LO4: Critically discuss theories of the middle range and the
COSC7312 functional analysis approach;
LEARNING UNIT 1 LO5: Critically discuss the mass media function as an
entertainer;
CHAPTER 1: THEME 1
LO6: Critically analyse the systems theory and the
LO1: Through the use of examples, describe “mass communication process;
communication”;
LO7: Discuss the adoption of systems models by mass
LO2: Describe the concept “theory”; communication theorists;
LO3: Critically evaluate four major theories of communication LO8: Explain the reason for functionalism and systems theories’
and how they apply to mass communication; criticism in contemporary thinking about media.
LO4: Critically discuss the reason why social scientists do not CHAPTER 9: THEME 2
receive the same acknowledgement as physical scientists;
LO9: Explain the concept of agenda setting;
LO5: Critically discuss the four trends in media theory.
LO10: Explain the reason for the spiral of silence as a
CHAPTER 2: THEME 2 controversial theory of media and public opinion;
LO6: Critically discuss the mass society theory in terms of the LO11: Discuss the research undertaken in news production;
following:
LO12: Critically discuss the media effects theories on society;
• The context from which it emerged;
• The assumptions of the theory; LO13: Critically evaluate media literacy and cultivation analysis.
• Discuss examples of mass society theory.
LEARNING UNIT 3
LO7: Describe mass society theory in contemporary times;
CHAPTER 6: THEME 1
LO8: Critically discuss propaganda in terms of the following:
LO1: Explain the social cognitive theory;
• The origins of propaganda;
LO2: Explain the relationship between children and violent
• Propaganda in terms of Behaviourism and
behaviour when exposed to violence portrayed in mass media;
Freudianism.
LO3: Discuss the Television Violence theories;
LO9: Evaluate propaganda theories as they apply to mass
communication: LO4: Explain the concept of Catharsis in mass communication
theory;
• Harold Lasswell’s propaganda theory;
• Walter Lippmann’s theory of public opinion forming. LO5: Discuss social cognition in mass communication theory;
LO10: Discuss the reaction against early propaganda theory; LO6: Critically discuss the idea of social learning as an element
in human behaviour;
LO11: Describe modern propaganda theory;
LO7: Critically discuss the developmental perspective to
LO13: Discuss the rebirth of libertarianism
learning;
LEARNING UNIT 2 LO8: Discuss aggressive cues as direct outgrowth of social
CHAPTER 4: THEME 1 cognitive theory;
LO1: Define the concept Media-Effects Trend; LO9: Explain the contextual variables of mediated violence;
LO2: Critically discuss the shift from propaganda to attitude LO10: Explain the active theory of television viewing;
change research and the subsequent theories;
LO11: Discuss the link between video games and violence
LO3: Critically evaluate the media effects trend and the relevant portrayed in the media;
theories;
LO12: Explain the General Aggression Model (GAM);
,LO13: Explain how the media affects the development of children; DEFINING AND REDEFINING MASS COMMUNICATION
LO14: Explain how personal technologies impact on the • Media Theory has emerged as a more or less
development of children. independent body of thought in both the social
sciences and the humanities.
LEARNING UNIT 1
• It consists of often diverse and sometimes
CHAPTER 1: UNDERSTANDING AND EVALUATING contradictory thinking.
MASS COMMUNICATION THEORY • Ideas and theories have been drawn from the
This chapter studies mass communication theories and media humanities and result in a set of ideas that are both
theories created by social scientists and humanists. The challenging and heuristic.
following example assesses Facebook as a target of mass • These theories provide the raw materials for
communication theory: constructing even more useful and powerful
EXAMPLE theoretical perspectives.
• Facebook has been around since 2003 • Some theories are grand – they try to explain entire
• 46% of users are over 45 media systems and their role in society. Others are
• How many friends does a typical FB user have? narrowly focused and provide insight into specific
o What exactly is the definition of a uses of effects of media.
friend?
