VIDEO GAMES- 23rd April Tutorial
‘Both games and technologies are counter-irritants or ways of adjusting to the stress of the specialised actions that occur in any social group.’
‘As extensions of the popular response to the workday stress, games become faithful models of a culture. They incorporate both the actions and the reactions of whole populations in a single dynamic image.’
Marshall McLuhan
EXAMPLES OF VIDEO GAMES:
· Arcade Games
· Consoles- ps2, x box, nintendo
· Computer Games
· MUDs- world of war craft
· MMOGs
The Video Game industry rakes in more money than the film industry, even despite piracy.
ACADEMIC APPROACH TO VIDEO GAMES
Media Effects and Games- do they shorten attention span, cause shootings and increase aggression?
The Persistence of Effect- if play hotted up racing car game for 6hours and then get into real car, psychology suggests we still think we are in the game.
Games and Utopia; video games create worlds that are magical.
Thinking about video games as a new form of cultural practice... in the same way we now think about old media like newspapers, radio, television, films...- do VG have their own history?
what are some ways to approach thinking about games that might be unique to this genre?
Are there questions that are specific to video games that don't apply to any other form?
NARRATOLOGY- is the study of video games from the perspective of them being stories or literary works. Can we study VG like texts? Eg. Is it interactive fiction?
LUDOLOGY- Concerned with the Game Play elements.
The Aesthetics of Video Games:
· Game/play elements
· Fun elements
· Story elements
· Virtual world elements
Sunday, April 29, 2007
SHORT HISTORY OF THE INTERNET- week 4 March 30th Lecture
Great lecture this week! BECAUSE I actually thought that cyberspace, the web and the Internet...so now i know MORE! ! ! !
Benedikt-
‘Cyberspace is…a territory swarming with data and lies, with mind stuff and memories of nature, with a million voices and two million eyes in silent, visible concert of inquiry deal-making, dream sharing and simple beholding.’
THE INTERNET-
Is the sum of interconnected computer hardware and the software that runs it- practical material construction. The internet is a network of networks. These networks include servers and personal computers and other devices that use CMC (computer mediated communications) technology. They are loosely connected by telephone system, broadband cable and satellite services, linking people around world into an information-sharing system.
The internet, created in 1960’s. Researchers in Us were working on ‘Packet Switching’ which is system that breaks down messages into small chunks and transmits them from one computer to another. So then RAND struck a deal and set out to apply these concepts to utilise connections between computers and phone lines.
Us Dept of Defence originally funded project to connect computers working on defence matters through phone lines. ARPANET was developed. This was about downloading academic data, but then functions such as email were added as hobbyists, hackers and counter-culture turned ARPANET to own purposes.
WWW-
WWW is particular application of the net. In 1990’s researchers from ‘Cern’, a physics lab in Switzerland, were looking for better way to share info. They developed html and the first web pages.
The web merges techniques of internetworking and hypertext to make easy, global and powerful system that shares info.
CYBERSPACE-
Is the sum of users’ imaginations as they use the Internet. Cyberspace is a contrast with the tangible products of the web and internet. It is way people interact with pictures/ words, making them think they are in a different space/ place. William Gibson’s quote suggests the idea of hallucination, that people agreed to imagine they were in a new place- another form of reality.
It is a conceptual space where words, relationships, data, wealth and power are manifested by people using CMC technologies.
EARLY INTERNET APPLICATIONS-
· Electronic Mail (email)
· File Transfer Protocol (FTP)- move larger files more directly than just to emails
· Internet Relay Chat (IRC)- early version of msn.
· MUDs (multiple user domains), MOOs, MUSHs- simple approaches to net.
RECENT INTERNET APPLICATIONS-
· Instant messaging
· Peer-to-Peer file sharing- ppl share programs that are on their comp eg. Windows
· Blogging
· Portable Audio (ipods, MP3s)
· VOIP (Voice over internet protocol)- use net as phone system
· Virtual Worlds- ‘Second Life’
· ‘Web 2.0’- YouTube
NETIQUETTE and BAD BEHAVIOUR-
The internet rapidly changes therefore so does netiquette, but always based on ‘do to others as you would have them do to you.’ The social construction of reality requires civility between participants.
