Entertainment as Media Content - Math Problem Example

Name: Instructor: Institution: Date: Media Chapter1 1 a. I will go with entertainment as media content. The entertainment aired by each media must be selected to fit the audience. The media houses know their targeted audience and therefore bring what fits them. If the society is generally immoral then the media will not shy away from airing pornography and secular music. However, if the society is moral then the media will stick to that. It is for instance common to see the media airing gospel music the whole day on Sundays because they perceive that a majority of people worship on that day. b. The selected representation might have a long term effect on the society in that whatever is presented largely draws from peoples way of life. There are also media groups that currently target just a specific group. They may encourage immorality and loss of the societal values. Similarly, selected representation may make the society miss out on some of important information that the media feels is not appropriate. The media therefore fails in its duty to inform people. The media shapes people’s minds and way of thinking according to what they air. 2. I will go for the simple linear model: Message- coding- channel- decoding The information is coded in the form of signals and then transmitted via a channel to another end where it is decodified. The whole process depends on the society and what should be aired according to their cultures. All pieces of information are verified before transmission to ensure that it holds the same values as the society. Chapter 2 1 a They are referred to as medium theorists because they believe that the properties of communication technology can greatly affect the society both socially and culturally. They say that such impacts should be considered before adopting the technological changes in the media. They place their emphasis on the content of the information passed by the media. b By saying that medium is the message, McLuhan meant that the personal and social impacts of the media results from the introduction of a new scale of ourselves or by change in technology. He says that the medium is more important than the message. 2 Technological determinism theory maintains that the society's technology affects or drives the changes in culture and social issues of that society. The theory was mainly criticized during the World War 2. Some of the criticisms is that its concept is not very well founded and the argument that users do not simply consume technology, they transform it. Also, the critics argue that what matters is not the technology but the society in which it is embedded. Chapter 3 1. a Vertical integration is where a company acquires another firm within its supply chain, for instance its supplier or major customer. Horizontal integration is where the firm acquires a company within its level, for instance a competitor or a complementary firm. b Concentration of media ownership leads to concentration of ideas. This is because media also their have political and social inclinations. Therefore what they air will almost be similar. Equally, the news and programs they air are borrowed from each other and that limits the scope of ideas. 2. Media ownership by strong corporations will lead them highly protect their interests. The media should be free from corporate ownership so that they can freely air everything. Such corporations can use their influence in the media to engage in unethical practices. Chapter 4 1 The signifier is the pointing finger, the sound image or the word. The signified is the meaning or whatever is pointed to or indicated by the signifier. The signifier is usually stable while the signified varies in the minds of different people. i An icon is a signifier that bears a resemblance to its signified, for instance through sound or appearance. ii An index is a signifier that does not resemble the signified but is causally connected to it. iii A symbol is any sort of a signifier. It might be an object, picture or a word, which does not resemble the signified and has no priori relationship with it. It is therefore arbitrary. iv Denotation is simply the literal meaning of a sign. v Connotation refers to the personal and cultural association of a sign as opposed to its literal meaning. vi A myth is a belief. A dominant understanding considered as common sense. Something that the society beliefs in even without any scientific proof. vii Syntagmatic analysis is the analysis of surface structure. That is one element chooses the other element to either precede or follow it in the system. viii Paradigm analysis is the analysis of the functional contrasts which mainly involve differentiation. 2 An example would be the following headline: A boy dies in the river. The different components include boy, in, the and river. The syntagmatic analysis analyses which word follows the other to give the sentence its meaning. The boy comes before the river to show where he died. Chapter 5 1 The nationwide research focused on media audiences. He proposed dominant reading, negotiated reading and oppositional reading. One of the strengths of Hall's approach is that it adopted a culturalists perspective. However, some of its propositions are not widely accepted. For instance, the claim that if two readers have different cultural experiences then their reading of a text will greatly vary. 2 No. Media ethnographic has made a critical study of the media audience, and it is true that the audience perception of information either heard or read largely depends on their cultural and social values. Chapter 6 1 The culturist version of media and ideology states that the kind of information relayed to the audience depends on their cultural values. In other words, culture dictates the ideologies of people. The political economic versions state that media content depends on the political and economic classes. These approaches are not fully redundant. The assertion that audiences are active is somewhat true. People still give feedback to the media on most of the programs they air. And with the emergence of social media, the audience is very active. 