Media Literacy and Media Study Research
“Understanding knowledge as an essential element of love is vital because we are
bombarded daily with messages that tell us love is about mystery, about that which cannot be
known. We see movies in which people are represented as being in love who never talk with
one another, who fall into bed without ever discussing their bodies, their sexual needs, their
likes and dislikes. Indeed, the message is received from the mass media is that knowledge
makes love less compelling; that it is ignorance that gives love its erotic and transgressive edge.
These messages are brought to us by profiteering producers who have no clue about the art of
loving, who substitute their mystified visions because they do not really know how to genuinely
portray loving interaction.” — bell hooks from her book All About Love: New Visions
The Academic Approach to Studying the Mass Media
If you have been reading the chapters of this text in order, by this point you will be aware
of the powerful role the mass media play in society, but you may not yet question whether
society benefits from this arrangement. In general, the mass media could do a better job of
representing all sorts of groups and group cultures. The mass media could also represent
abstract concepts like love, trust and greed in more meaningful ways. This is not to say that the
mass media have failed in this regard, but there is much room for improvement. As active
audience members, as hybrid producer-users or “produsers” (to use a term coined by Axel
Bruns), you must not only be selective but also critical of what you consume. Whether you
becomemedia professionals or not, it will ultimately be your job as media consumers to remake
the mass media in ways that better represent the depth of human experience. Whether your
interest is a religion, a fandom, or an abstract concept like love (one of the greatest of
abstractions), you have the power to participate in the media production redefining how others
understand it. No, this is not a book about love. Yes, love and related concepts are commodified
in the mass media; however, the disruption that has echoed in political spheres and often in the
ways family and cultural group members speak to one another about politics also opens up
space for critical thinking. That is, the same disruption described in Chapter 2 that allows for
social upheaval also allows for a time of reflection and critical thinking about how society and
its media function. This chapter gives you some tools developed by mass communication
scholars to develop your critical eye when viewing messages as products in the mass media. If
massive numbers of “produsers” can reshape the media landscape, we have to re-think the role
of mass media professionals. Assisting people in the process of meaning-making — that is,
making mass media with audiences instead of for them, and aiding them in their own
communication efforts — could open up a new purpose and new industries for those who are
mentally prepared and daring enough to take the lead.
Media Literacy Defined
Media literacy is a term describing media consumers’ understanding of how mass media
work. It includes knowing where different types of information can be found, how best to
evaluate information, who owns the major mass media platforms, how messages are produced,
and how they are framed to suit various interests. In a global society that gets most of its
information through digital networks, it is incredibly important to know how and by whom
media messages are made so that as consumers we can discern how the mass media are being
used to shape our opinions. We can reply to or comment on messages in the mass media, or we
can demand a seat at the table when messages are being constructed. This is the nature of
participatory media outlined in the previous chapter. Being media literate gives us the tools to
participate well and with purpose. It is important to consider your role in contributing directly
to mass media content. Your contributions to cultural trends and social change in the mass
media can sometimes happen withoutyour knowledge. If you post regularly to Facebook or
other social media platforms, your data are being aggregated, and that information is used by
advertisers, researchers, and news services to find out what you like and what you are like, as
well as to create ads and political messages tailored just for you. You are more than your
preferences and the media you consume. You are encouraged to play an active role in shaping
your digital identity beyond the one that has already been created for you.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is media literacy put into action. Besides contributing to the creation of
meaning by making your own mass media messages (perhaps in collaboration with
professionals), you can ask who owns major mass media corporations. Scholars have found
that more than half of the mass media channels available to mass audiences in America are
owned by only five corporations or firms. My own research, conducted with two research
partners in graduate school, has shown that just by making people aware of the nature of media
ownership, you can encourage them to be skeptical of mass media content. This text has already
established that mass communication is what makes society in the physical world work.
Information, often in the form of messages in the mass media, permeates institutional
interactions and passes between all of us in our homes and schools and businesses. The
information conveyed in the mass media gets interpreted in organizational, group and
interpersonal communication contexts. These systems influence each other, but mass media
messages tend to envelop and permeate other forms of communication. Thus, if you learn to
be skeptical of the information you receive in the mass media, you learn how to critique the
whole global social system.
Critique this Book
Reading closely, you will have undoubtedly found value judgments in this text already.
