Chapter 5

THE EMERGENCE OF THE CRITICAL CULTURAL TREND IN NORTH

AMERICA

• During the 1960s and 1970s there was growing dissatisfaction with
the perspective on mass communication provided by limited effects
theory and the postpositivist research that supported it
• This was an unstable, violent era in American history with large-
scale social movements for civil rights and against the Vietnam War
• Critics and supporters of these movements viewed media as an
important agent of social change but limited effects theory denied
the ability of media play this role
• Was there another way of assessing the power of media so that its
ability to inspire social movements could be explained?
 Chapter 5
Learning Objectives
• 5. 1 Describe the critical cultural media trend, contrast it with the media-effects
trend, and differentiate the types of research questions that can be answered
by each.
• 5.2 Draw distinctions between macroscopic and microscopic mass
communication theory; between critical and cultural theories and those based
on empirical research; and between the transmissional and ritual perspectives
on mass communication.
• 5.3 Identify the roots of critical and cultural theory in Marxism, neo-Marxism,
the Frankfurt School, textual analysis and literary criticism, political economy
theory, and critical feminist scholarship.
• 5.4 Identify differences and similarities in political economy theory and cultural
studies.
• 5.5 Explain the central ideas of James Carey, Harold Innis and Marshall
McLuhan and identify their contributions to mass communication theory.
Overview: The Emergence of an Alternative
to Minimal Effects Theory
• Minimal Effects Theory suggests that media power is quite
limited
– Only some people are affected under certain conditions
– Important effects can fade away quickly
– Media mostly reinforce social changes that are already underway
• But is media power really that limited?
– Why does news coverage of the Vietnam war seem to spark protests
against the war?
– Why are problematic notions about protesters so widely held?
• Can media power be adequately assessed using postpositivist
research methods?
– If not, how can it be understood and assessed?
 Changing Times: Media are a Primary Means of
Experiencing Many Aspects of the Social World

• For pre-teens media supply vital information about the peer group
culture of older teens including romantic relationships
• For at home parents media supply entertainment and child rearing
information
• For old people with low physical mobility media provide companionship
and reassuring advice
• For many people screens have become a dominant way that they see
and experience a larger social world beyond their homes and
neighborhoods
• As media have become a dominant source of experience, many
traditional cultures have declined
• Media become especially important when social change increases and
other people can’t provide useful information
 Critical Theory
versus Cultural Theory
• Cultural Theory
– Microscopic interpretive theories (cultural studies) assess
how people use media to foster culture that structures daily
life
– Macroscopic structural theories (political economy theory)
assess how elites control media institutions to earn profits
and exercise influence
• Critical Theory combines normative theory with
cultural theory
– Media use and media institutions should provide a means to
achieve valued goals
– Individual media use and elite control of media institutions
should be assessed so that valued goals can be achieved
 Examples of Valued Goals
Promoted by Critical Theorists
• Key values and social practices need to be fostered.
These include:
– Democracy in which all citizens are equally informed and
politically active
– A culturally diverse society in which there is understanding
and respect for all
– Consumption of products based on real needs rather than
media induced fantasies or desires
 Cultural Theory
versus Critical Theory
• Cultural Theory usually focuses on media content
and experience of content
– It can be based on simple curiosity about why certain
content is popular
– It often is concerned about why different social groups
experience content differently
– It usually isn’t based on a normative theory so it isn’t
concerned about the value of different uses and
experiences
 Assessing the Role of Media
• The Media Effects (Postpositivist) Research Strategy
– Identify independent & dependent variables
– Assess linear causal relationships
– Find empirical evidence of causal power of media
• The Cultural Research Strategy
– Focus on the way audience use media for making sense of the social
world and on the experiences they derive from this
– Look for changes in quality of experience that take place over time
– Develop theories about changes in experience linked to media related
meaning making
– Theories should focus on the individual and societal consequences of
these changes in experience
 Media Effects Trend Criticisms of
Critical Cultural Studies
• Postpositivist Researchers are skeptical of critical
or cultural studies theory and research because
they:
– Ignore causality and provide speculative
explanations of phenomena that can’t be studied
using postpositivist methods
– Provide explanations that are similar to mass society
theory – a theory that was discredited in the 1950s
– Rely on unproven qualitative methods rather than
well-established quantitative research methods
 Classic Critical Theory

• Marxist Theory
– Grounded in ideal values = egalitarianism, mass
democracy
– Elites use media to indoctrinate masses with
ideologies that are inconsistent with their
interests
– Change is only possible with a revolution that
takes media away from elites and gives them to
the masses
 Classic Critical Theory

• NeoMarxist Theory
– Revolution is not always necessary to achieve useful
social change
– It is possible to challenge and overcome elite efforts
to indoctrinate masses
– Elite ideology can be countered with populist
(communist) ideology
– Elite misuse of media can be exposed and criticized
– Media literacy can teach masses to criticize elite
misuse of media
 Classic Critical Theory
• Frankfurt School Theory of Media
– Earliest version of NeoMarxist theory
– Challenged by the rise of Nazism in Germany and sought to
explain why ordinary people were vulnerable to persuasion by
Hitler
– Media technology itself was seen as problematic because it
badly misrepresents higher forms of culture
• Live symphony performances versus records
• Great art versus magazine reproductions
– Masses accept poor quality simulations
– Media disrupt daily routines central to civilized social action -
going to movies replaces opera or symphony attendance
– Nazis use media to replace civilized high culture with pseudo-
folk culture
 Classic Cultural Studies Theory

