gay-themed programming of 90s - Rise of reality TV in 2000s
How have LGBT been represented in media? How has this changed over time?
- Safe and sanitized - No sex or affection (modern family) - Narrow scope of operation (design, aesthetics, fashion) - Secondary role (queer eye) - Paired with straights (Will & Grace) - Changing representation today
Gendered representations of computing and interfaces
- Sites like Picmonkey endorse cultural assumptions of beauty (blemish fix, wrinkle remover, spray tan, teeth whiten, etc.) - Pinterest activity
Cis-gender
- Someone who has a gender identity that aligns with what they were assigned at birth - Term was created for referring to non-transgender people without alienating transgenders. (Term is a "compliment" to transgenders)
Sponsorship Format Advertising
- Sponsors own/control content - Programs are longer and cost to sponsors goes up
Types of camera movement
- Stationary shot: camera does not move - Hand held: camera seems to be held by a person (bouncy or shaky, horror?) - Pan: a shot in which the camera is rotated on its horizontal axis, moves right to left/left to right (shows vista?) - "Swish" or "Flash" pan: high-speed pan (action) - Tilt: a shot in which camera is rotated on its vertical axis, moves up/down - Crane shot: a moving shot with camera mounted on a specially constructed crane-like device - Tracking/dolly shot: a shot where camera is mounted on some moving vehicle, or handheld by a moving cameraman and moves either forward and back, diagonally, horizontally, etc.
Stereotype
- Stereotype is actually a printing term (printing plate/block.) Often mass-produced and sent to many printers/newspapers. - Difference - Classification - Essentialization - Hierarchy - Naturalization
Episodic Storytelling
- Stories function independently, separate installments
Hegemony
- Struggle for power, access, visibility - Struggle over how to define a minority/who gets to define a minority - Ideological hegemony: the domination of subordinate classes through what comes to be the "common sense" of a society. - Subordinate mass is dominated by the ruling class, making ideologies seem like common sense (no one questions it) - Antonio Gramsci
SVOD
- Subscription Video on Demand - became a highly popular alternative during Post-Network Era - Cord cutting became common: canceling cable subscription and watching TV through SVOD
Timeline of TV's technical development
- TV technologies developed from 1831 onward - 1926: Philo Farnsworth - first TV picture - 1928-1934: limited TV development and patent wars - 1936: World's Fair Launch - 1940s: FCC approves analog transmission standards - 1950s: TV takes off, still plenty of black and white - 1966: Switch to full color transmission - 1970s: Developments in satellite technology make cable possible - 2009: TV switches from analog to digital transmission
How does storytelling differ across media?
- TV, Film, Newspaper, Radio - Podcast, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat
Heteronormativity
- The belief that assumes all people fall into distinct and complementary genders (man and woman) with natural roles in life. - Heterosexuality as the "normal" way to be
Commodity fetishism
- The belief that objects hold the intrinsic value instead of the human labor that went into the object
Binary opposition of men vs. women
- The idea that real men are the opposite of women - feminine/gay traits are emasculating - Compensation: the idea that men have to compensate for deviating from masculinity Signifiance: Masculinity is defined by its contrast to femininity, separating the two into spheres of influence while justifying inequality between men and women.
Symbolic Annihilation
- The systematic underrepresentation of a particular group/s - Media representations that favor stereotypes and omit realistic portrayals - Ex. Women as sex objects, secretaries, nurses
How are working class women/mothers represented on TV?