Grand theory: theory designed to describe and explain all
• Different kinds of people look for different
aspects of a given phenomenon
things online from their friendships
When an organisation employs a technology as a medium to
One Study Another Study
communicate with a large audience, mass communication is
Narcissists and people Users simply carry every
with low self-esteem day characteristics over said to have occurred.
spend more time on FB to their online selves.
For example: the professionals at the New York Times
They are simply passing
time, being entertained (organisation), use printing presses and newspaper
or engaging in casual (technology and medium) to reach their readers (a
com with friends and large audience).
family.
The mass communication environment is changing quite
• But could FB be more important than we radically:
realise?
• When you receive a piece of direct mail advertising
• FB is a private company and it aggressively
where your name is used throughout, you are an
seeks to earn profit by selling information and
audience of one, not the large audience envisioned in
giving advertisers access to its users.
traditional notions of mass communication.
• Scientists working together with others in a
• Individuals are now able to communicate to a large
research community seek to develop a formal,
audience unlike ever before:
systematic set of ideas about FB and its role in
o The availability of lightweight, portable,
the social world.
inexpensive video equipment – quite possibly
• They are helping to develop a mass
your smartphone – combined with the
communication theory.
development of easy-to-use Internet video
sites like YouTube, makes it possible for an
everyday person like you to be a TV writer
, and producer, reaching audiences numbering New media sphere’s future: more relevant, timely, and
in the millions. authoritative means of discovery. Change in relationships of
o All someone needs to do is access the creators and customers and the fundamental economics of
internet and post a comment in order to media.
reach a mass audience
Modern communication revolution coined to name mediated SCIENCE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
communication = communication between a few or many
Not all scientists or the science that they practise are
people that employ technology as a medium.
understood or revered equally.
Mediated communication exists of a continuum that stretches
PHYSCIAL SCIENCES
from interpersonal communication at one end to traditional
• Definition of Scientific Method:
forms of mass communication at the other.
o A set of interrelated constructs (concepts),
definitions, and propositions that present a
systematic view of phenomena by specifying
relations among variables, with the purpose
Interpersonal Com Traditional Mass Media of explaining and predicting phenomena.
• Deal with things like microwaves, www and cell
Video Clip of you on Hollywood Movie (Viewer
phones.
FB limited control, cannot alter
• They are the engineers, the future. They have sent us
the message)
photos of the stars and details of the inner workings of
an atom.
Where different media fall along this continuum depends on the
amount of control and involvement people have in the SOCIAL SCIENCES
communication process. • Consists of the examination of relationships among
phenomena in the human or social world
Media consumers now have the power to alter message content • They are considered the naysayers of the world.
if they are willing to invest the time and have the necessary skill • Ideas:
and resources. Today audiences are choosing to be active. o TV corrupts morals, political campaigns
render us cynical to participate meaningfully
Consequences of their activity may not be understood for in our democracy, and parents rely too
decades to come. heavily on TV to babysit their kids.
• People tend to be more suspicious of their findings
Forms of audience activity have enabled media companies like • What has social science done for us? Is the social
Apple, Google, and FB to become dominant forces in a media world a better place as a result of social science?
world previously dominated by the likes of Disney, News • A survey of the social science of the past century has
Corporation, and Time Warner shown it to be, by large, an insanely pessimistic field.
Future: new ways to create and control media content that is
important to us. There will be profound consequences for our
personal lives, the media industries, and the larger social world.
, Difference = one important difference that we often see • Despite advances in media technology and innovations
between physical and social science is that physical science has in campaign coverage; voter participation remains
allowed us to gain increasing control over the physical world. low.
This control has a very direct and useful consequences for our • Not since 1968 has turnout in a presidential election
daily lives. = technology exceeded 60 percent.
• Barack Obama’s campaign was the most
Compared to the physical sciences, the social
technologically innovative, entrepreneurially driven in
sciences appear a lot less useful.
US political history.
