The Limits of Media Power

Technological Limits Social Limits

Digital Divide Knowledge Gap "The key to success in the arts

today is to have an active
social networking strategy.
This is the way to attract
younger audiences"
* the gap between individuals, households,
businesses and geographic areas at
different socio-economic levels with regard *an ongoing and * Social networking activities
to both their opportunities to access increasing gap in are not a panacea. They are
information and communication technology information for those tools for reaching large
(ICTs) and to their use of the internet for a who have less access numbers of people
wide variety of activities (Organization for to technology inexpensively, but they are not
Economic Cooperation and Development yet the tools that bind people to
OECD). us enough to make them major
donors, board members or
volunteers.
Lesson 2: THE MASS MEDIA

Mass Media

Definition Five Stages

* a special kind of communication characterized by a unique Professional communicators create various

audience, communication experience, and communicator types of messages for presentation to
individuals.
* the source of news and information
* the transport forms of mass communication which can be
defined as the dissemination of messages widely, rapidlym The messages are disseminated in a "quick
and continuously large and diverse audiences in an attempt to
influence them in some way. and continuous" manner through some form
of mechanical media.

The messages are received by a vast and

diverse audience.
Effects of Mass Communication

Public service
Commercial announcements have
been developed to The audience interprets these messages and
Advertising influence people on give them meaning.
health issues

The audience is influenced or changed in some

manner.
Mass media has been
used to indoctrinate
Political Campaigns people in terms of
government ideology.
Measuring the Effects of Mass Media insignificant issue is important. Similarly, media
 early studies of mass media investigated the coverage may underplay an important issue.
cognitive, emotional, attitudinal, and  Priming – people evaluate politicians based on
behavioural effects of media on both children the issues covered in the press.
and adults
 Framing – how an issue is characterized in
 theorists, Marshall McLuhan and Irving J. Rein
warned that media critics needed to watch how news reports can influence how it is understood
media affects people by the receivers; involves the selective inclusion
or omission of facts (“bias”).
The Move to Mass Self Communication
Lesson 3: THE MASS ETHICS
 Traditional Mass Media are “push
technologies” – producers create the objects
and distribute them (push it) to consumers who MEDIA ETHICS
are largely anonymous to the producer. The only
input consumes have in traditional mass media Metaethics - addresses the validity of theories, the nature
is to decide whether to consume it of good and evil in media programming, the question of
 1980 – transition to “pull technology” – users universals, problems of relativism, and the rationale for
are now free to select what they wish to
morality in a secular age.
consume.
Normative ethics - fuses practice with principles. It
 Manuel Castells – Spanish sociologist concerns the best ways for professionals to lead their lives
 Mass self-communication – means that the and the standards to be promoted; concentrates on the
content is still created by the producers and the justice or injustice of societies and institutions
distribution is made available to a large number
of people, those who choose to read or consume Descriptive ethics - uses social science methodologies to
the information. report on how ethical decision-making actually works in
journalis, advertising, public relations, and entertainment
Computed-Mediated Communication

 study of mass media – a fast moving target

 People have studies computer-mediated Ethics moral principles that ultimately define
communication since the technology first people’s actions.
became available in the 1970s. Early studies
focused on teleconferencing, and how ETHICAL ISSUES
interactions between large groups of strangers
differ from interactions with known partners.
Morality
 Web 2.0 also known as Participatory or Social
web – immense growth in social applications
subsequent to the time it started. Exploitation
 Alvin Toffler – a sociologist, created the new
obsolete term of “prosumers” to describe users Offensive material
who are almost simultaneously consumers
and producers. Representational Issues
 Interactions also now cross media streams
such as “Social TV” where people use hashtags
while watching a sports game or a television Ethical Philosophies
program in order to simultaneously read and
converse with hundreds of other viewers on
Deontology or Deontological Ethics branch of ethics
social media. in which people define what is morally right or wrong
by the action themselves, rather than referring to the
Politics and the Media consequences of those actions, or the character of the
person who performs them.
 Media provides a way for predominantly come from the Greek root deon duty and
rational voters to obtain information about logos science
their political choices. “science of duty”
 Media can be leveraged for propaganda, in a deontological system, duties, rules, and
which exploits cognitive errors that people obligations are determined by an agreed-upon code of
are prone to make. ethics
Propaganda Techniques in Mass Media Teleological Ethics
Based on the concept of seeking a “telos” in ethical
 Agenda Setting – aggressive media coverage decision-making. Telos is a Greek word meaning “end”
of an issue can make people believe an or “goal”; thus teleological ethics is concerned with how
choices will affect a particular desired moral
outcome.
Two Main Teleological Moral Philosophies:
1. Utilitarianism/Consequentialism
2. Virtue Ethics

Situation Ethics or Situational Ethics

moral decision making is contextual or dependent
on a set of circumstances
holds that moral judgements must be made within
the context of the entirety of a situation and that all
normative features of a situation must be viewed as a
whole.
developed by American Anglican theologian
Joseph F. Fletcher
his book Situation Ethics: The New Morality
arose from his objections to both moral absolutism and
moral relativism

 moral absolutism – view that there are

fixed universal moral principles that have
binding authority in all circumstances
 moral relativism – view that there are no
fixed moral principles at all

he held that within the context of the

complexities of the situation, one should come to the
most loving or right decision as to what to do

John Dewey – American philosopher, social

reformer, and educator

 instrumentalism
 in his framework, moral principles are
tools or instruments that are used
because they work in resolving the
conflicts within complex situations in
the most harmonious way for all those
involved

RELIGION AND MASS MEDIA

 original and provocative

 able to illuminate experience of faith at a time
when devotion is seen as a dimension of
individuality best suited to the privacy of one’s
home.
 an audience-centered examination that
reveals how a variety of Christian traditions
experience media news and entertainment.
 Professors Daniel A. Stout and Judith M.
Buddenbaum – help advance the study of
religion and mass communication in the
United Stares