- women hold jobs at the bottom of the economic pyramid, especially women of color. - 50s/60s, more women than ever in the workforce, but this was NOT reflected in TV - 70s: number of single parent households explode, resulting in high poverty rates, which is not accurately reflected on TV. - On TV, women's problems only concern personal/individual matters, not caused by general injustice to their socioeconomic status - women in the workplace are not empowered to confront their bosses
Flow vs. Time-shifting
-Flow: Raymond Williams (1975.) The way TV programming is arranged to keep viewers watching (lead ins, lead outs, placement of commercials) - Time shifting: new technologies like DVR and steaming make it easier to watch what you want, when you want --> elimination of temporal boundaries around TV viewing (but is flow really dead? Binge watching - tons of unavoidable ads)
Propp's 8 character roles
1. Hero - protagonist that seeks something, carries events of story, moves narrative along 2. Villain - challenges/obstructs hero 3. Donor - provides an object with some magic property 4. Helper - aids the hero 5. Princess - reward for the hero, object of villain's schemes, hangs around looking decorative 6. Father - rewards hero 7. Dispatcher - sends hero on quest 8. False hero - revealed to be bad as part of plot, tries to usurp hero's role or traits
Counter-strategies for contesting a racialized regime of representation
1. Reverse stereotypes: aggressive affirmation of black cultural identity; positive attitude towards difference (black genre films of 70s) 2. Substitute "positive" images for negative ones (aims to expand the range of racial representation. Ex. Cosby Show 1980s) 3. Contest racial representation from within (uses dominant racial representations to make stereotypes work against themselves - an artistic practice)
Shifts in televisual representations of race over time
1950s - early 1990s: Race as a social problem. (News/documentary coverage of Reagan-era aligns, blacks with welfare fraud, drug abuse, bad parenting.) Mid 1990s - today: race as commodity - Rise of cable: "race as social problem" no longer significant b/c cable presumes a "national" audience that is white, middle class - race and representation in post 9/11 media climate
Representations of men over time (by decade)
1980s: The New Man & Single Dads. Challenges Patriarchal masculinity but still ambivalent towards feminism. Men in media began to be portrayed as sensitive. 1990s: Conflicted male protagonists struggling with how to be a man. (More homosexuals, metrosexuals, emasculated men.) TV shows like Will and Grace. - Peak of "crisis" discourse (late 1990s) - Industrial factors: Multi-channel era, fragmented audience, channel branding, emergence of "quality TV" and premium cable as sites of sustained character development) Significance: opens up more ways for acceptance for men and shows how stereotypes
4 Components of TV grammar and related terms
4 Components: Camera work, editing, sound, mise-en-scene - Shot: moving image produced by single, continuous running of camera (can be any length) - Frame: a single, still picture from TV or film - Scene: a group of shots that constitute a formal unit - Cut: the switch from one shot to another - Fade in: from blank to images. - Fade out: from images to blank - Dissolve (cross fade): one image fades in as another fades out - Cutaway: a shot inserted in a scene to show action at another location - Crosscutting: a shift back and forth between two scenes, usually assumed to be occurring at the same time
Stereotypes of women over time
50s/60s: Women are domestic, maternal, nurturing, passive. 70s: Women are beautiful, slim, young, weak, passive, not very smart, poor decision makers. 80s: Rise of embedded feminism: Strong women appear on TV in men's roles. 90s: Post-feminist era: Warrior women as well as "girliness." Struggle between enlightened sexism and embedded feminism.
Jim Crow
A black man depicted as a slow-witted country bumpkin who was easy to control
Culture
A learned system of thought and behavior that typifies a large group of people and includes their beliefs, values, and practices. - applies to any broadly shared group identity, not simply a person's nationality
Racial project
A mode of explaining social differences using racial ideas to justify unequal access to resources
Sexuality
A person's sexual orientation/preference
Remix
A piece of media which has been altered from its original state by adding, removing and/or changing pieces of the item
News values (and list of them)
A set of widely recognized but rarely explicitly stated criteria used to select and prioritize news stories for publication. 1. Timeliness or newness (new events are more exciting) 2. Threshold (scale, impact of event, national interest) 3. Proximity (local relevance) 4. Covering Conflict • Consequences: Horse-race election coverage, issue dualism, loss of center, no nuance, false conflict 5. Novelty (what sticks out, bizarreness) 6. Negativity (what goes wrong, linked to "gotcha," watchdog, but also cynicism) 7. Prominence (people, institutions, celebrities, linked to personalization) 8. Human interest ("slice of life") • Heartwarming version of the negativity side • TV news will string out the story to warm peoples hearts 9. Predictability (time, rhythm) • Tax time (again), back to School 10. Consequence/usefulness (linked to Predictability 11. Historical significance (anniversaries of historical events ex. 9/11), changing meanings over time 12. Continuity (Following an ongoing story, covering smaller stories in order to tell bigger ones) 13. Composition (Often highlights journalist work, compelling visuals.) Ex. Cover story about a piece because a photojournalist captured a great shot)
Analog vs. Digital
ANALOG technology (waves) - analog transmission is a way of sending signals in which the transmitted signal is a wave similar to the original signal. (humans experience the world analogically.) • AM (amplitude modulation) refers to radio waves that vary by height • AM (frequency modulation) refers to waves that vary by speed DIGITAL technology represents data in binary code. All info is stored as a number, either a 1 (on) or 0 (off) switches (called "transistors") on a microchip
ARPA and ARPANET
ARPA = Advanced Research PRojects Agency. - B/c of Cold War: Sputnik - Computing occurs because of this (mainframes and batch processing) - roots of the internet: mainframes were expensive (huge computers) & scientists wanted another way of sharing resources --> idea to link ARPA-funded mainframes ARPANET connected four computers at UCLA, UCSB, Utah, SRI - How it works: 2 or more computers linked together (forms a distributed network.) Method of transmitting data is called packet switching (data broken into packets and sent independently through network, then re-ordered at destination.)