You may be inclined to assign political values to this text in our hyper-partisan cultural
environment. You are welcome to do this. You are encouraged to do this. You must think
critically about the cultural values expressed not only in this text but also in your other
textbooks and in the history and literature you read. But you also must think critically about
your preferred media outlets. Where do they get their information from? Who owns them? No
single revelation about the mass media will tell you everything you need to know. You have to
begin to see nuance and to think for yourself what aspects of the mass media matter most to
you, what things you think should change, how you might change them, and what you can live
with. It is part of the responsibility of citizens now to critique messages that come to us via
mass media, as well as messages from leaders who bypass mass media gatekeepers and fact
checkers. It is also a sound career strategy for those who go into the mass communication field
to learn to be able to critique messages, messengers and owners in the corporate mass media
field of work and play. To know where the mass media industry is headed, you must be able to
think critically about where it comes from.
Much of the rest of this book breaks down different mass media channels and looks
briefly at the history of how each came to be, what and whom each channel serves, and how
convergence in a digitally networked society might affect the future of each medium. This text
also returns several times to “big picture” questions about the dynamic relationship between
media and society as seen from the perspective of the various mass communication channels
and platforms.
The Dichotomy Between the Media and the “Real World”
For nearly the dozenth time in this text already, your author has referenced a “dynamic.”
The mass media reflect our social norms and expectations and, dynamically, they shape our
norms and expectations. To the extent they are shaped by mass media, our perceptions of reality
are very much artificial — but not entirely so. How artificial is too artificial? Different
individuals and different cultures differ in the amount of nonsense they can tolerate. The real
challenge to us as young media professionals and scholars is to try to determine what is artificial
in the vast array of messages delivered to us at all times by the mass media. One of the best
ways to do this is to get off of social media platforms and talk to people in person. We should
also dig a bit into the information we consume and ask, “How do they know?” Whenever a
message comes to us from a mass media outlet or from a friend’s social media post, the media
literate individual seeks to know what underlies each claim. The question is not whether you
believe it. The question is: On what grounds is a message in the mass media or in social media
believable? Now that people are constantly using technology and even wearing it, it is
becoming more difficult to separate messages mediated by professionals, who pledge ethically
to adhere to disseminating factual information (such as most journalists), from poorly-
supported, opinion-only content or outright misinformation, which may be spread far and wide
by friends and family. We are living in a media age where we may not trust our own family
members’ social media posts. Things they think are important might not only be unimportant
to us, they might be distasteful or even wrong. There are real-world consequences to sharing
misinformation on social media platforms. Question the sources’ sources. Talk to people in
tangible spaces apart from social media platforms, and you can learn to see what is supported
by fact in the physical world and its digital networks.
The Bad Dynamic
Your media choices matter. In the network society, when mass media content is
ubiquitous on mobile phones and is often projected into public spaces, it can be difficult to
differentiate between your independent preferences and the opinions you are encouraged to
carry by advertisers who constantly bombard you. Without human interaction outside of the
deluge of electronic information, it can be nearly impossibleto figure out for yourself if what
you like is a response to the quality of the media content or if you are responding to carefully
targeted marketing campaigns. The system of checks and balances in which you can compare
your real life experiences to what you see and hear in the mass media may break down. A
pessimistic view is that we may enter a constant state of depression on a social level because
we are cognitively incapable of comprehending all of the information presented to us and we
lack ways of taking regular “reality checks.” Feelings of isolation and inadequacy coupled with
cognitive overload create the potential for a host of social issues. Additionally, the images we
see in ads and the perfected versions of themselves people present on social media usually do
not reflect applied critical thinking.
The “bad dynamic” that comes into play is one where glossy identities are carefully
constructed and protected while our real identities rapidly disintegrate. We may establish a
society where many people have identity issues, and those issues are constantly worsening. It
may seem at times as though we are headed for a massive collective mental breakdown. What
good is media literacy? Thinking critically about the mass media and content spread on social
media helps us critique constructed images and accept our own shortcomings. If we look for
ways to relate to one another besides our overlapping common culture interests, we may find
deeper connections are possible. We can share imperfections and tackle doubts, but only if we
acknowledge them in our media world first. What follows are a set of mass communication
theories arrived at through the analysis of facts and data by thousands of scholars over the
course of nearly 100 years. As an academic field, mass communication is young, but there are
several theories, or guiding abstractions, that can help us to see how our society is structured
and what roles the mass media play in society at all levels.
