Mass Media and Its Messages

VMT213/3 TEORI DAN PRAKTIS DALAM MEDIA BARU (THEORY & PRACTICE IN NEW MEDIA)
• When media consumers think of media messages,
they may think of televised public service
announcements or political advertisements.
• These obvious examples provide a venue for the
transfer of a message through a medium, whether
that message is a plea for fire safety or the statement
of a political position.
• But what about more abstract political
advertisements that simply show the logo of a
candidate and a few simple words?
• Media messages can range from overt statements to
vague expressions of cultural values.
• Disagreements over the content of
media messages certainly exist.
• Consider the common allegations of
political bias against various news
organizations.
• Accusations of hidden messages or
agenda-driven content have always
been an issue in the media, but as the
presence of media grows, the debate
concerning media messages
increases.
• This dialogue is an important one;
after all, mass media have long been
used to persuade.
• Many modern persuasive techniques
stem from the use of media as a
propaganda tool.
• The role of propaganda and
persuasion in the mass media is a
good place to start when considering
various types of media effects.
Propaganda and Persuasion
• Encyclopedia Britannica defines propaganda
simply as the “manipulation of information to
influence public opinion (Britannica Concise
Encyclopedia).”
• This definition works well for this discussion
because the study and use of propaganda has
had an enormous influence on the role of
persuasion in modern mass media.
• In his book The Creation of the Media, Paul
Starr argues that the United States, as a liberal
democracy, has favored employing an
independent press as a public guardian, thus
putting the media in an inherently political
position (Starr, 2004).
• The United States—in contrast to other nations
where media are held in check—has
encouraged an independent commercial press
and thus given the powers of propaganda and
persuasion to the public (Starr, 2004).
Propaganda and
Persuasion
• Like any type of communication, propaganda is not
inherently good or bad.
• Whether propaganda has a positive or negative effect on
society and culture depends on the motivations of those
who use it.
• People promoting movements as wide-ranging as
Christianity, the American Revolution, and the communist
revolutions of the 20th century have all used propaganda to
disseminate their messages (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006).
• For example, Benjamin Franklin’s famous illustration of a
severed snake with the caption “Join or Die” serves as an
early testament to the power and use of print propaganda
(Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006).
• The present-day, pejorative connotation of
propaganda stems from the full utilization
of mass media by World War I–era
governments to motivate the citizenry of
many countries to go to war.
• Some media outlets characterized the war
as a global fight between Anglo civilization
and Prussian barbarianism.
• In modern society, the persuasive power of
the mass media is well known.
• Governments, corporations, nonprofit
organizations, and political campaigns rely
on both new and old media to create
messages and to send them to the general
public.
• The comparatively unregulated nature of
U.S. media has made, for better or worse, a
society in which the tools of public
persuasion are available to everyone.
Media Behavior