Need for netiquette arises mostly when sending or distributing e-mail and or chatting. The practice of netiquette depends on understanding how e-mail and chatting actually work or are practiced.
Practices as spam (unsolicited email) and flaming(abusive communications) are bad behaviour that disrupts other people's use of the internet.
Cracking, is not hacking - hackers are computer experts and programmers, crackers are computer criminals. Cracking is computer crime.
Kevin Mitnick, notorious cracker, who got into US Air Defence System was jailed for reading a company’s email. Never hurt anyone, he just showed how shoddy security systems were.
Many of the rules of this virtual society mimic those of non-virtual life; call back, don't insult people always reply to personal email quickly etc. In a chat environment, for example, if someone is operating outside the understood rules of Netiquette they are removed from the site until further notice.
Many of the rules of this virtual society mimic those of non-virtual life; call back, don't insult people,always reply to personal email quickly etc. But they are often more quickly and effectively administered in the virtual world. In a chat environment, for example, if someone is operating outside the understood rules of Netiquette they are removed from the site until further notice. It's almost medieval! Rudeness is grounds for banishment.
It appears people are much more polite and caring compared to how they are in their non-virtual community. People who have never passed a word with the guy next door will maintain a network of relationships within a virtual community, ranging from close friends and lovers to acquaintances.
ECONOMICS OF CYBERSPACE
John Perry Barlow’s ‘Economy of Ideas’ gives utopian account of economic possibilities inherent in cyberspace and info economy:
· Information is an activity, experienced not possessed, propagated not distributed.
· Information is a life form, it wants to be free, replicating in the cracks of possibility, perishable and always changing.
· Information is a relationship between sender and receiver, the meaning generated has a unique value to both.
· Information may be commodified, but most importantly it is its own reward. -
As early utopian goals of the Internet (that net will provide revolutionary break with past economy) meet the financial forces of convergence we can expect to see further rapid change and a lot of instability.
The most important commodities on the Net are credibility, a distinctive point of view, familiarity and exclusivity.
There are vested interests that oppose cyberspace becoming the scene of economic activity, referring to it as a 'black economy'. What they are really mourning is the lack of bureaucratic/government control over the Net. As always with new technologies, the issue of who controls the buttons is of particular interest to governments and big business.
Cyberspace’s interactivity suggests new ways to think about capital that reflects new ways to do things with each other:
o Social network capital - the value in person to person interaction though we might never meet
o Knowledge capital - the value in ideas means that sharing information equals sharing power
o Cultural capital - the value in the values we share and that allow us to live creative lives in a civil society.
CONVERGENCE
The last ten years have seen a growing tendency to Convergence as the possibilities of communication technology develop.
Information technologies are converging as computer technology provides the means to draw together telephone, radio, television and print so that they can be accessed from the one point.
Great lecture this week! BECAUSE I actually thought that cyberspace, the web and the Internet...so now i know MORE! ! ! !
Benedikt-
‘Cyberspace is…a territory swarming with data and lies, with mind stuff and memories of nature, with a million voices and two million eyes in silent, visible concert of inquiry deal-making, dream sharing and simple beholding.’
THE INTERNET-
Is the sum of interconnected computer hardware and the software that runs it- practical material construction. The internet is a network of networks. These networks include servers and personal computers and other devices that use CMC (computer mediated communications) technology. They are loosely connected by telephone system, broadband cable and satellite services, linking people around world into an information-sharing system.
The internet, created in 1960’s. Researchers in Us were working on ‘Packet Switching’ which is system that breaks down messages into small chunks and transmits them from one computer to another. So then RAND struck a deal and set out to apply these concepts to utilise connections between computers and phone lines.
Us Dept of Defence originally funded project to connect computers working on defence matters through phone lines. ARPANET was developed. This was about downloading academic data, but then functions such as email were added as hobbyists, hackers and counter-culture turned ARPANET to own purposes.
WWW-
WWW is particular application of the net. In 1990’s researchers from ‘Cern’, a physics lab in Switzerland, were looking for better way to share info. They developed html and the first web pages.
The web merges techniques of internetworking and hypertext to make easy, global and powerful system that shares info.
