mass-communication-theory

whether they should downshift or upshift: that is,
the level of seriousness they should bring to their
actions. Media’s contribution to this framing is in
influencing people’s expectations, or readings, of
those cues. Frame analysis has been applied with
some success to journalists’ production of news
accounts, elites’ power to shape the frames that
journalists employ, and the meaning people make
from those frames.
As media frame issues for us, they cultivate our
perceptions of the social world so that we are
more likely to make sense of things in some
ways rather than others. If we expect to see a
“mean world,” for example, we will find our expectations
constantly confirmed by television violence
and televised news. Another way of
summarizing the arguments of these theories—
drawn from cultivation analysis but expanded beyond
that theory’s initial focus on television—is
through the following five assumptions:
1. Electronic media are fundamentally different
from the print media that preceded them.
2. Electronic media constitute a culture industry
that has become central to the formation,
transmission, and maintenance of culture in
American society.
3. Electronic media cultivate a general consciousness,
or worldview, on which many
people’s conclusions, judgments, and actions
are based.
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 11 Media and Culture Theories: Meaning-Making in the Social World 355
1. How attached are you to your cell phone?
Consider that you can keep only one—television,
refrigerator, newspaper, radio, or cell
phone. Which one would you retain? Why?
Have you ever lost your cell phone? How
connected (or disconnected) from your environment
did you feel? Why? How quickly
did you replace it?
2. Politicians were among the first professionals
to understand the power of framing.
What routinized or habitual meanings come
to mind when you encounter frames like
pro-life, pro-choice, death tax, tax relief, tax
4. Electronic media’s major cultural influence is
to stabilize social patterns, preserve the status
quo, and allow power to be increasingly
centralized.
5. The measurable, identifiable contributions of
electronic media to the culture at any one
time are relatively small. But the overall
long-term influence is all-pervasive.
As such, media can have a profound influence
on the accessibility and quality of information we
use as we try to think, talk, and act in our social
world. As our culture becomes increasingly commodified,
the information we access is primarily
that provided in infotainment or political spectacle.
Because this content necessarily serves the
interests of those who produce it, there may be
many important things we never learn about
from the media. Moreover, our impressions of
the things that we do learn about might be
strongly affected by the “packaging” of that
information.
Naturally, if we are to be meaningful actors in
the drama that is our own lives, we must improve
our control over our use of the media and the
meaning we make from their content. This is media
literacy, a skill that can be improved and one
that exists on a continuum—we are not equally
media literate in all situations, all the time, and
with all media.
and spend, welfare queen, death panel, socialized
medicine, Medicare for All? All are
terms specifically designed to frame the
meaning of the discussion that surrounds
each. What meaning does each frame? What
fuller or deeper meaning might be obscured?
What is the intent of those who would employ
these expressions? Is it consistent with
honest democratic discourse? Why or why
not?
3. Advertisers, through product positioning,
make extensive use of symbolic interaction.
Can you look around your life and find
Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.