metaphor for media and society: escher's hands drawing hands
-- product alters process alters product
-- reflexivity
-- heisenberg's uncertainty principle
study not just the content of media, but the production of the content as well.
-- what values, technology, skills are incorporated into the content? what ideology?
-- there is information not in just the content, but in how the content is organized, produced, and put together.
process to media:
old metaphor--> stimulus / response
-- messages are like bullets, they hit you and you react to them. (ex. media causes violence)
newer metaphor: two-step flow of communication
-- stimulus is mediated through a group before you interpret it. your group identity helps process messages
present theory: symbolic interactionism
-- message reaches you and you interpret the symbolic elements and meanings and then there will be results dependent on what meanings you ascribe to the symbols.
"messages w/ moral meaning have influence on behavior"
change as opposed to reinforcing effects-- messages with moral meanings are very difficult to change. they're embedded (to a certain extent) in our environments / cultures.
naomi klein -- illegal to market directly to kids?? (in canada)
examples of interpretation battles in media:
was this "torture" or "strenuous communication"?
rush limbaugh, in reference to guantanamo, "this was a fraternity prank."
norman lear -- producer of "all in the family"
-- meant to change society
-- characters have symbolic meaning
-- lear intended to illustrate the point "bigotry is bad" however research demonstrates that in some small canadian towns it had the opposite effect of reinforcing bigotry.
culturally created SCRIPTS (situations) that get combined into NARRATIVES (with beginning, middle and end.)
ray surette -- social ecology of crime in entertainment media
-- three layers: "criminal wolves" which were fought by "crime fighting sheep dogs" who shielded "public citizen sheep"
-- interesting note: how you interpret these three layers is somewhat dependent on your experiences with law enforcements (i.e. race.)
people like to be reinforced-- "identifying things you already believe"
tony schwartz -- "the responsive chord"
-- "the best advertising is one where the viewer fills in the details."
-- this "chord" is a chord of meaning
sidebar: "this version of government is diluted fascism."
crack / cocaine and heroin: programming and government manipulation of networks and the media system.
-- robert blake -- "beretta"
-- epstein -- "agency of fear": this results in shifting language and meanings in order to talk about the subject
-- len bias -- boston celtics player died from an overdose of cocaine
---- tip o'neill: powerful congressmen (from boston)
Immediately upon returning from the July 4 recess, Tip O'Neill called an emergency meeting of the crime-related committee chairmen. Write me some goddamn legislation, he thundered. All anybody up in Boston is talking about is Len Bias. The papers are screaming for blood. We need to get out front on this now. This week. Today. The Republicans beat us to it in 1984 and I don't want that to happen again. I want dramatic new initiatives for dealing with crack and other drugs. If we can do this fast enough, he said to the Democratic leadership arrayed around him, we can take the issue away from the White House.
In life, Len Bias was a terrific basketball player. In death, he became the Archuke Ferdinand of the Total War on Drugs. What came before had been only skirmishing; the real Drug War had yet to begin. Within weeks, the country would be marching, bayonets fixed.
( from http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2006/06/18/lenBiasTheDeathThatUsh...)
"media logic is the ghost in the machine." what's running it? what shapes and frames what we see?
iconography
-- religious studies that look at what's been added and taken away from an icon over time. in particular, the associated meanings.
-- the ability to establish an icon and meaning is an act of power. (power is the ability to define a situation.)
-- "there is no meaning independent of human agency."
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from the standpoint of those attacking the towers, the people in the towers were "little eichmanns"
-- rationality of brutality
-- "television creates its own memory"
-- giovanni beckoloni: what is the source of our memories?
media, popular culture and blending of wars
top gun --> "highway to the danger zone" --> now, pilots play that song during bombing runs
lighthouses and frenl lens -- fear builds upon itself, narratives about the other, group membership, etc.
-- howard becker: sociologist focuses on "insiders and outsiders"
-- "the other" becomes a source of fear.
-- through multiple self-reflections and magnifications, the fear becomes more powerful.
"the discourse of evil is ecclesiastical"