• Still only 56.8% of registered voters cast ballots. –
Should we assume that media campaign coverage
One important basis for our society’s reluctance to accept he suppresses potential voter turnout?
theories of the social scientists is the logic of causality.
The pioneers of mass communication research faced this
Defined as: when a given factor influences another, even by way situation during the 1930s. There were precious few scientific
of an intervening variable. studies of, but many bold assertions about, the bad effects of
the mass media.
Repeated observation under controlled conditions that produce
the same effect every time results in a causal relationship. A small number of social scientists began to argue
that these claims should not be accepted before
Some social researchers have tried to apply
making empirical observations that could either
the scientific method to the study of human
support them or permit them to be rejected.
behaviour and society. Lazarsfeld was an
important advocate of applying social TO NOTE:
research methods to the study of mass
media. • These social scientists believed that the media was
powerful, and the scientific method could be used to
Although the essential logic of the scientific method is quite harness this power to avoid negative effects.
simple, its application in the social world is a lot more o Scientific research would allow media to be a
complicated. force for good in shaping the social world.
• Social scientists would be engineering the
Idea by philosopher Karl Popper in 1934: Long-term construction of social institutions in much the same
prophecies can be derived from scientific conditional way that physical scientists engineer the construction
predictions only if they apply to systems which can be of skyscrapers or Mars Rovers. But that did not
described as well-isolated, stationary, and recurrent. These happen. Why?
systems are very rare in nature; and modern society is not
one of them.
• Social researchers faced many problems in applying
the scientific method to the social world.
o For example, can there be repeated
Take, for example, the issue of press coverage of political observations?
campaigns and its impact on voter turnout. • People can and sometimes do change their behaviour
as a result of the social scientists’ findings, which
• More media attention is given to elections than ever
further confounds claims of causality.
before.
• However there appeared another problem:
• Television permits continual coverage on candidates
o Powerful media effects rarely happen as a
• Social media pushes for more interaction regarding
result of exposure to a few messages in a
elections
short amount of time. Effects take place
slowly.
COSC7312 functional analysis approach;
LEARNING UNIT 1 LO5: Critically discuss the mass media function as an
entertainer;
CHAPTER 1: THEME 1
LO6: Critically analyse the systems theory and the
LO1: Through the use of examples, describe “mass communication process;
communication”;
LO7: Discuss the adoption of systems models by mass
LO2: Describe the concept “theory”; communication theorists;
LO3: Critically evaluate four major theories of communication LO8: Explain the reason for functionalism and systems theories’
and how they apply to mass communication; criticism in contemporary thinking about media.
LO4: Critically discuss the reason why social scientists do not CHAPTER 9: THEME 2
receive the same acknowledgement as physical scientists;
LO9: Explain the concept of agenda setting;
LO5: Critically discuss the four trends in media theory.
LO10: Explain the reason for the spiral of silence as a
CHAPTER 2: THEME 2 controversial theory of media and public opinion;
LO6: Critically discuss the mass society theory in terms of the LO11: Discuss the research undertaken in news production;
following:
LO12: Critically discuss the media effects theories on society;
• The context from which it emerged;
• The assumptions of the theory; LO13: Critically evaluate media literacy and cultivation analysis.
• Discuss examples of mass society theory.
LEARNING UNIT 3
LO7: Describe mass society theory in contemporary times;
CHAPTER 6: THEME 1
LO8: Critically discuss propaganda in terms of the following:
LO1: Explain the social cognitive theory;
• The origins of propaganda;
LO2: Explain the relationship between children and violent
• Propaganda in terms of Behaviourism and
behaviour when exposed to violence portrayed in mass media;
Freudianism.
