Sociology Unit 2 Mass Media

Mass media - The methods and organisations used to communicate to large audiences.

New media

• Sky- More specialists outputs communicating with smaller groups of people
• Facebook, Twitter

Is social media a risk?

In serious events such as the London riots it is said that social media such as the balckberrys (BBM) Made it easier for the rioters to contact others. BBM makes it hard to trace who is sending the messages so is a huge risk in causing more trouble.

Digital Divide - Not everyone having all the new media technology such as the elderly and the poor.

Mass media - The methods and organisations used to communicate to large audiences.

New media

• Sky- More specialists outputs communicating with smaller groups of people
• Facebook, Twitter

Is social media a risk?

In serious events such as the London riots it is said that social media such as the balckberrys (BBM) Made it easier for the rioters to contact others. BBM makes it hard to trace who is sending the messages so is a huge risk in causing more trouble.

Digital Divide - Not everyone having all the new media technology such as the elderly and the poor.

Internal influences:

• Ownership - Controling output through the hiring and firing of staff.
• Editor/producer - Over all controll on a day to day basis 
• News values - What is considered news worthy by the journalists. (Good news is bad news)
• Agenda setting - where the media set topics people will discuss and think about
• Profit motive - Commercial companies have to make a profit to survive. 

External influences:

• Audience demand - If the media doesnt meet their needs they will not buy the paper, so they experience loss of revenue
• State and legal constraints - The media are subject to liabel, which prevents making false claims that damage a persons reputation. 
• Advertisers - Can withdraw business if they feel the image of their product is being damaged. 

Marxists (conflict theorists) 

• The media owners have the most important inflluence.
• They are the ruling class ( the rich and powerful in society)
• That there is an increasing concentration of ownership of the media.
• The rich capitalists dominate the media and set the agenda.

Pluralists

• The audience is the most important influence on the media.
• They class society as democratic (no single group has dominance)
• Places like social networking sites let people have their own view.

Media are able to represent images of different groups in society by using:

• Manipulated photos
• sensationalist language 
• stereotyping 

Gender and the media

Feminists believe that the media often portray men and women in very traditional roles; which reinforce sexists stereotypes.

Ethnicity and the ,media

In the 1980's groups like the African Caribbeans were either under represented or portrayed in a negative way. However this has stopped happening as society is less tolerable of ethnic stereotypes.

Politics and the media

Papers tend to support a particular party which influences the way they report things. However not all media do this for example the BBC!

Four main theories:

Hypodermic theory - Audiences are passive so are therefore directly effected by the media output.

Selective theory - Individuals interpret the media from  pre existing views and therefore the media simply reinforces these views. This challenges the above theory and supports the idea that mass media is a form of secondary socilisation

Cultural theory - The media has a long term effect on its audience as it changes the norms and values of society over a long period of time. For example : the amount of violence in films has made it socially acceptable. making society more violent. 

Post modernists - View our society as being dominated by the media. Which has led to the rise in mass popular culture

The media often creates a moral panic by distorted reports of something.This often happens in terms of reporting crime, making the crime seem more frequant than it is.

Example: Mods and rockers and their minor crimes were over reported by the media making the public think they were a threat to law and order. This led to police crackdowns. By this happening caused a self fufilling prophecy which made them act out more.