Media and Technology Communication Theories

• Technological Determinism
• Cultural Studies
• Cultivation Theory
• Social Action Theory
• Agenda-Setting
• . . . and more!

• Developed by Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)
• Technological Determinism: The belief that technological development determines social and cultural change. “The medium is the message.”
• Media: Technologies through which we relate to the world around us.
• Broad definition (includes light bulb, wheel).
• Dominant media determine our “ratio of the senses” - how we experience the world.

• Hot Medium: A high definition channel of communication such as print that focuses on a single sensory receptor.
• Cool Medium: A low definition channel of communication such as television that stimulates several different senses and requires high sensory involvement.

Media History

• The Tribal Age - emphasis on oral communication; oral culture, storytelling - multisensory involvement - holistic, intuitive thinking.
• The Age of Literacy - emphasis on writing - the line becomes an organizing principle; logic emerges.
• Media History
• The Print Age - emphasis on visual print . “Guttenberg Galaxy” - the eye becomes the dominant sense; age of linear thinking; status to science  and individualism.
• The Electronic Age - emphasis on visual image.  The “Global Village” - TV the dominant medium; multisensory involvement; retribalization; decline of logic & linearity.

The Tribal Age: Oral culture

• Sense of hearing, touch, taste and smell more developed than the visual.
• Encourages high involvement, passion, and spontaneity in interactions.
• Importance of stories.
• Personal interaction and attention.

• Visual sense becomes more dominant.
• Encourages contemplation; private detachment rather than tribal involvement
• Promotes logical, linear thinking; mathematics, science, philosophy.

• Made visual dependence widespread.
• Converting personal writing into technical printing.
• Standardization of national languages produced nationalism.
• Prototype of the industrial revolution.

• Emergence of the “Global Village”
• Cool medium of TV encourages spontaneity and defined involvement, retribalization of humanity.
• Passive spectator effect.
• Linear, logical thinking becomes useless in the electronic culture.

• Is Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) a cool medium?
• Is linear thinking irrelevant?
• Are systems and non-linear thinking the future?
• What are Implications for education?
• Should we resist electronic culture - revive literacy?
• Should we redesign curriculum to foster new “electronic literacy”?

• Based on the work of Stuart Hall
• The Central Claim: Mass media are a means by which the "haves" of society gain the willing support of the "have nots" for the status quo.

A “Culturalist” view of Marxism
Rejection of rigid economic determinism.
Social behavior is is “over-determined;” not determined by one dominant cause.  It has multiple causes such as class, race, and gender.

Hegemony
Preponderant influence or domination of “haves” over “have nots”:
not total
not based on force
not a plot or conspiracy
based on widespread acceptance of dominant ideology.

Ideology
Mental frameworks (“worldviews” or “code systems”) widely used to understand society.
Mass media, especially television, usually encode (implicitly assume) the dominant ideology.

Decoding Media - 3 Ways
Operate inside the dominant code (fail to question the implicit dominant ideology)
Apply a negotiable code (a version of the dominant ideology that reflects the audience member’s social position)
Substitute an oppositional code (critical awareness, rejection of dominant ideology)
Cultural studies theory promotes oppositional decoding.

Critical Theory vs. Functional Theory
Critical theory (like Hall’s critical studies theory) stresses that "the mass media support the established social order by acting as the means of social control and thus legitimizing the status quo" (Cohen et al., 1990, p. 29).
Functional theory emphasizes the integrative role of the media that regulate social controversies and create the basis for social consensus (Cohen et al. 1990, p.28).

Media and Social Change
Do Media affect social change?
Three theoretical views.

The Conservative View

• Imbalances in information flows are NOT due to the activities of governments and media.
• Imbalances in news flows as being caused by certain 'natural’ characteristics of information gathering and dissemination.

The Reformist View

• Concedes that imbalances in the flow of information stem from near monopolies of information technology and news wires.
• It acknowledges that harmful social and political consequences may occur because of the dominance of a few media conglomerates.
• Supports incremental changes in the current communication order, while rejecting calls for a fundamental overhaul of the communication system.

• The primary reason for information imbalance can be found in the media conglomerates’ allied governments’ desire to retain hegemony over low power and marginalized groups.
• Control of communication technology and information becomes a significant way for corporations and governments to  economic, social, and cultural influence over citizens and groups, influence not obtained through conventional educational or political means.
• Media communication promotes a form of cultural imperialism.
• Privileged institutions perpetuate a self-serving communication and information imbalance.
• Structuralists see no hope for reforming the current unjust communication
• A new information order must be constructed from the ground up, with the needs of marginalized peoples as paramount .

• What Views are functional?
• What Views are critical?
• If someone is a “have,” should he or she even care about any of this?
• Would cultural studies theorists (Hall) put technological determinism within the area of cultural determinism?