Media Now: The Changing Media(Straubhaar & LaRose)

Notes and Terms

Terminology

• MASS MEDIA: A one-to-many communication delivered through an electronic or mechanical channel.

• INFORMATION SOCIETY: A society in which the exchange of information is the predominant economic activity.

• CONVERGENCE: The integration of mass media, computers, and telecommunications.

Convergence

• Transmitting information digitally facilitates media convergence.– “Digital communication technology converts

sound, pictures, and text into computer-readable formats by changing them into strings of electronic 1s and 0s that carry information in encoded form” (p. 5/6).

Convergence

• The switch to digital transmission has also caused convergence within media industries that often manifest themselves as company mergers.– Example: “Cable TV giant Comcast now offers high

speed Internet connections and telephone service to its subscribers” (p. 7).

Regulation

• Regulation refers to government oversight of media ownership.– Telecommunications Act of 1996: Federal legislation that

deregulated mass media.• “In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress stripped away

the regulations that had protected publishing, broadcasting, cable television, telephone, and other media companies from competition with one another. With the new law, lawmakers hoped to spark competition, improve service, and lower prices in all communications media. But so far, the main impact has been a flurry of corporate mergers, buyouts, and bankruptcies, whereas the consumer benefits appear slowly” (p. 11).

Media Evolution

• Pre-agricultural Society – The Tribal Epoch– Nomadic hunting and gathering.– Written language doesn’t exist. Oral and gestural

communication are the only way to transmit ideas between people.

• Agricultural Society – The Literate Epoch– Farm life that included growing food, keeping livestock,

mining, fishing, and logging.– Writing existed, but was accessible only to elite

scholars and priests.

Media Evolution

• Industrial Society – The Print Epoch– The Industrial Revolution drew people to

urban/industrial centers where factory workers and machines reproduced standardized products.

– Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1450 was the model for the forthcoming industrial revolution of the 1700s because the printing press reproduced its standardized product in a sequential fashion much like the industrial factory would later do.

Media Evolution

• Information Society – The Electronic Epoch– Characterized by an economy that is based

primarily upon the movement of information.– Occurred in the West simultaneous with the rise

of television as a medium.– The computer is the ultimate medium in an

information society because its sole purpose is to process information.

SMCR

• SMCR stand for Sender, Message, Channel, Receiver.– Source: Originates the message.– Message: Content of communication.– Encoder: Translates the message into a form that can be trasmitted.– Channel: The medium or conduit used to carry the message in transit.– Decoder: Translates the message into a form that is readable by the

Receiver.– Receiver: Destination of the message.– Feedback: Regulates the flow of communication.– Noise: Distracting information that is not meaningful to message.

“New Media”

• New Media are…– Digital: Transmitted through binary code (“0s &

1s”)– Interactive: Allows feedback from the receiver to

be used by the source to continually modify the message as it is being delivered to the receiver.

– Audience Generated: Permits the public to engage in the creation and dissemination of mediated messages.

Additional Terms

• Gatekeepers: Individuals or groups that decide what will appear on the media.

• Mediated: Communication transmitted through a channel.

• Narrowcasting: Targets media to specific segments of the audience.