CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA

ENGLISH IN MEDIA 1 | ENG1323

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Introduction to Media

Imagine your life without media. This is a standard

exercise in media classes, but it's hard to put into practice,
even for a day. It's a little like being forced to navigate
across a room completely blindfolded. And yet imagining
your daily routine without media involves more than just
imagining the lack of a sense. It means imagining a world
that is, like ours, organized around media and the
assumption we all have access to media, where suddenly
you don't hold the resource of media in your hand.

Definition

Is there a common definition of the term 'media' that

underlies all this variety? The working definition of 'media'
that we will adopt in this book is as follows: technologies
that are able regularly and reliably to transmit or
preserve meanings across space and time.

Mass media specifically refers to a means of

communication that is designed to reach a wide audience.
Mass media platforms are commonly considered to
include radio, newspapers, magazines, books, video
games, and Internet media such as blogs, podcasts, and
video sharing. A mass media message may be
disseminated through several forms of mass media, such
as an ad campaign with television, radio, and Internet
components.

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Roles of Media

Media fulfills several basic roles in our society. One obvious role is
entertainment. Media can act as a springboard for our imaginations, a
source of fantasy, and an outlet for escapism. In the 19th century, Victorian
readers disillusioned by the grimness of the Industrial Revolution found
themselves drawn into fantastic worlds of fairies and other fictitious beings.
Through bringing us stories of all kinds, media has the power to take us
away from ourselves.

Media can also provide information and education. Information can

come in many forms, and it may sometimes be difficult to separate from
entertainment. Today, newspapers and news-oriented television and radio
programs make available stories from across the globe, allowing readers
or viewers in London to access voices and videos from Baghdad, Tokyo,
or Buenos Aires. Books and magazines provide a more in-depth look at a
wide range of subjects. The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has articles
on topics from presidential nicknames to child prodigies to tongue twisters
in various languages. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
has posted free lecture notes, exams, and audio and video recordings of
classes on its OpenCourseWare website, allowing anyone with an Internet
connection access to world-class professors.

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Another useful aspect of media is its ability to act as a public forum for
the discussion of important issues. In newspapers or other periodicals,
letters to the editor allow readers to respond to journalists or to voice their
opinions on the issues of the day. The Internet is a fundamentally
democratic medium that allows everyone who can get online the ability to
express their opinions through, for example, blogging or podcasting—
though whether anyone will hear is another question.

Similarly, media can be used to monitor government, business, and

other institutions. Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle exposed the
miserable conditions in the turn-of-the-century meatpacking industry; and
in the early 1970s, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein uncovered evidence of the Watergate break- in and subsequent
cover-up, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard
Nixon.

Different medium for different purposes

It’s important to remember, though, that not all media are created equal.
While some forms of mass communication are better suited to
entertainment, others make more sense as a venue for spreading
information. In terms of print media, books are durable and able to contain
lots of information, but are relatively slow and expensive to produce; in
contrast, newspapers are comparatively cheaper and quicker to create,
making them a better medium for the quick turnover of daily news.
Television provides vastly more visual information than radio and is more
dynamic than a static printed page; it can also be used to broadcast live
events to a nationwide audience.

However, it is also a one- way medium—that is, it allows for very little direct
person-to-person communication. In contrast, the Internet encourages
public discussion of issues and allows nearly everyone who wants a voice
to have one. However, the Internet is also largely unmoderated. Users may
have to wade through thousands of inane comments or misinformed
amateur opinions to find quality information

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A Brief History of Mass Media and Culture

Until Johannes Gutenberg’s 15th-century invention of the movable type printing press,
books were painstakingly handwritten and no two copies were exactly the same. The
printing press made the mass production of print media possible. Not only was it much
cheaper to produce written material, but new transportation technologies also made it
easier for texts to reach a wide audience. It’s
hard to overstate the importance of
Gutenberg’s invention, which helped usher in
massive cultural movements like the
European Renaissance and the Protestant
Reformation. In 1810, another German
printer, Friedrich Koenig, pushed media
production even further when he essentially
hooked the steam engine up to a printing
press, enabling the industrialization of printed
media. In 1800, a hand- operated printing
press could produce about 480 pages per
hour; Koenig’s machine more than doubled
this rate. (By the 1930s, many printing
presses could publish 3,000 pages an hour.)

This increased efficiency went hand in hand

with the rise of the daily newspaper. The
newspaper was the perfect medium for the
increasingly urbanized Americans of the 19th
century, who could no longer get their local
news merely through gossip and word of
mouth. These Americans were living in
unfamiliar territory, and newspapers and
other media helped them negotiate the
rapidly changing world. The Industrial
Revolution meant that some people had more leisure time and more money, and
media helped them figure out how to spend both. Media theorist Benedict Anderson
has argued that newspapers also helped forge a sense of national identity by treating
readers across the country as part of one unified community (Anderson, 1991).

