Week 1
Introduction to the course
Literature questions:
1.1. What do we mean with the term ‘Marketplace of attention’? Describe what this
marketplace looks like, and compare it to the pre-internet era. What do you
think are some of the consequences of the increased competition for our
attention?
1.2. The book states that as a social media user, ‘your choices of media content
are being dominated and directed’. Consider to what extent you agree with
this statement. Do you believe you have sufficient insight in the way social
media algorithms work to answer this question?
1.3. Describe in your own words what is meant by a ‘scientific method’.
,Literature
Defining and redefining mass communication
Grand theory = theory designed to describe and explain all aspects of a given
phenomenon → then try to explain entire media systems and their role in society
Mass communication = when a source, typically an organization, employs a
technology as a medium to communicate with a large audience.
Think of mediated communication as existing on a continuum that stretches from
interpersonal communication at one end to traditional forms of mass communication
on the other.
• Where different media fall along this continuum depends on the amount of
control and involvement people have in the communication process.
Marketplace of attention = social media are competing against one another and
against legacy media to gain and hold the attention of people.
Science and human behavior
Social scientists = scientists who examine relationships among phenomena in the
human or social world
Society is reluctance to accept the theories of the social scientists because of the
logic of causality.
• Causality = when a given factor influences another, even by way of an
intervening variable
• Causal relationship = when the alterations in a particular variable under
specific conditions always produce the same effect in another variable.
Empirical = capable of being verified or disproved by observation
The implementation of the scientific method is difficult for those studying the social
world for four reasons:
1. Most of the significant and interesting forms of human behavior are quite
difficult to measure.
2. Human behavior is exceedingly complex.
3. Humans have goals and are self-reflexive.
4. The simple notion of causality is sometimes troubling when it is applied to
ourselves.
, o Third-person effect = the idea that ‘media affects others, but not me’
Defining theory
Theory = any organized set of concepts, explanations, and principles of some
aspect of human experience.
Scholars have identified four major categories of communication theory—(1)
postpositivism, (2) cultural theory, (3) critical theory, and (4) normative theory—and
although they ‘share a commitment to an increased understanding of social and
communicative life and a value for high quality scholarship’, they differ in
• Their goals
• Their view of the nature of reality, what is knowable and worth knowing—their
ontology.
• Their view of the methods used to create and expand knowledge—their
epistemology.
• Their view of the proper role of human values in research and theory
building—their axiology.
Mass communication theory → theories have evolved in part as a reaction to
changes in mass media technology and the rise of new mass media organizations
that exploited this technology.
Four trends in media theory
Instead of distinct eras of mass communication theory, we identify trends in
theory development:
1. The mass society and mass culture trend in media theory
These ideas were initially developed in the latter half of the nineteenth
century, at a time when rapid development of large factories in urban areas
was drawing more and more people from rural areas to cities.
o Many theorists were extremely pessimistic.
o Most theorists were educated elites who feared what they couldn’t
understand.
o Mass society theory = perspective on Western, industrial society that
attributes an influential but often negative role to media
o an essential argument of mass society theory is that media subvert and
disrupt the existing social order. Early mass society notions greatly
exaggerated the ability of media to quickly undermine social order, just
, as media advocates exaggerated their ability to create an ideal social
order.
2. The limited-effects trend in media theory
After more research, it was concluded that media were not nearly as powerful
as had been feared or hoped.
o Rather than serving as a disruptive social force, media more often
seemed to reinforce existing social trends and strengthen rather than
threaten the status quo.
o Limited-effects theory = view of media as having little ability to
directly influence people. The dominant effect of media is to reinforce
existing social trends and strengthen the status quo.
o Throughout the 1950’s, limited-effects notions about media continued
to gain acceptance within academia.
3. The critical cultural trend in media theory
While postpositivist media research flourished in the 1970s and 1980s it came
under increasing criticism from European researchers. They saw this
approach to research as reductionist.
o Reductionism = reducing complex communication processes and
social phenomena to little more than narrow propositions generated
from small-scale investigations.
o Critical cultural theory = an integration of critical theory and cultural
theory first attempted by British cultural studies scholars
- Researchers studied how members of subgroups used media
and assessed how this use might serve group interests (cultural
theory) or might lead people to develop ideas that supported
dominant elites (critical theory).
o Cultural criticism = collection of perspectives concerned with the
cultural disputes and the ways communication perpetuates domination
of one group over another.
4. The meaning-making trend in media theory
Limited-effects notions were altered, partially because of pressures from
critical cultural studies, but also because of the emergence of new
communication technologies that forced a rethinking of traditional
assumptions about how people use (and are used by) media.
o At the heart of the meaning-making trend in theory is a focus on a more
or less active audience that uses media content to create meaningful
experiences.