Consent
Achieved through ideological hegemony (ruling class establishes "common sense")
Video game (definition of)
Any form of electronic game where player input results in feedback on a screen
Public journalism
Approach to journalism that emphasizes service to audience and a concern for readers and viewers' roles in the information process
Repetition & difference
Audiences want both repetition and difference in a specific genre
Blogger vs. journalist debates
Blogs: • Can make MSM more accountable • Cover issues that MSM bypasses • Blogs increase press criticism, "keep the fourth estate in check" • "News as lecture" gives way to "news as conversation"
Shifts in news media today
Digital players, social media transforming news, new modes of storytelling. - Opens the previously closed system of gatekeepers - Lowers the barriers to entry for news commentary - Changes balance of power between producers and consumers - 24 hours news cycle replaces "appointment" model - Personalization and news filtering
History of video games
Environment where first video games developed: Tennis for Two invented at Brookhaven National Library (limited in function and required expensive equipment) → Other games followed by a single designer in a university or lab setting (only places with the necessary computing power) Reasons for 1980s industry collapse: Arcades had a bigger market than home consoles (technologically superior and brought more revenue during their peak than the whole of today's industry) Reasons for Arcade decline: Arcades couldn't compete with convenience and cost of home consoles once computer technology improved. However, arcades saw a slower decline because they continued to innovate. • Best selling arcade game of all time: Pacman Significance of casual games: Casual games are changing gaming → turned video games into a "normal" activity for everyone, not only limited to "nerdy" population. "Casual Revolution"
Production Context
Events that occurred during the production of media text
Problems in gaming content
Gender overrepresentation of men, underrepresentation of women - Implication: Symbolic annihilation: Systematic underrepresentation of a particular group/Media representations that favor stereotypes and omit realistic portrayals Sexualization and objectification of women characters (many females dressed in minimal clothing in fights, etc.) - Implication: change is happening slowly. Objectification and sexualization linked to negative impacts for women: perceptions of women as powerless (except through sex), overemphasis on appearance and self-surveillance, increased problems on issues like sexual assault
Technological determinism
How we receive information forms how we perceive the world. Media is very influential - Viewers (passive) - Media exposure (powerful) - Effects (cognitions)
Representation and social context
Looks at the broader cultural setting in which the text is produced and the industry functions - Social context is the historical and cultural moment out of which a text emerges and to which it sends back a message of its own
Image vs. reality of representation of women in the media
Media portrayals of women: Women have high-paying jobs Reality: Women have low-paying jobs, experience the burden of motherhood, have lower median income, are not entitled to 'ask for more.'
Tension between news a service to society and news as a business
News as a service to society: - Ideally, the news provides the information people need to have fruitful discussions and make good decisions. News linked to citizenship rights and duties - Public sphere = space of discussion (incl. media) for better knowledge, decision making, self-government News as business: - Conglomeration and business profit logics apply to news as it does to any other business - Declines in readership and advertising, and new media forms indicate an industry in crisis - To survive, news has to change
Mass vs. Niche Audience (fragmentation)
Niche audiences: audiences are segmented Mass audiences: Fragmentation: increasing choice and consumption of a range in media
Niche genres vs. Hybrid genres
Niche genres: Specific market that is being targeted (profitable for advertising companies) Hybrid genres: A mix of two defined genres in media to create a "new" genre. (Ex: Romantic comedy = romance + Comedy.) - Significance: genres mix in attempt to extend their audience and appeal to a wider range of people
"All news is views"
No news can be totally objective, everyone comes from a distinct social/cultural background
Citizen journalists
Non-professionalis who collect, disseminate and analyze news on blogs/wiki websites using tablets, laptops, cell phones, digital cameras/other wireless/mobile technologies. Strength: vividness of first person accounts Weakness: Lack of structure of meaning. What's the story?