CYBERSPACE-
Is the sum of users’ imaginations as they use the Internet. Cyberspace is a contrast with the tangible products of the web and internet. It is way people interact with pictures/ words, making them think they are in a different space/ place. William Gibson’s quote suggests the idea of hallucination, that people agreed to imagine they were in a new place- another form of reality.
It is a conceptual space where words, relationships, data, wealth and power are manifested by people using CMC technologies.
EARLY INTERNET APPLICATIONS-
· Electronic Mail (email)
· File Transfer Protocol (FTP)- move larger files more directly than just to emails
· Internet Relay Chat (IRC)- early version of msn.
· MUDs (multiple user domains), MOOs, MUSHs- simple approaches to net.
RECENT INTERNET APPLICATIONS-
· Instant messaging
· Peer-to-Peer file sharing- ppl share programs that are on their comp eg. Windows
· Blogging
· Portable Audio (ipods, MP3s)
· VOIP (Voice over internet protocol)- use net as phone system
· Virtual Worlds- ‘Second Life’
· ‘Web 2.0’- YouTube
NETIQUETTE and BAD BEHAVIOUR-
The internet rapidly changes therefore so does netiquette, but always based on ‘do to others as you would have them do to you.’ The social construction of reality requires civility between participants.
Need for netiquette arises mostly when sending or distributing e-mail and or chatting. The practice of netiquette depends on understanding how e-mail and chatting actually work or are practiced.
Practices as spam (unsolicited email) and flaming(abusive communications) are bad behaviour that disrupts other people's use of the internet.
Cracking, is not hacking - hackers are computer experts and programmers, crackers are computer criminals. Cracking is computer crime.
Kevin Mitnick, notorious cracker, who got into US Air Defence System was jailed for reading a company’s email. Never hurt anyone, he just showed how shoddy security systems were.
Many of the rules of this virtual society mimic those of non-virtual life; call back, don't insult people always reply to personal email quickly etc. In a chat environment, for example, if someone is operating outside the understood rules of Netiquette they are removed from the site until further notice.
Many of the rules of this virtual society mimic those of non-virtual life; call back, don't insult people,always reply to personal email quickly etc. But they are often more quickly and effectively administered in the virtual world. In a chat environment, for example, if someone is operating outside the understood rules of Netiquette they are removed from the site until further notice. It's almost medieval! Rudeness is grounds for banishment.
It appears people are much more polite and caring compared to how they are in their non-virtual community. People who have never passed a word with the guy next door will maintain a network of relationships within a virtual community, ranging from close friends and lovers to acquaintances.
ECONOMICS OF CYBERSPACE
John Perry Barlow’s ‘Economy of Ideas’ gives utopian account of economic possibilities inherent in cyberspace and info economy:
· Information is an activity, experienced not possessed, propagated not distributed.
· Information is a life form, it wants to be free, replicating in the cracks of possibility, perishable and always changing.
· Information is a relationship between sender and receiver, the meaning generated has a unique value to both.
· Information may be commodified, but most importantly it is its own reward. -
As early utopian goals of the Internet (that net will provide revolutionary break with past economy) meet the financial forces of convergence we can expect to see further rapid change and a lot of instability.
The most important commodities on the Net are credibility, a distinctive point of view, familiarity and exclusivity.
There are vested interests that oppose cyberspace becoming the scene of economic activity, referring to it as a 'black economy'. What they are really mourning is the lack of bureaucratic/government control over the Net. As always with new technologies, the issue of who controls the buttons is of particular interest to governments and big business.
Cyberspace’s interactivity suggests new ways to think about capital that reflects new ways to do things with each other:
o Social network capital - the value in person to person interaction though we might never meet
o Knowledge capital - the value in ideas means that sharing information equals sharing power
o Cultural capital - the value in the values we share and that allow us to live creative lives in a civil society.
CONVERGENCE
The last ten years have seen a growing tendency to Convergence as the possibilities of communication technology develop.
Information technologies are converging as computer technology provides the means to draw together telephone, radio, television and print so that they can be accessed from the one point.