LO3: Discuss the Television Violence theories;
LO9: Evaluate propaganda theories as they apply to mass
communication: LO4: Explain the concept of Catharsis in mass communication
theory;
• Harold Lasswell’s propaganda theory;
• Walter Lippmann’s theory of public opinion forming. LO5: Discuss social cognition in mass communication theory;
LO10: Discuss the reaction against early propaganda theory; LO6: Critically discuss the idea of social learning as an element
in human behaviour;
LO11: Describe modern propaganda theory;
LO7: Critically discuss the developmental perspective to
LO13: Discuss the rebirth of libertarianism
learning;
LEARNING UNIT 2 LO8: Discuss aggressive cues as direct outgrowth of social
CHAPTER 4: THEME 1 cognitive theory;
LO1: Define the concept Media-Effects Trend; LO9: Explain the contextual variables of mediated violence;
LO2: Critically discuss the shift from propaganda to attitude LO10: Explain the active theory of television viewing;
change research and the subsequent theories;
LO11: Discuss the link between video games and violence
LO3: Critically evaluate the media effects trend and the relevant portrayed in the media;
theories;
LO12: Explain the General Aggression Model (GAM);
,LO13: Explain how the media affects the development of children; DEFINING AND REDEFINING MASS COMMUNICATION
LO14: Explain how personal technologies impact on the • Media Theory has emerged as a more or less
development of children. independent body of thought in both the social
sciences and the humanities.
LEARNING UNIT 1
• It consists of often diverse and sometimes
CHAPTER 1: UNDERSTANDING AND EVALUATING contradictory thinking.
MASS COMMUNICATION THEORY • Ideas and theories have been drawn from the
This chapter studies mass communication theories and media humanities and result in a set of ideas that are both
theories created by social scientists and humanists. The challenging and heuristic.
following example assesses Facebook as a target of mass • These theories provide the raw materials for
communication theory: constructing even more useful and powerful
EXAMPLE theoretical perspectives.
• Facebook has been around since 2003 • Some theories are grand – they try to explain entire
• 46% of users are over 45 media systems and their role in society. Others are
• How many friends does a typical FB user have? narrowly focused and provide insight into specific
o What exactly is the definition of a uses of effects of media.
friend?
Grand theory: theory designed to describe and explain all
• Different kinds of people look for different
aspects of a given phenomenon
things online from their friendships
When an organisation employs a technology as a medium to
One Study Another Study
communicate with a large audience, mass communication is
Narcissists and people Users simply carry every
with low self-esteem day characteristics over said to have occurred.
spend more time on FB to their online selves.
For example: the professionals at the New York Times
They are simply passing
time, being entertained (organisation), use printing presses and newspaper
or engaging in casual (technology and medium) to reach their readers (a
com with friends and large audience).
family.
The mass communication environment is changing quite
• But could FB be more important than we radically:
realise?
• When you receive a piece of direct mail advertising
• FB is a private company and it aggressively
where your name is used throughout, you are an
seeks to earn profit by selling information and
audience of one, not the large audience envisioned in
giving advertisers access to its users.
traditional notions of mass communication.
• Scientists working together with others in a
• Individuals are now able to communicate to a large
research community seek to develop a formal,
audience unlike ever before:
systematic set of ideas about FB and its role in
o The availability of lightweight, portable,
the social world.
inexpensive video equipment – quite possibly
• They are helping to develop a mass
your smartphone – combined with the
communication theory.
development of easy-to-use Internet video
sites like YouTube, makes it possible for an
everyday person like you to be a TV writer
, and producer, reaching audiences numbering New media sphere’s future: more relevant, timely, and
in the millions. authoritative means of discovery. Change in relationships of
o All someone needs to do is access the creators and customers and the fundamental economics of
internet and post a comment in order to media.
reach a mass audience
Modern communication revolution coined to name mediated SCIENCE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
communication = communication between a few or many
Not all scientists or the science that they practise are
people that employ technology as a medium.
understood or revered equally.
Mediated communication exists of a continuum that stretches
PHYSCIAL SCIENCES
from interpersonal communication at one end to traditional
• Definition of Scientific Method:
forms of mass communication at the other.
o A set of interrelated constructs (concepts),
definitions, and propositions that present a
systematic view of phenomena by specifying
relations among variables, with the purpose
Interpersonal Com Traditional Mass Media of explaining and predicting phenomena.