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In the 1830s, the major daily newspapers faced a new threat from the rise of penny
papers, which were low-priced broadsheets that served as a cheaper, more
sensational daily news source. They favoured news of murder and adventure over the
dry political news of the day. While newspapers catered to a wealthier, more educated
audience, the penny press attempted to
reach a wide swath of readers through
cheap prices and entertaining (often
scandalous) stories. The penny press
can be seen as the forerunner to today’s
gossip-hungry tabloids.

In the early decades of the 20th century,

the first major nonprint form of mass
media — radio — exploded in
popularity. Radios, which were less
expensive than telephones and widely
available by the 1920s, had the
unprecedented ability of allowing huge
numbers of people to listen to the same
event at the same time. In 1924, Calvin
Coolidge’s pre-election speech reached
more than 20 million people. Radio was
a boon for advertisers, who now had
access to a large and captive audience.
An early advertising consultant claimed
that the early days of radio were “a
glorious opportunity for the advertising
man to spread his sales propaganda” because of “a countless audience, sympathetic,
pleasure seeking, enthusiastic, curious, interested, approachable in the privacy of their
homes (Briggs & Burke, 2005).” The reach of radio also meant that the medium was
able to downplay regional differences and encourage a unified sense of the American
lifestyle—a lifestyle that was increasingly driven and defined by consumer purchases.
“Americans in the 1920s were the first to wear ready-made, exact-size clothing...to

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play electric phonographs, to use electric vacuum cleaners, to listen to commercial
radio broadcasts, and to drink fresh orange juice year round (Mintz, 2007).”

The post–World War II era in the United States was marked by prosperity, and by the
introduction of a seductive new form of mass communication: television. Broadcast
television was the dominant form of mass media, and the three major networks
controlled more than 90 percent of the news programs, live events, and sitcoms
viewed by Americans. Some social critics argued that television was fostering a
homogenous, conformist culture by reinforcing ideas about what “normal” American
life looked like. But television also contributed to the counterculture of the 1960s. The
Vietnam War was the nation’s first televised military conflict, and nightly images of war
footage and war protesters helped intensify the nation’s internal conflicts.

Broadcast technology, including radio and television, had such a hold on the American
imagination that newspapers and other print media found themselves having to adapt
to the new media landscape. Print media was more durable and easily archived, and
it allowed users more flexibility in terms of time—once a person had purchased a
magazine, he or she could read it whenever and wherever. Broadcast media, in
contrast, usually aired programs on a fixed schedule, which allowed it to both provide
a sense of immediacy and fleetingness. Until the advent of digital video recorders in
the late 1990s, it was impossible to pause and rewind a live television broadcast.

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The media world faced drastic changes once again in the 1980s and 1990s
with the spread of cable television. During the early decades of television,
viewers had a limited number of channels to choose from—one reason for
the charges of homogeneity. In 1975, the three major networks accounted
for 93 percent of all television viewing. By 2004, however, this share had
dropped to 28.4 percent of total viewing, thanks to the spread of cable
television. Cable providers allowed viewers a wide menu of choices,
including channels specifically tailored to people who wanted to watch only
golf, classic films, sermons, or videos of sharks.

However, the emergence of the internet has revolutionized media in many

ways. Over the past few decades, media has changed drastically due to the
advancement of technology and the internet. What was once limited to
newspapers, magazines, radio, and television is now comprised of the
internet, social media, and other forms of digital media. With the internet,
media outlets have the potential to reach more audiences than ever before.
This has enabled journalists to expand their stories and reach more people
than ever. Additionally, the internet has allowed us to interact with news in
new and interesting ways, by creating more engaging content, personalizing
stories, and responding quickly to current events. Through the internet,
people are no longer constrained to consuming media in traditional ways,
and instead can actively participate in the news and its evolution.

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Types of Media

1. Broadcasting Media
Broadcasting media includes videos, audios, or written content that provides important
or entertaining information shared by different methods:

• Television – in the past, there were a few channels sharing various types of
content, whereas now we have hundreds of TV channels to choose from. Each
channel delivers a different type of content, so you have a separate channel for
news, drama, movies, sports, animation, nature, travel, politics, cartoon, and
religion. It’s the number one broadcasting media due to its reach to the
audience.

• Radio – uses radio waves to transmit entertaining, informative, and educative

content to the public. Due to its high reach to the audience, radio is widely used
for advertising products and services. Radio is one of the oldest means of
entertainment, and today people often hear it to find out the weather and traffic
while commuting.

