Chapter 1: Culture and Evolution of Mass Communication

Chapter 1: Culture and Evolution of Mass Communication

-Often Associated with Art (Gives pleasure & Set standards about what is good, true and beautiful)

Culture Way people live Particular historical time representation (fashion, sports, literature, architecture, education, religion, science, mass media) A society's mode of communication(the creation and use of symbol systems that convey information and meaning) Made up of both the products a society fashions +  process that forge the products /reflect culture's diverse value. Definition: Symbol of expression use to make sense of daily life & to article their values.( delivers the values of a society through products or other meaning-making forms)

Mass Media The Cultural Industries The channels of communication Produce and distribute songs, tvshows, newspaper etc Convergence( the act of tracing old forms of media + how new media influence old)

Eras of communication1) Tribal Communities/ Feudal Communities2) Agricultural EconomiesDevelopment of Mass Communication(the process of designing cultural messages and deliver to large diverse of audience through media channels.)3) Rural Population4) Urban Settings5) Consumer Culture

Early SocietiesOral traditions ( poets, teachers, tribal story tellers)

Roughly 1000 BC to mid-15th centuryAlphabets and written words emergedManuscript, or written, culture began to develop and eventually overshadowed oral communication.

Tensions between oral and written Socrates made argument through public conversations / debates. Dialogue style of communication / inquiry is still being used ( Socratic Method) Philosophers fear that written word would threaten public discussion( fewer opportunities of give-and-take conversation) Plato ( Socrates's student ) sought to banish poem(Thinks that it is purveyors of ideas less rigorous than those generated in oral, face-to-face, question-and-answer discussions.)

Johannes Gutenberg Invented movable metallic type and printing press Printing presses and publications then spread rapidly across Europe in the late 1400s and early 1500s. Books were large , expensive, elaborate early on.Then reduced size and cost.

Printing Press Machine duplication replaces hand-copied text. Duplication can occur rapidly(More quantities of books reproduced) Faster produced books = Less cost = More affordable to less affluent people. Spread information Wider & Faster has led to:                   -Writers disseminate views counter to traditional civic doctrine and religious authority                   -People started to resist traditional clerical authority and also to think of themselves not merely as members of families, isolated communities, or tribes                   -But think as part of a country whose interests were broader than local or regional concerns.  

Mass Quantity Production Led to the Industrial Revolution, modern capitalism, and the consumer culture in the twentieth century. Rise of the middle class and an elite business class of owners and managers who acquired the kind of influence formerly held only by the nobility or the clergy. Became key tools that commercial and political leaders used to distribute information and maintain social order.

Result of modern printing era helped democratize knowledge, and literacy rates rose among the working and middle classes. promoting literacy and extending learning beyond the world of wealthy upper-class citizens. nourished the ideal of individualism.(People rely less on their local community and their commercial, religious, and political leaders for guidance.) fostered the modern idea of individuality(disrupting the medieval sense of community and integration./ Challenging the tribe) individuals became cut off from the traditions of rural and small-town life, which had encouraged community cooperation in premodern times. individualism affirmed the rise of commerce and increased resistance to government interference in the affairs of self-reliant entrepreneurs. democratic impulse of individualism became a fundamental value in American society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Factories replaced farms as the main centers of work and production.

The Electronic Era Development of the telegraph in the 1840s(dot-dash electronic signals, four key contributions to communicate.)                 -i.) separated communication from transportation, making media messages instantaneous                 -ii.) unencumbered by stagecoaches, ships, or the pony express.                 -iii.) in combination with mass-marketed newspapers, transformed “information into a commodity, a ‘thing’ that could be bought or sold irrespective of its uses or meaning.                 -iv.) easier to coordinate commercial and military operations, after the installation of the transatlantic cable in the late 1860s.                  -v.) led to future technological developments, such as wireless telegraphy,fax machine, cell phone, resulted in the telegraph’s demise Boomed in the 1950s and 1960s with the arrival of television and its dramatic impact on daily life.(followed by personal computers, cable TV, DVDs, DVRs, direct broadcast satellites, cell phones, smartphones, PDAs, and e-mail)

The Digital Era images, texts, and sounds are converted into electronic signals  that are then reassembled as a precise reproduction. traditional leaders in communication have lost some of their control over information.(IE 1992 presidential campaign, the network news shows began to lose their audiences to MTV, CNN, Fox News, radio talk shows.) Bloggers became key element in news (2004 National Election) E-mail outpaced control communications beyond national borders. repressive and totalitarian regimes have had trouble controlling messages sent out in the Internet. Social media (facebook) - more media choices + more flexible schedule + sharing

Media Convergence describing all the changes currently occurring in media content and within media companies. has 2 meanings (technology & business) Definition: The technological merging of content across different media channels 2nd Definition : Cross platform by media marketers                       (a business model that involves consolidating various media holdings)

Early Media convergence -in the late 1920s,  Radio Corporation of America purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company and introduced machines that could play both radio and recorded music. This helped radio to survive emergence of TV.

-Mass media constitute a wide variety of industries and merchandise

Introduction

Oral and written Eras + Print Revolution

Electronic/Digital Era

Mass Media & Communication