Lecture 3 - THE BIRTH
BIRTH OF THE COMPUTER- Week 3 March 19th Tutorial
Well, I found this lecture rather interesting BECAUSE, until now i had no idea in the world what Bill Gates actually did to be so $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. BUT NOW I KNOW. So here are my notes on what i now udnerstand about the birth of the computer!
Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace
Charles Babbage was born in 1791. As the inventor of the first digital computer, a mechanical rather than an electronic device, he sketched out the logical structure of the modern computer. He made parts of the Difference Engine, but was not completed in his life time. Later, he conceived of the Analytical Engine: a massive, brass, steam-powered, general-purpose, mechanical computer.
Babbage was aided with Analytical Engine by an aristocratic woman with a creative approach to mathematics, Ada Lovelace. Ada saw herself as a metaphysician in search of poetical science. She conceived of a machine which would be able to compose and play music, produce graphics and be of everyday use. She also conceived the first computer program.
Turing and the Birth of the Computer
The serious work required for the development of the computer was done by Alan Turing. He studied quantum mechanics, probability, logic, and wrote a crucial paper clarifying the computability of numbers and the possibility of a machine to compute them.
During WW2 he worked with teams of mathematicians and cryptographers to devise the first working computer,The Bombe which they used to break secret German 'Enigma' codes. After War, he investigated programming, neural nets, and the prospects for artificial intelligence. His philosophical paper on machine intelligence suggested the Turing Test: a human sits at computer terminal and interacts with both a computer or a human by written communication only; if the judge cannot tell which is which then the machine has passed the test and it would be reasonable to call the computer intelligent.
Moore's Law
Computers were first commercially produced by IBM in 1950s- they were large and expensive used for military, government and corporate work. In 1965, Gordom Moore propounded Moore's law: the capacity of microchip's doubles every two years. His 2nd law claims because capital costs are rising faster than revenues, financial feasibility will limit the rate of technological development.
Xerox PARC
At Xerox PARC in the early 70s, a think-tank developed concepts such as the mouse, the graphical user interface (GUI) and pull-down menus that made the personal computers of today possible and approachable by the general user.
The first PC was released in 1975. It was called the 0 but didn’t do much, just got tech-nerds excited. But the Altair didn't have a language - a set of terms by which the user could communicate with their computer. Bill Gates dropped out of uni and began writing a language called BASIC so it could be used for word processing, basic accounting and games. In order to market his program he started a little company in his garage - Microsoft.
Apple
Computer nerds got together at meetings to exchange ideas and display their latest and greatest home-made PCs. Here, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started their own company - Apple. They produced the Apple I - machine with single circuit board, no case and no keyboard. They sold 50. Their dream was to produce/sell the 1st self-contained PC for people who weren't techies. Wozniak set to reducing the size of every component he could while Jobs went out to find some money.
Two years after the Altair, the Apple II was launched in 1978. Next two years saw Apple grow like crazy- they had made enough money so neither would ever have to work again.
IBM and Microsoft
At this time, IBM ( large ultra-conservative firm and slow to move) noticed what was happening. By 1980 they were determined to get into the PC market. Chairman, Frank Carey, called Bill Lowe, who promised IBM a product within one year. His product basically involved buying shelf products from a range of other companies and putting them together as a package.
To run computers, there are two types of software required: the language and the Operating System. As Gates/ Microsoft did not produce an Operating System, they directed IBM to Gary Kildall- but Kildall wanted a signing of a non-disclosure agreement before conducting a meeting. IBM walked back to Microsoft.
Gates promised an Operating System. They bought an OS developed by Tim Patterson called Kudos. Microsoft paid Patterson's employer $50,000 for it. In four months IBM had it running as PC DOS 1.0 and in the marketplace at $50 each. GATES WAS RICH.
IBM gained more and more of the market share through its association with Microsoft. For a long time Apple believed they owned and could rely on their position in the marketplace due to their user-friendly technology (GUI). But then IBM and Microsoft came up with their own GUI - Windows. By the time Windows 3 was launched, Apple was on a slide. Steve Jobs quit Apple. Pushed in a niche market by the convergence of IBM and Microsoft, Apple was on a downward slide. But the 1998 return of Steve Jobs and the success of its iMac line turned the fortunes of the company around.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
INTERESTING WEBSITES.......YERHA!