• Movies – film, motion picture, screenplay, moving picture, or movie has world-
wide reachability. It’s the best type of mass media to promote cultures and
spread social awareness. Movies have always played a huge part in the
entertainment world.

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2. Print Media
This type of news media used to be the only way of delivering information to the public.
For the generations of the 80s and 90s, print media was the only media of entertain.
People relied on newspapers and magazines to learn everything, from recipes and
entertainment news to important information about the country or the world. Print media
includes:

• Newspapers – printed and distributed on a daily or weekly basis. They include

news related to sports, politics, technology, science, local news, national news,
international news, birth notices, as well as entertainment news related to
fashion, celebrities, and movies. Today’s parents grew up with this type of
printed media.
• Magazines – printed on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. It contains
information about finance, food, lifestyle, fashion, sports, etc.
• Books – focused on a particular topic or subject, giving the reader a chance to
spread their knowledge about their favorite topic.
• Banners – used to advertise a company’s services and products, hung on easily-
noticed sights to attract
people’s attention.
• Billboards – huge
advertisements created
with the help of computers. THIS IS A
Their goal is to attract
people passing by. BILLBOARD ☺
• Brochures – a type of
booklet that includes
everything about one
company – its products,
services, terms and
conditions, contact details,
address, etc. They are either distributed with the newspapers or hand over to
people.
• Flyers – used mostly by small companies due to the low cost of advertising.
They contain the basic information about a company, their name, logo, service
or product, and contact information, and they are distributed in public areas.

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3. Internet Media
Nowadays, we are relying on the Internet to get the news a lot more often than
traditional news sources. Websites provide information in the form of video, text, and
audio. We can even choose the way we want to receive the news. Types of Internet
media include:

• Social networks or websites – including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube,

Tumblr, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Quora, Reddit, Pinterest, etc. They are user-
friendly and widely used by people around the world. Although we can find any
news here, they may be misleading because of the lack of regulations on the
content shared.
• Online forums - an online place where we can comment, message, or discuss
a particular topic. Forums allow us to share knowledge with other people with
the same interest. That’s why it’s regarded as the best platform to seek support
and assistance.
• Podcast – a series of audios focused on a particular topic or theme. We can
listen to them on a computer or a mobile phone. It’s a platform that allows
anyone to share their knowledge and communicate with the world. You can
browse some podcast hosting sites to see what fits your needs best.

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MEDIA THEORIES
Era of Mass Society
This era of theory
started in the latter
part of the 19th
century. Media was
seen as influential but
negative. This era is
characterized as a
time in which people
were worried about
the power that media
had to influence
average people.
People feared that
media would ruin the
value of society.

1. Direct-Effects Theory / Hypodermic Syringe Model

Widespread fear that mass-media messages could outweigh other stabilizing cultural
influences, such as family and community, led to what is known as the direct effects model
of media studies. This model assumed that audiences passively accepted media messages
and would exhibit predictable reactions in response to those messages.
It might be argued that the First World War was also the first war fought using the media. During
a period when public opinion became crucial, the media was used to drum up morale and
support, and Britain even established a Ministry of Information to produce the necessary
propaganda. The Russians, Germans, Italians and Spaniards deployed similar methods of
mass persuasion.
In the intervening years between the two World Wars (1918-1939) this ability of their leaders
to seemingly “brainwash” citizens using the media was explained using the “hypodermic
needle” model. In the hypodermic needle model, the concept of conditioning was applied to the
mass audience who were seen as passive recipients of whatever message that was
injected (or shot) by the media, and who can be manipulated to react in a predictable,
unthinking and conditioned manner.
The hypodermic syringe model was popular during the 1940s and 1950s. This was because
people listened to the radio and watched television a lot. A prime example of this theory at work
was the radio broadcast of H.G Wells “War of the Worlds.” People believed that aliens had
landed and were taking over the planet. As a result, people fled their homes and looked for
refuge. This example proved that media has the power to manipulate the minds of audiences
that are passive and easily influenced.

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2. Limited Effects Theory

Proposed by Austrian–American sociologist Paul

Lazarsfeld, the theory claims that the media is
not strong enough to completely change
Two-step flow communication in
people’s attitudes and opinions. The limited
Limited Effects Model
effects theory states that media only reinforces
trends seen in the media and that the Opinion leaders who are directly
influence of the media is dependent on influenced by mass media, help shape
individual differences. the views of most individuals in society.
Herein, these opinion leaders pass on to
Lazarfield conducted a study during the
their followers not only media content,
presidential campaign of 1940. This battle was
but also their own interpretations
between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Wendell
thereof. They especially lessened or
Willkie. He conducted an experiment in a small
mitigated media effects through their
Ohio town to see what influenced people to vote
discussions and interpretations of mass
the way they do. Conducted in 1940, the study
media messages with their peers.
attempted to gauge the effects of political
campaigns on voter choice. He found that voters
who consumed the most media had generally
already decided for which candidate to vote,
while undecided voters generally turned to family
and community members to help them decide.
The study thus discredited the direct effects
model and influenced a host of other media
theories (Hanson, 2009). The study concluded
that the media played a small role in
convincing people to vote a certain way.