Critical Media Theory
There are many critical theorists among mass communication scholars. They work to
develop better analytical theories that teach us how to analyze messages in media systems and
the mass media and help us to discuss with clarity what is beneficial and what is harmful to
society. Academic work is about digging deep. Scholars will often analyze one medium at one
period in time to explain how certain groups or ideologies are depicted. Marxist critical theory
questions the hierarchical organization of society — who controls the means of production and
whether that control benefits society or only small groups of people. Every society has and
needs leaders, and one of the most important functions of society is to manage a functioning
economy. At question in Marxist critical thought is how the rules of each economy, including
the global economy, are set up. Do they benefit most people? Do they allow for merit to be
rewarded? Do they create a system of fair competition? Are they set up for collaboration and
mutual benefit? Most scholars who apply critical theoretical models would hesitate to call
themselves Marxists. Marx was both a scholar and a revolutionary, a term which academics
rarely self-apply. Most Marxist critical thinkers suggest changes that society could make to be
more inclusive and fair for a greater number of people, but what is fair will always be debated.
There is no single line of Marxist thought. There is a small number who demand complete
change in the global economic system, and there are thousands of critical theorists calling for
more narrow or specific changes based on their observations in their areas of expertise — not
just mass media analysis but all kinds of social analysis. Historically, Marxist thought has been
employed by dictators, often using mass media channels, to take power and often to wield it in
horrendous ways. Marxist thought also guides the reasoning of some mainstream economists
who help manage social democracies, which historically garner more good will than
dictatorships. Scholars working with the critical theoretical point of view often note broad ways
for society to improve as well as practical solutions that might help (although getting leaders
to listen is another matter). Making cogent arguments and convincing people to hear them are
very different things. That said, ideas about questioning hierarchies and asking for whom social
systems really work are still central to modern critical theory. This is what Marxist critique in
media studies is all about: looking at symbols and underlying messages in all forms of media
and discerning what purposes they serve, and asking whether they represent exploitation,
corruption or any other social ill often found in closed hierarchies.
Symbolic Interactionism
Another critical theoretical perspective is symbolic interactionism. The general idea
comes from George Herbert Mead and suggests that people assign symbolic meaning to all
sorts of phenomena around them. Our behavior is guided and influenced by our perceptions of
reality and the symbols around us. Mass media extend and limit our senses. When our senses
are extended, we can become overwhelmed by the amount of information coming in, so we
look for symbols, and we categorize ideas according to those symbols to make the messages
easier to understand. We sometimes apply the symbols ourselves, but in many (or even most)
cases, the people editingmessages in the mass media purposefully use symbols as a shorthand
way of communicating. Not everyone understands every symbol or perceives them the same
way. Symbols have a cultural context, but this is not much of a limiting factor in American
society where there is a vast shared common culture and targeted marketing can tailor which
images to deliver to which individuals. You are encouraged to think critically about the symbols
you see and ask whether they are meant to manipulate you. We will not stop using symbols in
communication; however, if you ask, “Why am I being shown this symbol at this time,” you
can take a practical step in critically analyzing media. An example would probably help. When
asked to come up with an advertising campaign, college students often select a familiar
category of beverage: energy drinks. RedBull uses the symbol of wings to show that an energy
drink can pick you up and help you to move more quickly through your work. You can fly
where you had stumbled. But that is not the only reason associate wings with Red Bull. Wings
are a symbol of angels, saviors, and other powerful beings. If an individual has reservations
about consuming something that may be unhealthy, moral symbolism and images of power are
designed to subconscious guilt or misgivings. It is up to you to critique images in the mass
media as you see fit, but you should develop the skill and practice applying it.
Agenda-Setting Theory
Agenda setting is one of the most simple mass communication theories to understand,
and it is one of the most widely cited. It argues that the mass media tell us what to think about.
In other words, the mass media help people to set their own agendas. The idea is not that mass
media companies come up with a specific agenda and then preach it to the masses; rather, mass
media outlets learn what people are interested in and find similar topics based on what has been
learned in the past. Then, the messages that appear in the mass media tell audiences what topics
they should care about and how to prioritize them. This is a dynamic process, and there is no
evidence of a singular media agenda. All one needs to do is to flip through cable television
news channels to see vastly different points of view presented to mass audiences at all times.
Instead, agenda setting highlights certain topics and stories and those topics become the
public’s agenda based not only on what appears in the mass media but what people accept, care
about and share more widely. Messages in the mass media may or may not succeed in directing
us how or what to think, but with great success, they tell us what we should be thinking and
talking about.
