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Media and Society

Media and Society. Dr Ann Hardy, Waikato University Epsom Girls’ Grammar August 24, 2006. Relationships. A commonsense understanding that there is a relationship between media products and social beliefs and behaviour

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Media and Society

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  1. Media and Society Dr Ann Hardy, Waikato University Epsom Girls’ Grammar August 24, 2006

  2. Relationships • A commonsense understanding that there is a relationship between media products and social beliefs and behaviour • Both talk and mechanisms - i.e. forms of censorship/limits on access - indicate this belief • Belief may be mistaken - Nick Couldry - that we use media as focus for ritual behaviour, to try and affect power processes, but that power lies elsewhere.

  3. ‘Media Ritual’ Any action[s] organized around key media-related categories and boundaries, whose performance reinforces, indeed helps legitimate, the underlying 'value' expressed in the idea that the media is our access point to our social centre. (2003: 2) • Through media we are, or imagine ourselves to be, connected as members of a society. However Couldry judges our sense of participation to be illusory: that what this media simulation of a centre conceals 'is the management of conflict and the masking of social inequality' whereas what is at stake is the 'large-scale centralization of power and social organization' (p. 7) elsewhere than in the world constructed for us by the media.

  4. Nevertheless • Even if our sense of control is illusory we act as if the media matter and we study them as if they do • Media scholars don’t believe in strong causal effects, but still study what relationships between media and society may be: • How?

  5. Respected models of media meaning-making processes • 1) Hall, S. (1980) Encoding and Decoding model - encoding, text, decoding - complexity at all stages • 2) Corner, J. (1995) Centripetal and centrifugal processes - means by which media deal with/influence meanings in society

  6. New Zealand examples • Coral-Ellen Burrows murder investigation, 2003 • Evangelical Church protests (‘Enough is Enough’) 2004 - • The Kingitanga and coverage of Dame Te Ata’s tangi/funeral

  7. Subjects of study • If you had resources you could study: • Makers/encoders of meaning e.g. journalists, editors, govt. officials, police • Receivers/decoders of meaning e.g. different types of audiences • But as school pupils - media products/texts - are best, ease of access, fewer ethical issues

  8. Method • Gather a body of data (print, moving image, photographs) • Takes time, perception, patience • Observe patterns: similarities, differences, inclusions, repetitions, omissions • Main types of analysis • Genre - characteristics of type • Discourse - knowledge shaped by societal interest (power) - Also ‘thematic’ analysis

  9. Remember • Analyst (you) as knowledgeable, involved and shaping the outcome. • How does my own situation and knowledge shape the way I interpret this material? • Research widely to counter your own biases. Try and figure out what various producers of meaning are trying to achieve and wny

  10. Coral-Ellen Burrows • Collected: articles from the Herald • News/current affairs items from TV1 • Articles from Wairarapa Times-Age • Items from Police website • Material Commissioner for Children • Scholarly and magazine articles on: missing children, child abuse • Interviews with journalists (Herald, TV1)

  11. Directions of analysis: 1 • An example of ‘blitz’ coverage related to crime: characteristics • Developments in discourses with which coverage ‘framed’ • Competing interests in relation to coverage: family, perpetrator, police, media, local community, national community • Relationship to ongoing national discussions about child abuse and crime • (all examples of ‘ritual’ behaviour on our part?)

  12. Directions of analysis: 2 • The stories we tell/remind ourselves about what is good and bad: child-harm, parenting, class-based ways of living • Methods we use to think/talk of ourselves as ‘community’, ‘family’ • Ethical implications of extensive media coverage of child-harm (Commissioner for Children) • Ethical implications of police/media/public interaction

  13. Relationships • Media study cannot readily tell us what particular people do with their media experience • But it can give indications of broader trends • What we watch/pay for/are interested in • What we worry about collectively and try to control and fix - search for solutions (e.g. environment, ‘obesity epidemic’, organising a bi/multicultural society)

  14. Relationships • How and to what extent we manage competing interests in society. Who has power and who doesn’t at various times. Depending on one’s moral/political philosophies this is also an ethical concern • May not ultimately be deep source of control but still significant site of democratic activity

  15. Examples of media and societal change? • Genres? • Topics? • Discourses? • Those actively interested: Encoders/producers Decoders/audiences • Social contexts and conditions?

  16. References • Corner, John (1995) Television and Public Address. London: Edward Arnold • Couldry, Nick (2003) Media Rituals. London: Routledge • Hall, Stuart (1980) ‘Encoding/Decoding model’ in Gillespie, Maria ed. 2005 Media Audiences. Open University Press

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