So....interesting websites is the topic of todays tutorial....YERHA COWBOY...how exciting...lets see what i can find.....
i went to www.scroogle.org then typed in 'plot generator' and a website came up where you can be a MOVIE CREATER and devise your own plot. It asks you:
ENTER TITLE
THE GENRE
MAIN CHARACTER
SIDE KICK
THEIR GOAL
CHARACTER GROWTH
WHAT IS THE MOVIE LIKE?
etc etc etc...it gives you options to choose from.
THIS IS MY NEW FILM
Susan
An original screenplay concept by Kate
Comedy: A pimply computer nerd teams up with a kind hearted prostitute to save the earth from aliens. In the process they deflower a gay interior decorator. By the end of the movie they run away from 7 oogly aliens and end up winning the admiration of their 3rd grade teacher, living happily ever after.
Think Titanic meets Happy Gilmore.
DEFINENTLY WORTH MAKING!
THEN
I typed in 'nickname generator'
It is a website where you type in your first and last name and if you want your nickname to be 'G', 'PG', or 'X' rated!
my new nickname is...
FAIRY BALD SMILE
That is all....
i went to www.scroogle.org then typed in 'plot generator' and a website came up where you can be a MOVIE CREATER and devise your own plot. It asks you:
ENTER TITLE
THE GENRE
MAIN CHARACTER
SIDE KICK
THEIR GOAL
CHARACTER GROWTH
WHAT IS THE MOVIE LIKE?
etc etc etc...it gives you options to choose from.
THIS IS MY NEW FILM
Susan
An original screenplay concept by Kate
Comedy: A pimply computer nerd teams up with a kind hearted prostitute to save the earth from aliens. In the process they deflower a gay interior decorator. By the end of the movie they run away from 7 oogly aliens and end up winning the admiration of their 3rd grade teacher, living happily ever after.
Think Titanic meets Happy Gilmore.
DEFINENTLY WORTH MAKING!
THEN
I typed in 'nickname generator'
It is a website where you type in your first and last name and if you want your nickname to be 'G', 'PG', or 'X' rated!
my new nickname is...
FAIRY BALD SMILE
That is all....
Sunday, April 1, 2007
NEXT ATTEMPT
SECOND ATTEMPT...im so good at photoshop now....the little man looks like he belongs.....sorta....kinda....hahaha next week i shall advance to a higher level. horay! im learning....
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Lecture Notes Week 2!
INTRODUCTION
20th Century saw development of mass society and explosion of broadcast media where messages from centralised sources were distributed around the world. Academic disciplines have appeared to investigate issues around C:
COMMUNICATION STUDIES
MEDIA STUDIES
CULTURAL STUDIES
At the same time a number of more job-focussed disciplines emerged:
JOURNALISM
PR
ADVERTISING
MARKETING DESIGN
In last decade, rise of computers etc has spawned new areas of investigation:
NEW MEDIA STUDIES
CYBERSTUDIES
INTERNET STUDIES
CYBERCULTURE STUDIES
WEB STUDIES
These mass of disciplines is what academic study of C has became to after a century. Began in France 100yrs ago.
1900 semiotics- Ferdinand de Saussure
Studies the role of signs as part of social life
Signs are:
· SIGNIFIER- Sign saying ‘Griffith Library’
· SIGNIFIED- Actual library
· DENOTATION- literal account. ‘bumping roads’
· CONNOTATION- draws out cultural associations. ‘sexual’
· SEMANTICS- relationship of signs with what they stand for- appreciation of words, their meanings
· SYNTACTICS- formal structural relations between signs- rules of grammer, spelling, sentence structure. They way we read and carry messages. The way we decipher the symbols of a page
· PRAGMATICS- relationship of signs to interpreters of sings- perhaps arguing meaning of a sign.
COMMUNICATION STUDIES (USA)
1920s - Bullet (Inoculation) Theory = Maximum effects
The mass media is a vehicle through which selected content could shape opinion and belief, change habits of life, actively mould behaviour and impose political systems.
Example: Movie showing singlet- next week singlet sales increase.