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3. Class-Dominant Theory

The class-dominant theory argues that the media is

controlled by corporations, and the content–especially
news content–is dictated by the individuals who own
these corporations. When ownership is restricted, a few
people then have the ability to manipulate what people can
see or hear. Considering that advertising dollars fund the
media, the programming is tailored to the largest marketing
segment. We would never see a story that draws negative
publicity and emotion to a major advertiser. The class-
dominant theory in a newsroom extends beyond corporate
control. A journalist with a specific agenda can alter or twist
a story to suit their own needs. For example, owners can
easily avoid or silence stories that expose unethical
corporate behavior or hold corporations responsible for their
actions.

The issue of sponsorship adds to this problem. Advertising

dollars fund most media. Networks aim programming at the
largest possible audience because the broader the appeal,
the greater the potential purchasing audience and the easier
selling air-time to advertisers becomes. Thus, news
organizations may shy away from negative stories about
corporations (especially parent corporations) that finance
large advertising campaigns.

Pic: Rupert Murdoch

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 4. Agenda Setting Theory

In contrast to the extreme views of the direct effects

model, the agenda-setting theory of media stated that
mass media determine the issues that concern the
Gate-keeping:
public rather than the public’s views. Under this theory,
Gate-keeper of the media controls
the issues that receive the most attention from media over the selection of content or
become the issues that the public discusses, debates, news.
and demands action on. This means that the media is
determining what issues and stories the public thinks
Priming
about. Therefore, when the media fails to address a
Media emphasizes the importance
particular issue, it becomes marginalized in the minds of news via frequency, length,
of the public (Hanson).
and depth of the issue.
Agendas can range from a perceived liberal bias in the
news media to the propagation of cutthroat capitalist
ethics in films. For example, the agenda-setting theory Framing
explains such phenomena as the rise of public opinion Media influence the perception of
against smoking. Before the mass media began taking audience towards the news and
decide on how audience should
an antismoking stance, smoking was considered a
think about.
personal health issue. By promoting antismoking
sentiments through advertisements, publicConcepts
relations
campaigns, and a variety of media outlets, the mass
media moved smoking into the public arena, making it
a public health issue rather than a personal health
issue (Dearing & Rogers, 1996). More recently,
coverage of natural disasters has been prominent in
the news. However, as news coverage wanes, so does
the general public’s interest.

This theory claims that the media highlights certain

events and then places them within a particular
context to encourage or discourage certain
interpretations. In this way, the media exercises a
selective influence over how people view reality.

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5. Uses and Gratifications Theory Uses and Gratifications Theory
posits a few basic assumptions:
Practitioners of the uses and gratifications
theory study the ways the public consumes 1. The audience takes an active role

media. This theory states that consumers use in selecting a medium, as well as

the media to satisfy specific needs or desires. interpreting it and integrating it into

For example, you may enjoy watching a show their lives.

like Dancing With the Stars while 2. Different types of media compete
simultaneously tweeting about it on Twitter with against each other and against other
your friends. Many people use the Internet to sources of gratification for viewers’
seek out entertainment, to find information, to attention.
communicate with like-minded individuals, or to
3. The medium that provides the
pursue self-expression. Each of these uses
most satisfaction for a person will be
gratifies a particular need, and the needs
used more often than other types.
determine the way in which media is used. By
examining factors of different groups’ media
choices, researchers can determine the
motivations behind media use (Papacharissi,
2009).

Types of Needs
Through media consumers’ self-reporting, researchers have identified several types of
needs that motivate people to seek media for gratification:
1. Cognitive – Refers to acquiring information to aid the thinking and understanding
process. People use media such as documentaries and how-to videos to increase their
skills or knowledge in a certain area.
2. Affective – Relates to emotions or feelings. People use media to arouse certain
emotions within themselves, such as happiness, fear or pleasure.
3. Personal Integrative – Refers to promoting one’s own image, reputation or status.
People with this need use media, like Facebook and YouTube, to increase their credibility
or social standing or to affirm their sense of self.
4. Social Integrative – Refers to interacting with family and friends. People use media to
connect with others.
5. Tension Release – Relates to diversion and stress relief. People use media as catharsis
or to escape from reality.

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