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