• Although the mass media send messages

created specifically for public
consumption, they also convey messages
that are not properly defined as
propaganda or persuasion.
• Some argue that these messages
influence behavior, especially the
behavior of young people (Beatty, 2006).
• Violent, sexual, and compulsive
behaviors have been linked to media
consumption and thus raise important
questions about the effects of media on
culture.
 Violence and the
Media
• On April 20, 1999, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
entered their Denver-area high school, Columbine High
School, armed with semiautomatic weapons and
explosives.
• Over the next few hours, the pair killed 12 classmates
and one faculty member before committing suicide
(Lamb, 2008).
• The tragedy and its aftermath captured national
attention, and in the weeks following the Columbine
High School shootings, politicians and pundits worked to
assign blame.
• Their targets ranged from the makers of the first-person
shooter video game Doom to the Hollywood studios
responsible for The Matrix (Brook, 1999).
• However, in the years since the massacre, research
has revealed that the perpetrators were actually
attempting a terrorist bombing rather than a first-
person shooter style rampage (Toppo, 1999).
• But did violent video games so desensitize the two
teenagers to violence that they could contemplate
such a plan?
• Did movies that glorify violent solutions create a
culture that would encourage people to consider
such methods?
• Because modern culture is so immersed in media,
the issue becomes a particularly complex one, and
it can be difficult to understand the types of effects
that violent media produce.
• A number of studies have verified
certain connections between violent
video games and violent behavior in
young people.
• For example, studies have found that
some young people who play violent
video games reported angry thoughts
and aggressive feelings immediately
after playing.
• Other studies, such as one conducted
by Dr. Chris A. Anderson and others,
point to correlations between the
amount of time spent playing violent
video games and increased incidence of
aggression (Anderson, 2003).
• However, these studies do not prove that video
games cause violence.
• Video game defenders argue that violent people
can be drawn to violent games, and they point to
lower overall incidence of youth violence in recent
years compared to past decades (Adams, 2010).
• Other researchers admit that individuals prone to
violent acts are indeed drawn to violent media;
however, they claim that by keeping these
individuals in a movie theater or at home, violent
media have actually contributed to a reduction in
violent social acts (Goodman, 2008).
Sex and the Media
• In many types of media, sexual content
—and its strong emotional message—
can be prolific.
• A recent study by researchers at the
University of North Carolina entitled
“Sexy Media Matter: Exposure to Sexual
Content in Music, Movies, Television,
and Magazines Predicts Black and White
Adolescents’ Sexual Behavior”:
• found that young people with heavy
exposure to sexually themed media
ranging from music to movies are twice
as likely to engage in early sexual
behavior as young people with light
exposure.
Sex and the Media
• Although the study does not prove a conclusive link
between sexual behavior and sexually oriented
media, researchers concluded that media acted as an
influential source of information about sex for these
youth groups (Dohney, 2006).
• Researcher Jane Brown thinks part of the reason
children watch sexual content is related to puberty
and their desire to learn about sex.
• While many parents are hesitant to discuss sex with
their children, the media can act like a “super peer,”
providing information in movies, television, music,
and magazines (Dohney, 2006).
Cultural Messages
and the Media
• The media sends messages that
reinforce cultural values.
• These values are perhaps most
visible in celebrities and the
roles that they adopt.
• Actors such as John Wayne and
Marilyn Monroe came to
represent aspects of masculinity
and femininity that were
adopted into mainstream
culture during the mid-20th
century.
Cultural Messages
and the Media
• Throughout the 1990s,
basketball player Michael Jordan
appeared in television, film,
magazines, and advertising
campaigns as a model of
athleticism and willpower.
• Singers such as Bob Dylan have
represented a sense of freedom
and rebellion against
mainstream culture.
• Although many consider
celebrity culture superficial and
a poor reflection of a country’s
values, not all celebrities are
simply entertainers.
• Civil rights leaders, social
reformers, and other famous
public figures have come to
represent important cultural
accomplishments and
advancements through their
representations in the media.
• Celebrities can also reinforce cultural stereotypes that
marginalize certain groups.
• Television and magazines from the mid-20th century
often portrayed women in a submissive, domestic
role, both reflecting and reinforcing the cultural
limitations imposed on women at the time.
• Advertising icons
developed during the
early 20th century, such as
Aunt Jemima and the
Cream of Wheat chef,
similarly reflected and
reinforced a submissive,
domestic servant role for
African Americans.
• Other famous stereotypes—such as the
Lone Ranger’s Native American sidekick,
Tonto, or Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi
role in Breakfast at Tiffany’s—also
reinforced American preconceptions
about ethnic predispositions and
capabilities.
• Whether actual or fictional,
celebrities and their
assumed roles send a
number of different
messages about cultural
values.
• They can promote
courageous truth telling,
hide and prolong social
problems, or provide a
concrete example of an
abstract cultural value.
New Media and Society
• New media—the Internet and other
digital forms of communication—have
had a large effect on society.
• This communication and information
revolution has created a great deal of
anguish about digital literacy and other
issues that inevitably accompany such a
social change.
• All communication revolutions have
created upheavals and have changed the
standards of literacy and
communication.
• This historical perspective gives a
positive interpretation to some
otherwise ominous developments in
communication and culture.
Information