2 We should regard it as a cultural imperialism. Such transition has prevailed over cultural values. This is mainly due to changes in technology. However it does not fully prevail over our cultures. Some of these transitions are still in line with our cultures. Chapter 7 1 Gate-keeping refers to the process through which information is filtered for dissemination be it through the Internet, publication or any other mode of communication. Agenda setting refers to the arranging of information depending on importance so as to see which ones to continuously air or publish. If a news item is covered severally then the audience will perceive it as important. It is therefore important to prioritize such items. News values refer to the effect of the news on the targeted audience. That is, how the news is going to impact on the life of the audience to which it is intended. Selection is knowing which contents to air or publish and which ones to discard. This may largely depend on the target audience and the people’s ways of life. 2. Such words bring clearly the meaning, extent and severity of the war. Surgical strike is an air strike and it shows that the war was fought on air. Collateral damage is an accidental or unintended damage on property or killing of people. It draws the meaning that the fighters did not hit their target and instead killed people and destroyed the wrong property. Chapter 8 1) The issue regarding funding of BBC by means of a compulsory fee payable by household means has been received by appraisals and criticism at the same time. The supporters of the system claim that the compulsory license fee is one of the best ways through which the BBC finds resources. In this case, the license is argued to be very necessary since it is used to facilitate the services that are channeled online and several other BBC radio stations. Those advocating for the license dispute the ideology that one needs a license to watch television, referring to it as a common misconception. Argument against the licensing In the contemporary technological and political climate, the call for the abolishment of the TV licncing is becoming louder. Those opposing the arrangement argue that the license fee is nothing but a fetter on the BBC. To point out more clearly, the license fee is considered to be sort of handcuffs. In this sense, the objector argues that the funding is not only ineffective but also unethical. It is detrimental journalistic ambitions and creativity of the BBC. The trends of contemporary media consumerism form the basis of argument for those who call for the fee to be dropped. There are several other online streaming services that could be considered as alternatives. Netflix is one of them. This change in the culture of viewing TV makes the licensing arrangement a bit irrelevant today than it was sometimes back. Consequently, this makes the future of BBC licensing fee very vague. 2. Media is a broad term that is used to encompass wide range of content that are provided over a wide range of platforms to either a sectors of the public or the public in general. Media is established in any society to provide content such as news, entertainment, current affairs, politics, fashions, home, décor, gardening, business, monitoring, religion, lifestyle, food and celerity among other contents. The role of media in the society It is important to note that media industry is not dominated by any monolithic entity. In the same way, the media does not play any single role. A wide range of factors come into play to shape the role of the media in the society. Most of the factors relate to the nature of the media and is significantly attached to the content of the media as well as the medium of transmission. In this sense, the media plays several roles in the society which include entertaining, educational and informative. Chapter 9 The role that the media might play to help in the development of the public sphere is facilitating the shared national identity and experience. On the contrary, the public sphere has failed as at now. This is an implication that the media has failed. The failure of the media can be tagged on the commercialization. Hodikson explains that intensification and expansion of capitalism gave media a lot of power (220). This is the point where the media stopped being a facilitator and started playing the role of shaping the society. Chapter 10 1) Foremost, understanding the term discourse is very important. It refers to a specific use of certain language or communicative event either in oral or written form of verbal interaction. From this sense, it is evident that both racism and nationalisms share similar discourse. People from a certain country are likely to communicate in a certain way using certain language. The same applies to racists. 2) I think the specialist transitional media are empowering the ethnic minority group. The specialist transition media give act as a platform through which the identity of the ethnic minority is heard at the national level. However, the minority group should be presented in the mainstream media as well. Chapter 11 According to Hodkinson, the experiences and understanding of the masculinity and feminity are not different from the way people conceive whites, blacks and Asians. One can argue that women figure is prominent not just in front covers but in the media content as a whole. Traditionally, the images of women have been appearing in the major front covers of various advert magazines than men. Chapter 12 1. b) It is true that the representation of sex and the city challenge the dominant understanding of gender. The common perception is that women are dominated by men. However, the show demonstrates that women can be assertive and independent. They have the autonomy to consume what they want and decide on how and when to get into relationships Chapter 13 1. a. Theories of mass culture tend to emphasize that cultures emerge spontaneously from masses. These theories also tend to consider culture as mainly a product of mass media. The media culture, with all the declinations in terms of advertisements, is thus perceived as a system that is mainly centered on manipulating the mass within the society and diluting the community. Chapter 14 1) The social networking sites offer an illustration of theories of post modernism. The sites alone are elements of postmodernism. Then, they change the manner in which communication in conducted in the contemporary society. The social media networks are being used to in relation to the situations and real events. It can be argued that they social media attempt to elevate the understanding of the relationship between media, societies and cultures. Works Cited Hodkinson, P. (2010). Media, Culture and Society: An Introduction. SAGE, Read More