Introduction to the course
Literature questions:
1.1. What do we mean with the term ‘Marketplace of attention’? Describe what this
marketplace looks like, and compare it to the pre-internet era. What do you
think are some of the consequences of the increased competition for our
attention?
1.2. The book states that as a social media user, ‘your choices of media content
are being dominated and directed’. Consider to what extent you agree with
this statement. Do you believe you have sufficient insight in the way social
media algorithms work to answer this question?
1.3. Describe in your own words what is meant by a ‘scientific method’.
,Literature
Defining and redefining mass communication
Grand theory = theory designed to describe and explain all aspects of a given
phenomenon → then try to explain entire media systems and their role in society
Mass communication = when a source, typically an organization, employs a
technology as a medium to communicate with a large audience.
Think of mediated communication as existing on a continuum that stretches from
interpersonal communication at one end to traditional forms of mass communication
on the other.
• Where different media fall along this continuum depends on the amount of
control and involvement people have in the communication process.
Marketplace of attention = social media are competing against one another and
against legacy media to gain and hold the attention of people.
Science and human behavior
Social scientists = scientists who examine relationships among phenomena in the
human or social world
Society is reluctance to accept the theories of the social scientists because of the
logic of causality.
• Causality = when a given factor influences another, even by way of an
intervening variable
• Causal relationship = when the alterations in a particular variable under
specific conditions always produce the same effect in another variable.
Empirical = capable of being verified or disproved by observation
The implementation of the scientific method is difficult for those studying the social
world for four reasons:
1. Most of the significant and interesting forms of human behavior are quite
difficult to measure.
2. Human behavior is exceedingly complex.
3. Humans have goals and are self-reflexive.
4. The simple notion of causality is sometimes troubling when it is applied to
ourselves.
, o Third-person effect = the idea that ‘media affects others, but not me’
Defining theory
Theory = any organized set of concepts, explanations, and principles of some
aspect of human experience.
Scholars have identified four major categories of communication theory—(1)
postpositivism, (2) cultural theory, (3) critical theory, and (4) normative theory—and
although they ‘share a commitment to an increased understanding of social and
communicative life and a value for high quality scholarship’, they differ in
• Their goals
• Their view of the nature of reality, what is knowable and worth knowing—their
ontology.
• Their view of the methods used to create and expand knowledge—their
epistemology.
• Their view of the proper role of human values in research and theory
building—their axiology.
Mass communication theory → theories have evolved in part as a reaction to
changes in mass media technology and the rise of new mass media organizations
that exploited this technology.
Four trends in media theory
Instead of distinct eras of mass communication theory, we identify trends in
theory development:
1. The mass society and mass culture trend in media theory
These ideas were initially developed in the latter half of the nineteenth
century, at a time when rapid development of large factories in urban areas
was drawing more and more people from rural areas to cities.
o Many theorists were extremely pessimistic.
o Most theorists were educated elites who feared what they couldn’t
understand.
o Mass society theory = perspective on Western, industrial society that
attributes an influential but often negative role to media
o an essential argument of mass society theory is that media subvert and
disrupt the existing social order. Early mass society notions greatly
exaggerated the ability of media to quickly undermine social order, just
, as media advocates exaggerated their ability to create an ideal social
order.
2. The limited-effects trend in media theory
After more research, it was concluded that media were not nearly as powerful
as had been feared or hoped.
o Rather than serving as a disruptive social force, media more often
seemed to reinforce existing social trends and strengthen rather than
threaten the status quo.
o Limited-effects theory = view of media as having little ability to
directly influence people. The dominant effect of media is to reinforce
existing social trends and strengthen the status quo.
o Throughout the 1950’s, limited-effects notions about media continued
to gain acceptance within academia.
3. The critical cultural trend in media theory
While postpositivist media research flourished in the 1970s and 1980s it came
under increasing criticism from European researchers. They saw this
approach to research as reductionist.
o Reductionism = reducing complex communication processes and
social phenomena to little more than narrow propositions generated
from small-scale investigations.
o Critical cultural theory = an integration of critical theory and cultural
theory first attempted by British cultural studies scholars
- Researchers studied how members of subgroups used media
and assessed how this use might serve group interests (cultural
theory) or might lead people to develop ideas that supported
dominant elites (critical theory).
o Cultural criticism = collection of perspectives concerned with the
cultural disputes and the ways communication perpetuates domination
of one group over another.
4. The meaning-making trend in media theory
Limited-effects notions were altered, partially because of pressures from
critical cultural studies, but also because of the emergence of new
communication technologies that forced a rethinking of traditional
assumptions about how people use (and are used by) media.
o At the heart of the meaning-making trend in theory is a focus on a more
or less active audience that uses media content to create meaningful
experiences.