The examples are easy to find. Many mass media outlets talked more about Ebola during
October of 2014 rather than the midterm elections. People came to discuss Ebola more often
than the elections despite the fact that the election might have a more direct effect on them than
Ebola ever would. The assumption may be that professionals in the mass media are pushing an
agenda about a scary world, but in most instances, they are promoting news they know people
care about based on previous responses to similar topics. For an agenda to be set, messages
have to appear in the mass media, and they have to be accepted by massive numbers of audience
members. The acceptance of messages in the mass media is known as salience. Here is how
agenda setting theory works: Various mass media outlets have agendas for coverage that they
develop. It may take years for a film company to develop a brand. News organizations change
their coverage agenda several times a day. An agenda is just a list of issues a media outlet wants
to discuss and a prioritization of those issues. Research has shown thousands of times that those
agendas are passed on to audiences. This is tested by surveying people about what issues they
think are important and comparing that list to the issues that had been in the news and
entertainment media in the weeks before taking the survey. The topics and the relative levels
of priority are often (but not always) passed along. Agenda setting still works even as the
processes of de-massification continues, but the influence of mass media outlets may be
diminishing. The theory is based on the assumption that there are mass audiences all consuming
similar messages, but mass audiences are diminishing. That said, the messages people share on
social media between one another often originate in mass media channels.
Gatekeeping Theory
Gatekeeping theory describes a practice where a person acts as a filter, deciding what
information will be disseminated for public consumption via the mass media. A good example
is an editor in a news organization looking at many stories from a newswire. Newswires put
out hundreds of stories per day. The same newspapers that publish wire stories from other areas
may contribute stories to the newswire if something interesting to a broader audience should
occur. Only a handful of wire stories make it into a TV news broadcast, onto a newspaper’s
website or into the paper itself.
In television news, producers act as primary gatekeepers. Only a dozen or so national and
international news stories make it into the average big city daily newspaper, where the task
falls to an editor. The person with the job of selecting and editing wire stories for a news
organization has to decide which news stories are noteworthy to the local audience. The
practice started in the 19th century with the marriage of the telegraph to the newspaper, and it
continues as text, images, video and information graphics are shared through digital networks.
The way gatekeeping works has changed significantly over the past two centuries. Now, we
often think of gatekeepers guarding a gate with no fences because on the internet anyone can
post almost anything. Mass media news outlets are no longer people’s only major source of
news and information about the world. Social media platforms carry both messages produced
by both mass media outlets and individuals free to share almost whatever they like online. Of
course, sharing something online does not guarantee it will be popular. There are plenty of
YouTube videos with very few views. And where there are mass audiences, there is still plenty
of gatekeeping going on. Humans do much of the work planning what goes into major
newspapers and network news broadcasts as well as entertainment products for that matter. On
social media platforms and in search engine content, however, the task is increasingly managed
by algorithms — sets of procedures or rules for computers to follow. In the future, we expect
to see fewer human gatekeepers and more gatekeeping work done by recommendation engines
and the like. You are unaware of the full extent of Netflix’s available content because you only
see what your preferences suggest you should see. The same is true for Google searches and
advertisements pulled from databases filled with vastly different ads designed to target different
individuals at precisely the right time.
There is also a new theory to be aware of that concerns the flip-side of gatekeeping.
“Gatewatching” describes people who consume all sorts of news and other information and
who stay current with new information as it arrives. It is as though they are watching
professionally produced media messages come out of the gate and then almost immediately
these media consumers post links to Reddit, Twitter, Facebook or other social linking sites and
social media platforms. Gatewatching is when someone takes a message already published, by
professionals or amateurs (but more often by professionals working for mass media outlets),
and shares it for others to see. It is not uncommon on Reddit to see stories from the national
and international media ranked alongside funnycat videos and random thoughts people had in
the shower. On the one hand, putting the power of gatewatching in the hands of users is a way
for people to set agendas for one another. On the other hand, information-as-popularity-contest
can promote biased views and can shut out not just what is politically unpopular but what
people consider to be boring, which severely narrows the scope of discussion. Try to consume
mass media or social media for a day without seeing or hearing about pop music stars,
Kardashians, major sports figures or odd news from far-flung places. It is a challenge, even if
you tailor your social media experience to avoid trending topics.
Framing Theory
Framing is a basic mass communication theory with widespread implications. It suggests
that the way a news organization (or an entertainment producer, for that matter) frames a story
is purposeful and meaningful and can influence how people think about the topic. A news frame
refers to the way a story is presented including which sources and facts are selected as well as
the tone the story or message takes. An example is the period leading up to a war. If the United
States has plans to go to war, it can be framed as a risky proposition, a patriotic endeavor or a
morally righteous thing to do. For any major news story, there are usually a few dominant
frames that emerge. The author of this text was a television reporter at the time of the buildup
to the Iraq war, and our station framed the issue as a matter of patriotism. There were patriots
and there were protestors. Our station built a “Wall of Heroes” to display photos of marines,
soldiers, airmen and sailors killed in action. While any given story about the buildup to the Iraq
war might have been objective, the decision to build a display wall framed our coverage in a
certain way. The display remained on view for approximately 18 months. The station then
stopped keeping track in that highly visible, demonstrably patriotic way, even though the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq continued for 15 more years on a reduced scale. Whether you agree or
disagree with the idea of remembering those who died in Iraq through local television news
broadcast tributes, the point is that stories are framed by how they are covered. It matters what
sources are selected for news stories and which sources are left out. It matters which terms are
used and how prevalent they are. Framing analyses delve into news content to identify various
themes and to show which ones receive preferential treatment. Surveys of news and
entertainment media consumers will reflect which frames were most salient; that is, not only
which stories but also which frames stay in the minds of audience members.
