1. What is media? Wk 1: Introduction to Mass Communications Regent’s College, London Dr Zoetanya Sujon Email: sujonz@regents.ac.uk Office hours: Wednesdays 12:00 – 13:00, DB12

2. Overview Welcome and introductions Housekeeping: Guidelines Rules and regulations Course overview What is the media? Why study the media? Homework

3. Hello! Introductions Dr Zoetanya Sujon sujonz@regents.ac.uk Office hours: Wednesdays 12:00 – 13:00, DB12 or by appointment For more info: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/whosWho/AcademicStaff/ZoeSujon.aspx You? Where are you from? How long have you been in London? Programme? Interest in media?

4. General rules and guidelines: housekeeping Based on mutual respect and are a safe space for exchanging ideas, examining concepts and key issues Respect means: One person talking at a time No mobile phones during class Bathroom breaks before or after class Important to contribute and to listen! Come prepared Thinking and reading Libraries (Tate, British Library, Senate house)

5. Required and recommended reading

6. General rules and regulations Course work deadlines are firm Late penalties apply Coursework must be written in an academic format and style If you fail to turn in an assignment, you will get 0 You must be in class on time You will be marked absent if you are late Refer to Regent’s College guidelines Participation is formal and informal In class (discussions, questions, small group work) Field trips Online (Blackboard)

7. Your responsibilities

9. Lecture 8: Audiences

10. Lecture 9: Media effects

12. Lecture 12: Participatory Culture

13. Lecture 13: Future of Mass Communications?

14. Lecture 14: Critical PerspectivesBlock 1: Core concepts Lecture 1: What is media and why study it? Lecture 2: Research traditions and critical concepts Block 2: Media systems and history Lecture 3: Media structures: Culture industries and media systems Lecture 4: Print cultures and public interest Lecture 5: Digital media from television to the internet Lecture 6: Convergence

15. Learning goals Assess key features of media systems and various forms of mass communication Understand basic concepts and theories relevant to mass media and communications Identify the major figures in the mass media as well as in communication studies and research Apply theoretical concepts to case studies and everyday life Engage critical thinking skills and an analytic view of the media

17. Why study the media? ‘Experience’, ‘mediation’, and ‘technology’ Therefore, in so far as the media are … central to this process of making distinctions and judgements; in so far as they do, precisely, mediate the dialectic between the classification that shapes experience and the experience which colours classification, then we must enquire into the consequences of such mediation. We must study the media (Silverstone 1999: 12).

19. What is media? Wk1.2: Introduction to Mass Communications Regent’s College, London Dr Zoetanya Sujon Email: sujonz@regents.ac.uk Office hours: Wednesdays 12:00 – 13:00, DB12

20. Overview This week’s reading: McQuail, chapter 1 Assignment 1: Media diary Case study Core themes Mass communications Theory and media Why study the media Homework Next week: research traditions Required reading: McQuail, chapter 3

21. Assignment 1: Media diary Due: Monday February 7th Word length: 500 words Worth: 10% of final grade Focus on your relationship with ONE kind of media. For example, you might focus on content like a TV programme or a film; or choose to focus on a media technology like your mobile phone or computer. Discuss your daily routine with this kind of media and what this means for you. You must use two academic sources and make at least two citations in your assignment.

22. Early mass media Instrumental definitions = “the organized means of communicating openly, at a distance, and to many” (McQuail 2010: 4) E.g. newspapers, magazines, cinema, radio, television Defined in early 20th century Capacity to reach entire population Large-scale, one-way flow of content Communication networks that connect many receivers

23. Defining Mass Communication Mass = common “aggregate in which individuality is lost” Mass communication = mass behaviour Transmission of information to mass audiences Theoretically possible but rarely found in a pure form Key characteristics: Large scale One-directional flow Asymmetrical Impersonal Standardized content (McQuail 2010: 56)

24. Case study Barack Obama’s popular 2008 campaign poster Designed by street artist, Shepard Fairey

26. Key questions Who is connected to whom and for what purpose? What is the pattern and direction of flow? How does communication take place? (e.g. channels, languages, codes) What types of content are observed? What are the outcomes of communication, intended or unintended?

27. Kinds of theory Social Science Cultural theory Normative Operational Common-sense

28. Theory Involves developing and using a conceptual tool kit “…most basically a theory is a general proposition… that seeks either to explain or predict the relation” between “observed phenomenon” (McQuail 2010: 5) About what media “ought to be doing” (ibid) Organizing questions, thinking, understanding, and interpretation of complex phenomenon

29. Multi-disciplinary Cross cutting and intersectional issues and/or concerns: Cultural (e.g. globalization, content, flow, cultural life, expression, values, identity) Social (e.g. mediation of social experience, links to deviance, social dis/order, inequality, hegemony, power, dominance) Political (e.g. government, state, national, elections, campaigns, citizens, democracy, war, terrorism, foreign policy, influence, power, resistance) Economic (e.g. degree of concentration, commercialization, dependency, wealth, power, inequality, elite) Psychological (e.g. behaviors, perception, uses and gratifications, values, ideals) (McQuail 2010: 9-10)

31. Interpersonal (e.g. dyad, couple

32. Intrapersonal (e.g. individual and processing info)“Network society” (Castells 1996) Hybrids and blurring between levels Many cases

33. From “mass” to “multi”? “…we have long moved from mass television (and its audiences) to a fragmented, multi-platform, multi-genre, multi-everything media environment where users are becoming produsers, as Axel Bruns puts it!” (Das 2009: 2) Mass communications = “all types and processes of communication that are extensive, public and technically mediated” (McQuail 2010: 5)

34. Why study the media? Mediation Imagined communities (Anderson) Framing and agenda-setting (McCombs and Shaw; Graber; Gamson) Public = sphere, opinion, connection (Habermas, Couldry et al) Deep changes Structure: time-space distanciation (Giddens) E.g. print/merchant-capitalism, bourgeoisie Self: Extensions of self (McLuhan) Power

35. Conclusion Mass communication is large scale forms of communication Shifting and networked Lateral connections between individuals and societies Study of communications is multi-disciplinary Theory = important conceptual toolkit

36. Homework I: Media deprivation Spend one day without media (television, radio, music, film, novels, newspapers, electronic games, instant messaging/texting for fun). Notice how you feel, and any changes in how you spend the day. Reflect on your experience in 100 words or less. Any interesting or surprising observations? E. Bird (2003) The audience in everyday life: Living in a media world. Routledge.

37. Homework II: Media profiles Keep track of your daily media use: What do you watch / read / surf / listen to When do you use media Make note of your surroundings and reflect upon the role of media in your daily life. Keep point form notes