• The Internet has made an incredible amount of

new information available to the general public.
• Both this wealth of information and the ways
people process it are having an enormous effect
on culture.
• New perceptions of information have emerged
as access to it grows.
• Older-media consumption habits required in-
depth processing of information through a
particular form of media.
Information

• Today, information is easier to access, thus more likely to

traverse several forms of media.
• An individual may read an article on a news website and
then forward part of it to a friend.
• That person in turn describes it to a coworker without
having seen the original context.
• Increasingly, media outlets cater to this habit of
searching for specific bits of information devoid of
context.
• Information that will attract the most attention is often
featured at the expense of more important stories.
Information

• Another important development in the media’s

approach to information is its increasing
subjectivity.
• Some analysts have used the term
cyberbalkanization to describe the way media
consumers filter information.
• Balkanization is an allusion to the political
fragmentation of Eastern Europe’s Balkan states
following World War I, when the Ottoman
Empire disintegrated into a number of ethnic
and political fragments.
Information
• Customized news feeds allow individuals to
receive only the kinds of news and information
they want and thus block out sources that
report unwanted stories or perspectives.
• Many cultural critics have pointed to this kind of
information filtering as the source of increasing
political division and resulting loss of civic
discourse.
• When media consumers hear only the
information they want to, the common ground
of public discourse that stems from general
agreement on certain principles inevitably grows
smaller (Kakutani, 2010
 Literacy

• On the one hand, the proliferation of the

Internet as the predominant medium for
accessing information exposes individuals to
heightened quantities of textual material,
thereby contributing to a broader
development of reading skills.
• Undoubtedly, written content plays a crucial
role in the functioning of the Internet.
• The predominant form of information online
is text, and effective engagement in Internet
culture, such as through blogs, forums, or
personal websites, necessitates a level of
textual literacy that is optional for
involvement in television, music, or movies.
Internet
• The Internet has affected the
way that cultures consume
news. The public expects to
receive information quickly,
and news outlets respond
rapidly to breaking stories.
Convergence Culture
• The term convergence means the flow of
content across multiple media platforms,
• the cooperation between multiple media
industries,
• and the migratory behavior of media
audiences who will go almost anywhere in
search of the kinds of entertainment
experiences they want
• A self-produced video on the YouTube
website that gains enormous popularity and
thus receives the attention of a news outlet is
a good example of this migration of both
content and audiences.
Convergence Culture
• Thanks to new media, consumers now view
all types of media as participatory.
• New media have encouraged greater
personal participation in media as a whole.
• Although the long-term cultural
consequences of this shift cannot yet be
assessed, the development is undeniably a
novel one.
• As audiences become more adept at
navigating media, this trend will
undoubtedly increase.
 • Propaganda and persuasion have long been a part
of the interactions between media and culture.
• Most studies on media and behavior do not
establish direct links between the two but do reveal
important correlations among media, violence, and
sexual behavior.
CONCLUSIO • Through the media, celebrities have come to signify
NS important cultural values and tendencies, and they
transmit specific cultural messages.
• New digital forms of media have revolutionized the
way people access and consume media content.
• Rather than simply replacing old media, however,
new forms of media encourage participatory media
consumption and content migration.
ASSIGNMENT 30%
DUE DATE: AFTER SEM BREAK (WEEK
8)
• Celebrities can represent cultural values and principles when they are portrayed in the media. The
same celebrity can represent very different things depending on the form of media and its portrayal
of that person. Find a celebrity (local or native to your country). Then, answer the following questions:
1. How is this celebrity portrayed in the eye of the audience?
2. What kind of roles does the celebrity take in other forms of media (film, tv, internet)?
3. How do these portrayals associate with specific cultural values?

• Explain how the media has affected culture (in your country). Be sure to discuss the following topics
and to provide examples of each.
1. Propaganda and persuasion
2. Behavior
3. Cultural messages

• How has new media affected literacy and information consumption in your country? How is this
different from older forms of media?