The Rise of Objectivity
Objective journalism: - makes distinctions (fact vs. opinion, aim of neutrality) - All news is views - unattainable but theoretically conceivable condition of unbiased news
Sources (including official) and concerns about sources
Official: most news is based on official sources (reliance on experts.) Information is provided by members of Congress, presidential aides, other political insiders o Undisclosed Sources: Usually those close to power that are eager to be sources but need protection. They provide good and reliable information and are usually close to the journalist. o Concerns about Sources: Ethics (revealing vs. protecting sources, deception e.g. whistleblowing stories - Snowden, Privacy)
Old vs. New Media
Old Media: broadcast TV & radio, newspapers, film New Media: Internet, web, video games, podcasts, smart phones, apps • A vague term! All media were once new • Today we use it to broadly refer to digital media/communication • new digital technologies introduce challenges: Questions of Identity and Representation, Piracy/copying/sharing, new distribution models, etc.
Conventional narrative
One narrative occurs throughout the show
Context Collapse
People from different parts of our lives viewing the same digital representation of us (Marwick and boyd) - infinite possible audiences online vs. limited audiences a person interacts with face to face
Working class
People that have minimal control/authority over their work. - White, Pink, Blue collar workers make up the majority of working class
Professionalization
Pulitzer wanted to professionalize journalism. - schools formed, teach objectivity and other ideals - Professionalizing the trade of objective reporting positioned against yellow journalism
Changing definitions of race
Race hasn't always been defined the same way. Ideas have changed over time, and racial classification reflects shifting political priorities - 1680: White appears in colonial laws - 1790: race categories appear on first census - 1825: "Blood" degree measures who is Indian - 1899: Europeans were considered not quite white - 1922: Courts decide who is white - 1924: changing definitions of who is black - 1930: Mexicans added to census - 1977: Government defines race/ethnic categories - 2000: Census allows more than one race
Representation and reality
Representation "retells" stories and is not a mirror of reality
Issue dualism
Saying there are only two sides to an argument
Semantic elements vs. Syntactic structures
Semantic elements: signs Syntactic structures: plots & themes
Yellow journalism
Sensationalism, focuses on large headlines (crime, scandals, disasters, celebrities) and over dramatizes stories.
Difference between Sex and Gender
Sex: biological differences Gender: characteristics, behavior, activities, and attributes that societies delineate as masculine/feminine
Context of computing in the 1950s and 60s
Social context: - Cold war: Sputnik 1957 - US Dept of Defense creates ARPA - Computing dominated by mainframe computers. (Expensive)
Sampling (both as a technical and cultural practice)
The technique of digitally encoding music or sound and reusing it as a part of a composition or recording. Often used in tecnobrega.
Piracy
The unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work.
Appropriation
The use of borrowed elements of old music in the creation of new music (ex. use of R&B elements while creating Rock n Roll.) Significance: allows different musical styles to develop from similar musical elements
TV Grammar
The way a camera is used is a language (known as TV grammar.) - Pay attention to (distance to subject, amount/part of subject seen, angle, etc.) - The way the camera is used shapes pace, mood, drama/tension, portrayal of characters, identification by audience o Narrative o 4 Techniques: • camera work • editing • sound • mise-en-scene
World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee designed an application that ran on top of the internet (a global hypertext system that enables electronic communication of text, graphics, audio, and video.) • Non-proprietary • Open source • New form of HCI: hyperlinks • (Eventually) a way to bring multimedia to Internet - All users would have their own web space - equality of all documents
What ideologies and stereotypes do TV representations of class tend to emphasize?
UPPER CLASS: - Often glorify upper class MIDDLE CLASS: - Large representation of middle/working classes (audiences can most easily relate) LOWER CLASS: - Associate lower class with struggle and every-day issues - Often shows poverty, racial diversity, drug/alcohol problems, family issues
Games and aggression (game elements that might create reasons for concern)
Video games possess some characteristics that make aggressive impacts more likely: - relatable characters - justifiable violence Conclusion: Aggression in video games is an area of concern but media violence is only one of many factors influencing aggressive behavior
Markers of class membership
Ways of distinguishing class: - Taste (clothing) - Dress (uniform) - Social groups - Institutions - Zip codes - Inheritance
Native advertising
Website content that is paid for by commercial advertising
Spreadable media
What types of content do different audiences spread or share?
Public domain
When intellectual property rights have expired they become public domain - create new knowledge/culture, access to cultural heritage, low cost to info, enabling competition
How has TV depicted the intersection between class and other identity categories?
Within the working class, jobs at the bottom of the economic ladder are often held by women and blacks/people of color.
Difference between the Internet and WWW
World Wide Web: A specific protocol for accessing the internet (means of accessing internet.) Became the most popularized and user friendly in early days of the internet Internet: massive network of all computers (where files are)
Architecture of participation
systems that are designed for user contribution (part of Web 2.0) - allows more people to be more active in transaction process (Amazon, Ebay, Yelp)