• Deal with things like microwaves, www and cell
Video Clip of you on Hollywood Movie (Viewer
phones.
FB limited control, cannot alter
• They are the engineers, the future. They have sent us
the message)
photos of the stars and details of the inner workings of
an atom.
Where different media fall along this continuum depends on the
amount of control and involvement people have in the SOCIAL SCIENCES
communication process. • Consists of the examination of relationships among
phenomena in the human or social world
Media consumers now have the power to alter message content • They are considered the naysayers of the world.
if they are willing to invest the time and have the necessary skill • Ideas:
and resources. Today audiences are choosing to be active. o TV corrupts morals, political campaigns
render us cynical to participate meaningfully
Consequences of their activity may not be understood for in our democracy, and parents rely too
decades to come. heavily on TV to babysit their kids.
• People tend to be more suspicious of their findings
Forms of audience activity have enabled media companies like • What has social science done for us? Is the social
Apple, Google, and FB to become dominant forces in a media world a better place as a result of social science?
world previously dominated by the likes of Disney, News • A survey of the social science of the past century has
Corporation, and Time Warner shown it to be, by large, an insanely pessimistic field.
Future: new ways to create and control media content that is
important to us. There will be profound consequences for our
personal lives, the media industries, and the larger social world.
, Difference = one important difference that we often see • Despite advances in media technology and innovations
between physical and social science is that physical science has in campaign coverage; voter participation remains
allowed us to gain increasing control over the physical world. low.
This control has a very direct and useful consequences for our • Not since 1968 has turnout in a presidential election
daily lives. = technology exceeded 60 percent.
• Barack Obama’s campaign was the most
Compared to the physical sciences, the social
technologically innovative, entrepreneurially driven in
sciences appear a lot less useful.
US political history.
• Still only 56.8% of registered voters cast ballots. –
Should we assume that media campaign coverage
One important basis for our society’s reluctance to accept he suppresses potential voter turnout?
theories of the social scientists is the logic of causality.
The pioneers of mass communication research faced this
Defined as: when a given factor influences another, even by way situation during the 1930s. There were precious few scientific
of an intervening variable. studies of, but many bold assertions about, the bad effects of
the mass media.
Repeated observation under controlled conditions that produce
the same effect every time results in a causal relationship. A small number of social scientists began to argue
that these claims should not be accepted before
Some social researchers have tried to apply
making empirical observations that could either
the scientific method to the study of human
support them or permit them to be rejected.
behaviour and society. Lazarsfeld was an
important advocate of applying social TO NOTE:
research methods to the study of mass
media. • These social scientists believed that the media was
powerful, and the scientific method could be used to
Although the essential logic of the scientific method is quite harness this power to avoid negative effects.
simple, its application in the social world is a lot more o Scientific research would allow media to be a
complicated. force for good in shaping the social world.
• Social scientists would be engineering the
Idea by philosopher Karl Popper in 1934: Long-term construction of social institutions in much the same
prophecies can be derived from scientific conditional way that physical scientists engineer the construction
predictions only if they apply to systems which can be of skyscrapers or Mars Rovers. But that did not
described as well-isolated, stationary, and recurrent. These happen. Why?
systems are very rare in nature; and modern society is not
one of them.
• Social researchers faced many problems in applying
the scientific method to the social world.
o For example, can there be repeated
Take, for example, the issue of press coverage of political observations?
campaigns and its impact on voter turnout. • People can and sometimes do change their behaviour
as a result of the social scientists’ findings, which
• More media attention is given to elections than ever
further confounds claims of causality.
before.
• However there appeared another problem:
• Television permits continual coverage on candidates
o Powerful media effects rarely happen as a
• Social media pushes for more interaction regarding
result of exposure to a few messages in a
elections
short amount of time. Effects take place
slowly.
