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This review explores key media theorists and concepts including McLuhan's hot and cold media, Innis’s time and space bias, and Williams' critique of medium theory. It highlights the impact of technological determinism and the political-economic forces shaping media. Walter Benjamin's ideas on the loss of aura in mechanical reproduction, the duality of cultural values, and the cultural effects of mass media are examined. Additionally, the effects of media on community ties, public discourse, and cultural classlessness are analyzed through the works of Hoggart and Habermas.
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Review from Monday • McLuhan: hot and cold media • Innis: time and space bias • Common point: dominance of visual
Modernist Theories pt. 2 TODAY • Williams' critique of medium theory • Benjamin • Leavises and Lynds • Riesman and Hoggart • Habermas
Raymond Williams Technological Determinism: the argument that technological development determines social and cultural change • Williams: media are not autonomous but rather caused by political-economic (military/commercial) forces
Walter Benjamin • The loss of aura (of authenticity) thanks to mechanical reproduction of art • Democratization of access to art • Cult value vs exhibition value • Art's radical potential (Brecht's Marxist theatre)
The Leavises • Minority (elite, intellectual) versus Majority (standardized, mass) culture • Commercial mass media 'dumb down' pop culture • “Americanization”
The Lynds • Middletown:study of cultural changes in small town (Muncie, Indiana), 1890-1920 • New media's 'decentralizing tendency' and its double effect: - good: brings in information and expands people's horizons - bad: loosens community ties, separates private from public activity
David Riesman Three Directions: 1. Tradition2. Inner 3. Outer Mass Media Encourage Outer Direction (Consumption to Fit In)
The Uses of Literacy (1957) • Focus on British popular class • Mass media, esp. pop music = cultural classlessness
The Public Sphere • = public spaces where private individuals come together as equals to engage in public political debate, shaping public opinion and the governmental agenda
The Demise of the Public Sphere • Habermas: capitalist/commercial media, advertising and PR killed public sphere • Refeudalization of public sphere as corporations come to control public discourse and opinion (powerful like feudal lords)