Limited Effects Paradigm
A paradigm is a collection of theories from the social sciences, which are themselves
collections of facts supporting an abstract idea meant to explain the phenomena of human
behavior. A theory is supported by empirical facts. It’s not the same as when your buddy
shotguns three beers and says “You know…Ihave a theory.” Social scientific theories are meant
to be big ideas that help predict behavior or the results of certain behaviors. In the field of mass
communication, the limited effects paradigm is so-called because there are different kinds of
theory relating to different media that all show the same thing: It is a complicated task to tie
one set of messages to massive shifts in human behavior. Even small shifts in behavior like
deciding to purchase one smartphone over another are only partially influenced by messages
in the mass media. There are simply too many other factors influencing behavior to say that a
certain set of mass media messages caused behaviors across a mass audience. Influence is
another matter. The mass media work in tandem with other social stimuli to influence all sorts
of behavior. If there were no influence, there would be no reason for mass media advertising
or government propaganda. It is because they work that both are a constant presence in the
global mass media environment. At question is how much influence certain messages can have
and under what conditions is the influence stronger or weaker. The limited effects paradigm
started as a response to theories such as the hypodermic needle theory. After Germany lost
World War I, mass communication was just starting to emerge as its own discipline. One of the
first theories American scholars of mass communication had was that propaganda infects a
population like a needle injecting a viable virus into the body. Scholars thought that propaganda
turned Germany into an imperialistic, nationalistic country (that is, Nazi Germany), but
propaganda never works that easily. When the Nazi Party unified the country between World
War I and World War II, a large portion of the population, welcomed the shift in social policy,
despite the accompanying racism and violence. It did not take as much convincing for many
Germans, as many in the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust would like to think. Using
many kinds of authority, the Nazis committed atrocities. Mass communication enabled it, but
the theory that propaganda could, more or less by itself, create that kind of situation has not
held true. There were social weaknesses and social structures in place that paved the way for
the Nazis, who could not have risen to power by media influence alone.
This does not mean that the mass media have no effects. It would not make sense to argue
that communication permeates society and then to suggest that it has little to no effect on
people. What the limited effects paradigm suggests instead is that information does not sway
people as often as it is assimilated into existing patterns of thought. And those patterns of
thought are shaped by all sorts of social forces, not just mass media campaigns. To reiterate,
other social forces at play include religion, family, education, economic status, health, crime
and incarceration. Changing people’s minds is difficult. Motivating behavior is difficult, and
there are many variables guiding human behavior. Thus, the core concept is that the mass media
have limited effects on society. Small effects are measured in mass communication studies all
the time, and influencing thoughts is generally understood to be easier than influencing
behavior.
Limited Capacity Processing Model
The Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP),
which we’ll call the Limited Capacity Model for short, is a theory that states that our cognitive
abilities are limited, so we are unable to process all of the information that we see, hear and
read. Since we cannot perceive and understand everything, parts of our brain act as filters that
either disregard information, very rapidly process it according to our long-held assumptions,
or force us to pay attention to it. We can force ourselves to pay attention to information as well,
but it is difficult (which you might notice while reading textbooks). The theory goes deeper
than this and explains how we process information when we do attend to it. The three stages
are encoding, storage and retrieval. Encoding is when you voluntarily or involuntarily pay
attention to a message and its underlying symbols. Once attention is paid, a message can be
stored, or, recorded in our memories. Not all messages are easily retrieved, or, recalled when
we wish to remember them. Some are retrievable only in part, or they may be altered in the
storage and retrieval process. There are voluntary and involuntary types of encoding, and what
we store and how we store it has a lot to do with what is already in our minds. It is generally
easier to store something when it connects to familiar thoughts. All of this amounts to a
quantitative approach to studying memory in the context of mass media messages. It does not
presume effects. In fact, since a message has to be encoded, stored and retrieved before it can
influence behavior, the limited capacity model is part of what explains the limited effects
model. Even if we had all the useful information in the world, our brains could not store and
use it all. Thus, even the best advertisements, political campaigns and in-depth news
documentaries are up against the limits of our minds.
