• Legacy media: Older forms of mass media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, movies, and most importantly
television.
Operated by large, complex organizations directly responsible for producing and distributing content using
media technology.
• Large-scale media: Newest forms of mass media, dependent on Internet technology for distribution of messages
Allow users to routinely access, create, and share messages.
Provide access to attractive content from many sources
Serve a variety of needs for users
Highly dependent on advertising
Largely unregulated
Privacy and surveillance
• Mass communication: Large organizations, whether legacy media or social media, use media technology to attract
large numbers of people and train or condition them to routinely and frequently use their messages.
Induce automaticity -- become more easily persuaded by media
• Automaticity: A state of mind in which audience members automatically take in and respond to message content
without critical reflection
•Marketplace of attention: A marketplace where social media are competing against each other and against legacy
media to gain and hold the attention of people
•Scientific method: A method to acquire knowledge by empirical testing.
Usually by four steps: identifying a problem, gathering data in hope of resolving the problem, offering a
hypothesis, and testing that hypothesis.
•Social science: apply observations and logic to the social world rather than the physical world
• Explain differences in the operation of the natural and social sciences.
Social science: suggests causal relationships between thing in the social world
Natural science— easily visible and measurable
i. Most of the significant and interesting forms of human behavior are quite difficult to measure.
ii. Human behavior is exceedingly complex.
iii. Humans have goals and are self-reflexive.
iv. The simple notion of causality is sometimes troubling when it is applied to ourselves
•Causality: a given factor influences another
• Describe the relationship between the scientific method and causality.
A scientific method is regarded as the best way to find and test a causal relationship.
• Theory: Any organized set of concepts, explanations, and principles of some aspect of human experience
Three metaphors: net, lens, map
• Media Theory: …understand the effects that media have on individuals and the role mass communication plays in
their lives and in the world around them.
• Four major categories of communication theories:
(1)postpositivism (2) cultural theory (3) critical theory (4) normative theory
• Four trends in media theory
i. Mass Society and Mass Culture Trend
Time: the late 1800s
Background: industrialization, urban expansion, the rise of print media, propaganda during WWI
Powerful media that reach everyone, bring strong and bad effects
, Defenseless, passive audience
Limitation: Greatly exaggerated the ability of media (both positive and negative)
Failed to consider that the media’s power ultimately resides in the freely chosen uses that the
audience make of it.
ii. Media-effects Trend
Time: late 1930s- 1960s, the propaganda of media is systematically tested in WWII
Paul Lazarsfeld: empirically testing
Media were not nearly as powerful as had been feared or hoped and people have numerous ways to avoid
the influences of media
Limited-effects theory: Media effects are limited in terms of the number of people influenced, the type of
influence, and the duration of the influence.
Cannot address the role of media in social movements
Cannot address the possible consequences of exposure to media content
iii. Critical Cultural Trend
Background: after WWII
Rely on better methods of analysis – long term effects
Focus on audience reception studies (opposite with postpositivist)
iv. Meaning-making Trend
New trend in media theory & More advanced method
Use media to make meaningful experiences
•Communication: The relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response
• Pros&cons of new media technologies
More accessibility to information overall and to different opinions
Weaken mainstream media’s authority to define the sphere of legitimate debate
‘Enrich of democracy’
Sharing and connecting with people
Personalized and targeted information
Faster spread of information
Spread of misinformation, hate speech, fake news (no. check on accuracy of info)
Privacy and surveillance
• Communication model: Sender(production, distribution), message(content),receiver(use, interpretation, effects)
• Filter Bubbles: The idea that online personalization tools and computer algorithms render people more partisan
and less open to different or opposing points of view by exposing them to only the news and information with which
they already agree or enjoy
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?
The term ‘Marketplace of attention’ refers to the situation that the social media compete with each other in the
market to attract users’ attention. They then sell the users’ attention to advertisers to produce more targeted
advertisements to make revenue.
The biggest difference between media under marketplace of attention and the pre-internet era is that there are
more targeted contents shown which leads to more targeted advertisements, so that the media and advertisers
can make more profits through that.
television.
