Media Systems and Communication Technology

Chapter 2 • MASS COMMUNICATION EFFECTS: HOW SOCIETY AND MEDIA INTERACT 45

TEST YOUR MEDIA LITERACY

WORKING WITH THEORY

So far, you’ve seen the application of several of the Seven Secrets, and you might have even asked yourself, which of these is most important? As you work your way through this text, you will likely suspect that the author would put forward Secret 3—everything from the margin moves to the center.

The introduction to this secret notes:

One of the mass media’s biggest effects on everyday life is to take culture from the margins of society and make it into part of the mainstream, or center. This process can move people, ideas, and

even individual words from small communities into mass society.

So if we apply this to the case study that opens this chapter, we are left with the question:

Why, after years of neglect, did the press, in all its varied forms, suddenly start paying attention to these accusations and the women making them? (Want to read more on this subject? You can find that here: www.ralphehanson.com/ tag/me-too/.) Why did these stories move to the center?

Two of the theories you’ve read about so far could be used to answer this question. Here is a simplified summary of each:

Agenda Setting Critical/Cultural Theory

Issues that are portrayed as important in the news media become important to the public.

While the media don’t tell people what to think, they can tell people what to think about.

This theory asks whether people take their cues from the media as to what the most important stories are that they should attend to.

There are serious problems that people suffer that come from exploitation and the division of labor.

People are treated as “things” to be used rather than individuals who have value.

You can’t make sense out of ideas and events if you take them out of their historical context.

Society is coming to be dominated by a culture industry (the mass media) that takes cultural ideas, turns them into commodities, and sells them in a way to make the maximum amount of money.

WHO are the sources? Who were the sources for the sexual harassment and abuse stories? Who was publishing the stories? Where did the information come from?

WHAT are they saying? Read through either the opening vignette or the series of blog posts linked to above. What reasons do the sources give for the sexual harassment/abuse story breaking out when it did? Whom do they say was responsible for this happening?

WHAT evidence exists? What evidence is there for the story spreading because news organizations were interested in making the story spread? What evidence is there for the story spreading because women (and men) who had been abused were willing to speak out?

WHAT do you think explains what happened? How would you explain the spread of the story using agenda setting? Critical/cultural theory? Which do you think does a better job of explaining what happened? Why?

gratifications theory views audience members as active receivers of information of their own choosing. Uses and gratifications theory is based on the following assumptions:

• Audience members are active receivers who have wants and needs. They then make decisions about media use based on those wants and needs. For example, in this approach, video games don’t do things to children; children make use of video games.