Perspectives for Understanding Communication Media and the Public Interest Thom McCain

Contemporary Environment The Information Age moves to the Conceptual Age The speed of technology invention From speaker to writer – 41,500 years (1,300 lifetimes) From writing to printing – 5,000 years (167 lifetimes) Last 100 years – more invention than in the previous 450 centuries.

If the same rate of change happened in the Auto industry as has happened in communication technology in the past 10 years, you could buy a Lexis for ten cents and it could travel for 1000 miles on a thimble of gas. Randall Tobias

Perspectives Axes to grind Ways of knowing Ways of valuing Ways of being Ways of doing Societies are what they know

Research/Theoretical Perspectives of Communication Media and the Public Interest (adapted from McQuail) Encoding Perspectives that focus on media as social, political and economic processes -- Encoding Perspectives of form and substance of messages – Media Content Perspectives that focus on audience use and effects of media processes and messages – Decoding Perspectives can be – Macro or Micro

Encoding Perspectives Macro theories of social class, ideology, structure and function Effects of the media on social institutions Normative practices of the media Organizational practices that operate within the media

Media Content Patterns in media content Form of media content Production values Stereotyping

Decoding Links between audiences and media professionals Audience composition Audience socialization and symbolic interaction Media effects