Operated by large, complex organizations directly responsible for producing and distributing content using
media technology.
• Large-scale media: Newest forms of mass media, dependent on Internet technology for distribution of messages
Allow users to routinely access, create, and share messages.
Provide access to attractive content from many sources
Serve a variety of needs for users
Highly dependent on advertising
Largely unregulated
Privacy and surveillance
• Mass communication: Large organizations, whether legacy media or social media, use media technology to attract
large numbers of people and train or condition them to routinely and frequently use their messages.
Induce automaticity -- become more easily persuaded by media
• Automaticity: A state of mind in which audience members automatically take in and respond to message content
without critical reflection
•Marketplace of attention: A marketplace where social media are competing against each other and against legacy
media to gain and hold the attention of people
•Scientific method: A method to acquire knowledge by empirical testing.
Usually by four steps: identifying a problem, gathering data in hope of resolving the problem, offering a
hypothesis, and testing that hypothesis.
•Social science: apply observations and logic to the social world rather than the physical world
• Explain differences in the operation of the natural and social sciences.
Social science: suggests causal relationships between thing in the social world
Natural science— easily visible and measurable
i. Most of the significant and interesting forms of human behavior are quite difficult to measure.
ii. Human behavior is exceedingly complex.
iii. Humans have goals and are self-reflexive.
iv. The simple notion of causality is sometimes troubling when it is applied to ourselves
•Causality: a given factor influences another
• Describe the relationship between the scientific method and causality.
A scientific method is regarded as the best way to find and test a causal relationship.
• Theory: Any organized set of concepts, explanations, and principles of some aspect of human experience
Three metaphors: net, lens, map
• Media Theory: …understand the effects that media have on individuals and the role mass communication plays in
their lives and in the world around them.
• Four major categories of communication theories:
(1)postpositivism (2) cultural theory (3) critical theory (4) normative theory
• Four trends in media theory
i. Mass Society and Mass Culture Trend
Time: the late 1800s
Background: industrialization, urban expansion, the rise of print media, propaganda during WWI
Powerful media that reach everyone, bring strong and bad effects
, Defenseless, passive audience
Limitation: Greatly exaggerated the ability of media (both positive and negative)
Failed to consider that the media’s power ultimately resides in the freely chosen uses that the
audience make of it.
ii. Media-effects Trend
Time: late 1930s- 1960s, the propaganda of media is systematically tested in WWII
Paul Lazarsfeld: empirically testing
Media were not nearly as powerful as had been feared or hoped and people have numerous ways to avoid
the influences of media
Limited-effects theory: Media effects are limited in terms of the number of people influenced, the type of
influence, and the duration of the influence.
Cannot address the role of media in social movements
Cannot address the possible consequences of exposure to media content
iii. Critical Cultural Trend
Background: after WWII
Rely on better methods of analysis – long term effects
Focus on audience reception studies (opposite with postpositivist)
iv. Meaning-making Trend
New trend in media theory & More advanced method
Use media to make meaningful experiences
•Communication: The relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response
• Pros&cons of new media technologies
More accessibility to information overall and to different opinions
Weaken mainstream media’s authority to define the sphere of legitimate debate
‘Enrich of democracy’
Sharing and connecting with people
Personalized and targeted information
Faster spread of information
Spread of misinformation, hate speech, fake news (no. check on accuracy of info)
Privacy and surveillance
• Communication model: Sender(production, distribution), message(content),receiver(use, interpretation, effects)
• Filter Bubbles: The idea that online personalization tools and computer algorithms render people more partisan
and less open to different or opposing points of view by exposing them to only the news and information with which
they already agree or enjoy
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?
The term ‘Marketplace of attention’ refers to the situation that the social media compete with each other in the
market to attract users’ attention. They then sell the users’ attention to advertisers to produce more targeted
advertisements to make revenue.
The biggest difference between media under marketplace of attention and the pre-internet era is that there are
more targeted contents shown which leads to more targeted advertisements, so that the media and advertisers
can make more profits through that.
