Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture: Updated Media Enhanced 3rd Edition, 3/e Show
PrefaceON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, MILLIONS OF AMERICANS—IN FACT, millions of people around the globe—went to bed in shock. The world had changed. The United States no longer seemed invincible. Americans no longer felt safe at home. As everyone, from politicians to pundits to the people next door, said, “Nothing would ever be the same again.” Much, in fact, is the same; but not our view of the mass media. The questions we were asking about media in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the questions we are raising now are shaped in large part by what happened on that horrific day. At first we were impressed, even moved, by the performance of our mass media. The coverage of the attack and rescue effort in all media was thorough, knowledgeable, courageous, even-handed, and sensitive. But then we started asking, Why were we caught so badly by surprise? Why didn’t we know about the anti-American feelings in much of the world? Where were the media? Then, with the war on terrorism, new questions arose: How many restrictions on media freedom should we accept in time of war? Should we air, unedited, the videotaped ranting of Osama bin Laden? How much should we trust reports from the Arabic television network Al Jazeera? Are reporters Americans first and journalists second, or are they journalists first and Americans second? How much or how little should the press question government policy and our elected leaders? But it did not take a cowardly terrorist attack on civilians to start people thinking and talking about the media. September 11 chased from the cultural forum the relentless criticism of the media’s performance in the 2000 presidential elections. Dan Rather said that media professionals did not have egg on their faces after that shameful failure of our democracy; they wore the entire omelet. People questioned the media’s priorities—missing interns garnered more coverage than world events. Others were complaining that movies were starting to look like extra-long commercials, while television commercials were getting increasingly briefer and all media, even novels, were seemingly drowning in more and more advertising. Critics across the political spectrum were concerned that media companies were merging at an unhealthy-for-democracy rate. Concern about media violence and sexual content remained unabated. Furor followed a television network’s proposal to air hard liquor ads. People who had lost their life savings wanted to know what the media were doing while Enron and WorldCom were stealing from them. To First Amendment advocates, new copyright rules designed to thwart digital piracy were undoing two centuries of fair use copyright protection, with consumers and democracy poorer for it. The media, like sports and politics, are what we talk about. Argue over. Dissect and analyze. Those of us who teach media know that these conversations are essential to the functioning of a democratic society. We also know that what moves these conversations from the realm of chatting and griping to that of effective public discourse is media education—the systematic study of media and their operation in our political and economic system, as well as their contribution to the development and maintenance of the culture that binds us together and defines us. We now call this media education media literacy. Regardless of what an individual course is called—Introduction to Mass Communication, Introduction to Mass Media, Media and Society, Media and Culture—media literacy has been a part of university media education for more than four decades. The course has long been designed to fulfill the following goals:
These are all aspects of media literacy as it is now understood. This text makes explicit what has been implicit for so long: that media literacy skills can and should be taught directly and that, as we travel through the 21st century, media literacy is an essential survival skill for everyone in our society. Perspective This cultural orientation toward mass communication and the media places much responsibility on media consumers. In the past, people were considered either victims of media influence or impervious to it. The cultural orientation asserts that audience members are as much a part of the mass communication process as are the media technologies and industries. As important agents in the creation and maintenance of their own culture, audience members have an obligation not only to participate in the process of mass communication but also to participate actively, appropriately, and effectively. In other words, they must bring media literacy—the ability to effectively and efficiently comprehend and use mass media—to the mass communication process. Features of This Text
Cultural Forum These boxes highlight media-related cultural issues that are currently debated in the mass media. Titles include, for example, Advertorials Aimed at Young Girls; Concentration, Conglomeration, and 9/11; and Does DVR Make You a Thief? Media Echoes These boxes demonstrate that the cultural and social debates surrounding the different media tend to be repeated throughout history, regardless of the technology or era in question. For example, the public relations chapter discusses early PR efforts to encourage women to smoke, and the advertising chapter covers advertisers’ more recent attempts to attract teenage smokers. Key Changes to the Third Edition Although the book maintains its commitment to critical thinking throughout its pages, several important changes were made to enhance and update this, the third edition.
Learning Aids
Margin icons throughout the text direct students to the CD-ROM Media Tours and NBC video clips encouraging them to further develop their thoughts about the chapter concepts.
Organization New and Updated Supplements
Acknowledgments S.J.B. What is one thing the mass communication model specifies that the interpersonal communication model does not?-The mass communication model specifies feedback, whereas in interpersonal communication there is clearly defined instance of feedback.
Which aspect of mass communication distinguishes it from interpersonal communication?Interpersonal communication can be verbal or nonverbal. Most often, it happens in face-to-face settings. It differs from mass communication, which involves sharing meaning through symbolic messages to a wide audience from one source to many receivers.
Which of the following takes place in the simplest form of communication quizlet?Which of the following takes place in the simplest form of communication? A message is transmitted from a source to a receiver.
Which term has been defined as the learned socially acquired?Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning.
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