Media, Technology, and Society Topic: Theories in Broadcast Media Overview The concept of Media Ideology Media Influence

1. Media, Technology and Society
Theories of Broadcast Media 2

2. OVERVIEW
• The concept of Media
• Ideology
• Media Influence

3. What is Media?
Communication channels through which news,
entertainment, education, data, or promotional
messages are disseminated.

4. Media includes every broadcasting and
narrowcasting medium such as newspapers,
magazines, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail,
telephone, fax and internet.
Media is the plural of medium and can take a
plural or singular verb, depending on the sense
intended.
The concept of Media

5. Ideology generally refers to the promoted
“ideals” for which society feels the need to
conform to.
Ideology

6. These ideals are influenced by a number of
different social institutions.
One of these is the mass media.
Ideology

7. Media Influence
If we take a look at the offerings on television
we can see that there are definite ‘ideals’ being
communicated.
An example of this is how the media presents
family units.
Regardless of the programme you watch, there
is a good chance that the lead character’s family
is a nuclear unit.

8. The Nuclear Unit Family
A nuclear family, elementary family or conjugal
family is a family group consisting of two parents
and their children (one or more). It is in contrast
to a single-parent family, to the larger extended
family, and to a family with more than two
parents

9. The Nuclear Family

10. Theories
Media-Society
Theory I: the
Mass Society
Media-Society
Theory II:
Marxism
Media-Society
Theory III:
Functionalism
Media-Society
Theory IV: Critical
Political Economy
Media-Society
Theory VI:
Technology
Determinism
Media-Society
Theory VII: the
Information
Society

11. Media-Society Theory I:
the Mass Society
• Mass society theory invokes a vision of society characterized
by alienation, absence of individuality, amorality, lack of
religion, weak relationships, and political apathy.
• Mass society theory is a complex, multifaceted perspective.
• To mass society theorists, the media represents and promotes
the worst problems of modernity.

12. Media-Society Theory II: Marxism
• Marx was an economic theorist who wrote during the
19th Century.
• His ideas deal with social and economic power
relationships and have been influential in economics,
politics and sociology and can be very useful for media
students.
• He claimed the media was party to the construction and
maintenance of ideas and values that supported the
capitalist system.
• A Brief Introduction to Marxism

13. Media-Society Theory III:
Functionalism
• According to the functionalist perspective the media is a
marketing product and entertaining
• The functionalist perspective sees the media as teaching
what is virtuous and appropriate.
• The media has four essential functions for society:
a) surveying the environment to give reports and information
b) relaying replies to this information
c) amusing
d) transmitting traditions to upcoming generations
• What is Functionalism?

14. Media-Society Theory IV:
Critical Political Economy
• Critical political-economic theory focuses primarily
on the relation between economic structure and
dynamics of media industries and the ideological
content of media.
 According to critical political-economic theory, the
media institution has to be considered as part of the
economic system with close links to the political
system.

15. Media-Society Theory IV:
Critical Political Economy
 The consequences of this close connection can be
observed:
 the reduction of independent media sources,
 concentration on the large markets,
 avoidance of risks,
 reduced investment in less profitable media tasks
such as investigative reporting and documentary
film-making.

16. Media-Society Theory VI:
Technology Determinism
• The sociologist Gouldner interpreted key changes in modern
political history in terms of communication technology.
• He connects the rise of “ideology” to printing and the
newspaper because in the 18th and 19th centuries printing
and the newspaper stimulated a supply of interpretation and
ideas.
• He then reveals that radio, film and television led to a decline
of ideology because of the shift from “conceptual to iconic
symbolism.”

17. Media-Society Theory VII:
The Information Society
 Van Dijk suggests that modern society is in process of
becoming a network society:
 a form of society increasingly organizing its
relationships in media networks which are
gradually replacing or complementing the social
networks of face to face communication.

18. Media-Society Theory VII:
The Information Society
 New media technology leads to an information
society, characterized by:
a) Predominance of information work
b) Great and accelerating volumes of information flow
c) Problems of information overload
d) Growth and interconnection of networks
e) Globalizing tendencies
f) Loss of privacy
g) Reduced constraints of time and space

19. Example of the worldwide ideology
September 11th:
The dominant discourse was that the war was justified
because of the need to restore some sense of equilibrium,
bring those who committed the crimes to justice and destroy
dangerous terrorists (Allen, 2002, News Culture, Open
University Press)

20. Media, Technology and Society
Theories of Broadcast Media 2