• Textual Analysis and Literary Criticism

– Good literature (High Culture) is central to
development of civilization
– Textual analysis and literary criticism can identify a
“canon” of ideal literary works that everyone
should read
– Universal appreciation of High Culture would
advance civilization
 1980s Critical Cultural
Studies Theories
• British Cultural Studies
– Pioneered by Raymond Williams an Oxford University professor who reassessed
cultural development in England
– Williams criticized elite notions of high culture and praised some forms of
everyday popular culture
• Birmingham School
– Scholars at the University of Birmingham produced the first body of critical
cultural studies research
– Led by Stuart Hall who pioneered Media Reception Research based on a Theory of
Encoding and Decoding
– Media are conceptualized as providing a pluralistic public forum in which ideas
can be contested
– Elites have important advantages in this competition
– Elite advantages can be overcome by studying how audiences decode ideological
content and leading them to develop new strategies for using media
– Focus on how nonelite groups resist elite ideologies embedded in media content
 1980s Critical Theory
• Political Economy Theory
– Capitalist elites are more interested in earning profits than advancing
ideology so sometimes media content seems to contradict elite
interests
– The rise of centralized, privately owned media is problematic - bad
consequences are likely
• Culture becomes a commodity and is packaged in problematic ways
• Mass entertainment dominates at the expense of better forms of media
content
• News is written from elite perspectives and is status quo oriented
– Alternate ways to structure and fund media are needed
• Public, nonprofit media institutions should be developed
 Debate Between Critical Theorists
and Cultural Studies Theorists
• Critical Theorists criticize cultural studies because it is too
microscopic:
– It ignores the social and political context in which media operate
– It focuses too much on interesting but trivial uses of media
• Cultural studies theorists criticize critical theory because it is too
macroscopic:
– It doesn’t provide a basis for understanding the role played by media in
everyday meaning making
– It ignores how ordinary people resist media influence and make media
serve their purposes
• Could Critical Theory and Cultural Studies Theory be integrated to
create a more comprehensive and useful theory? Why would this
be difficult?
 American Cultural Studies

• James Carey - Transmission versus Ritual Perspectives

on media
– Reinterpretation of British and Canadian Theory
– Minimal effects research is too focused on transmission
effects. Media do much more than transmit information
from point A to point B
– Media are central agents in the rituals that make up daily
life
• News reassures us about continuity of social order
• TV allows routine escape from daily problems
 American Popular Culture Research
• Trend in literary scholarship that gained strength in the 1960s
and 1970s
• Influenced by McLuhan and British Cultural Studies
• Most were optimistic about media and popular culture –
celebrated rather than criticized
• Recognized that media content producers appeal to mass
audiences by using content that is deliberately contradictory or
ambiguous
• Media content has several levels of meaning so that many
different interpretations are possible
– Programs like “All in the Family” or “Three’s Company” could be
enjoyed by both conservative and progressive households
 Critical Feminist Scholarship
• Feminists have used Critical Cultural Theory:
– Noreene Janus – 1977 research on sex roles on TV: media are a
potent mechanism for the transmission of sexist ideas
– Feminists have developed four research approaches:
• Images and representations – focus on how women are misrepresented
• Recovery and reappraisal – why do women have difficulty expressing
themselves in a male dominated culture
• Reception and experience – how women use cultural products to
express themselves
• Cultural theory – focuses on the organization and production of culture
– Recent scholarship has focused on cultural assumptions that
support rape culture – abusive attitudes toward women and
traditional gender scripts
 Canadian Cultural Studies

• Marshall McLuhan and Harold Innis

– Technological Determinists?
– Focus on media technology not on the content delivered
by media
– Looked at the role of media over great time and distances
– Speculated about impact of media on culture and social
organization
• Distance spanning technology (writing on paper) leads to the
creation of empires
• Globe spanning technology (satellites) leads to the
development of a Global Village with a shared global culture
Harold Innis: The Bias of Communication

• Canadian Economist
• Key Concept = Bias of Communication
• Traces media history: oral, written, print, broadcast
• Time-Binding Media
• Space-Binding Media
• Center and periphery
• Communication dependency
 McLuhan: Understanding Media
• Early Ideas
– Mechanical Bride = Printing Press
– Reading is private, individual act not social and leads to the
breakdown of orality based social orders - tribe
• Media is the Massage; Media are the Message
• Media extend the senses
– Print media extend the eye
– Oral media extend the ear
– Electronic media extend central nervous system
• But what type of social order will emerge when electronic
media become dominant?
– McLuhan extoled the virtues of the Global Village
 McLuhan Pros and Cons
• Called attention to broad range of interesting
communication issues
• Offered intriguing but highly ambiguous analyses of
issues
• Sought publicity and played to audiences
• Wrote essentially non-linear texts - illogical, irrational
• Borrowed freely from Neomarxist theory but was
widely acclaimed by Capitalists
 Applying Critical Studies Theory Today

• Critical Studies Theorists argue that:

– Large-scale social media provides elites with a new way of
distributing mass culture and dominating mass audiences
• Computer algorithms draw attention to attractive but highly
problematic content (white supremacist content or rape culture
content) so that users spend more time on particular sites and are
exposed to more advertising
• Mass audience data is sold to advertisers who can use it to target ads
– Most large-scale social media are male dominated and fail to
effectively serve female users
• Rape culture is prevalent online
• Video game culture is strongly biased toward male interests and values
 Social Media and Everyday Culture
• Social Media has many troubling influences:
– Simulate and/or displace other forms of everyday communication
– Foster many different communication rituals with varying but often
problematic consequences
– Foster problematic social roles and identities
– Reinforce status quo values and practices
• Do we experience ourselves and others differently because of
social media? Are there unanticipated consequences when we
use social media:
– To preserve old friendships while avoiding new ones
– To routinely avoid face-to-face communication because it’s easier to text
or send email
– To rely on Google or Facebook to screen potential friends or employees