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“The media has become everyday…

but the everyday is what is often


hardest to think clearly about…”

“Mass media texts and technologies “Yet it is precisely the mundane and familiar that we
need to investigate if we want to understand how
run into the texture of our daily all our lives are caught up
routines to the extent that we tend – sometimes pleasurably and informatively,
sometimes less so and more grudgingly –
to take them for granted…” in the pervasive shaping of the fields of
action available to us.”

Philip Dearman 2003: 3

• Although centrally produced, they


• They reach a large number are usually privately consumed.
of people
eg., “family viewing”, “personal space”,
eg., newspapers, tv, radio etc. “intimate space”…

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• Media products are “shared” – • The media is controlled or “regulated”
media literacy and shared culture
Eg., “winning hearts and minds”
eg., “who wants to be a millionaire?”,
“you jump, i jump”,
“to infinity and beyond”
“the best in jb…”
“duhh”
“facebooked”
……

• The media relies on sophisticated • The media is “modern” or


technology ”post-modern”

eg., CD walkmans, iPods, PDAs, - daily newspapers only 300 years old;
handphones, satellite dishes, - telephone, radio, tv, computers created in the
High definition digital tv channels, 20th century;
laptops…. - convergence of communications, computing and
telephone technologies (Computer-Mediated
etc.
Communication)

• The media is expensive - Tell us what is going on in the world


- is a central part of our lives
- is influential in shaping politics and business
- tend to be owned by large companies,
- Domestic media hardware has become an intrinsic
multinationals or the state authorities part of our homes
- difficult for newcomers to set up and become - Is very profitable – “industries”
successful

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“The media has been called the „consciousness
industries‟ because what they sell are ways of Media Studies pay attention to
media texts as
thinking, ways of seeing, ways of talking sites where meanings are generated
about the world.” under
particular institutional conditions,
Stuart Cunningham and Graeme Turner 2002:12 and with
particular social outcomes…

In other words, “Ideology”


Media Studies aim to “Appearance of truth”
de-construct meanings and ideas “Natural”
which are socially produced “Mythologised”
and organised…

Studying the media can be broken down  Studies ownership patterns and laws/policies
into 3 components which maps the production, regarding media organisations involved in the
distribution and reception of media products:- production of media texts

 Media Industries
 Media Texts
 Media Audiences

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 Studies the variety of media texts produced  Studies the varieties of reception and
by individuals and the media industries consumption of the media texts produced by
themselves the media industries

- Theoretically interpretative
- Takes a macro perspective by looking on
society as a whole
- Critical of society in terms of power relations
- Often uses a Marxist perspective to
understand how society functions

- Empirical; prefers direct observation rather For more details, read:


then theoretical interpretation
- Micro in scope  Bazalgette, “Why Media Studies is
- Prefers to be “neutral” rather than critical of
worthwhile” (in Reader)
 Sinclair, “Media & Communications” (in
society – liberal and pluralistic Reader)
 Thompson, “Self & Experience in a mediated
world” (in Reader)
 O’Shaughnessy & Stadler 2008
(Recommende Textbook), Chps 1 to 3

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