1930 - Application of Statistical Method
Kolmogorov systematised probability theory so small but random samples could predict large social effects. EG samples of populations eg ratings. Take small random sample of ppl to understand large social effects- the mathematics.
1940 - Minimum Effects
The resistance of US soldiers to Nazi propaganda and Lazarsfeld's studies of voting behaviour showed exposure to propaganda communicated through the mass media had only 'minimal effects' on citizens. Nazi propaganda had no effect- so maximum effects theory not true. More effect from family community connection on voting habits.
1950s - Looking for effects - connections to psychology
Ppl set out to see what nature of media effects was- looked at these areas : Advertising* Kids* Violence* Politics. Result: there were conflicting/ mixed findings as there are a range of ways to study media effects.
1960s - Marshall McLuhan
McLuhan defines media as technological extensions of the body. He frames media effects as 'hot' to 'cool' in terms of the intensity of different media on the physical senses - radio and cinema are hot because their dense information consumes the audience, telephone and television are cool with less intense information.
1970s - Mixed Effects
*George Gerbner and Larry Grosss 'cultivation hypothesis' identified the way the public's perceptions of a crime 'problem' were shaped and cultivated by the ways in which the media reported and portrayed criminal violence.
*Media set agenda for what ppl talk about. Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw's observations on agenda setting indicated that the rank order of issues voters nominated as important in an election closely correlated with the rank order of issues raised in the press. Eg enviro concerns arouse from mainstream media
'spiral of silence' theory suggested that presentation of viewpoints in the media produce a decrease or increase in the willingness of citizens to express those viewpoints. Eg. Ppl are validated.
1980s - Return of Maximum effects
Media v. powerful in establishing nature of debate in society
MEDIA STUDIES (UK)
Raymond Williams
How media works with culture in people’s lives. Not literary, systematic methods- CULTURAL. ‘u can study media product….but what is interesting is how media works with culture in ppl lifves’.
Stanley Cohen; Moral Panics
Media creates moral panics.
Glasgow School
Through close analysis of news programs, they revealed their ideological content. Observing closely content n use of content of news.
Stuart Hall, Birmingham School
Understood that effects of media msgs are in hands of viewer who decodes the msgs. Audience has power to decode then use.
Argued that the message intended by the producers may be read in a variety of ways by the audience: they might accept the preferred reading; negotiate their own reading by contesting the preferred message or; produce an oppositional reading by rejecting the preferred strategy.
Active Audiences
Ien Ang clains that only ‘a perspective that disp[lays sensitivity to everyday practices & experiences of actual audiences themseleves’ can supply any true insight into TV viewers.
CULTURE STUDIES (Europe)
1930s Walter Benjamin
How reproduction of posters/ paintings to reproduce moments have benefits and dangers. Eg anyone nowadays can have mona lisa- destroys integrity of art and also democratizes it.
1940s Frankfurt School
"Real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies. The sound film, far surpassing the theatre of illusion, leaves no room for imagination or reflection on the part of the audience- hence the film forces its victims to equate it directly with reality. Trying to make sense of Hollywood.
1950s Situationists – Society of the Spectacle
Consumption of spectacles most Important part of life- eco rationale for lide where personal things most imp to society used to be regarded
1960s Habermas
Pub sphere where pub opnion forms.
1970s Louis Althusser
Louis Althusser theorised the media as Ideological State Apparatuses which, he argued, institutionally produce and reproduce "the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence" and so constrict the opportunities for uncoerced debate between those individuals.
1980s Baudrillard – Simulacra
The real was represented, now the hyperreal was simulated… this is the world that we live in.
1990s Fraser - Subaltern counterpublics
Pushed for femi in mead- to effect our lvies. Interesting contribution.
NEW WAVE & FUTURE OF THEORY
Not one sub-discipline of C is going to tell the whole story.
20th Century saw development of mass society and explosion of broadcast media where messages from centralised sources were distributed around the world. Academic disciplines have appeared to investigate issues around C:
COMMUNICATION STUDIES
MEDIA STUDIES
CULTURAL STUDIES
At the same time a number of more job-focussed disciplines emerged:
JOURNALISM
PR
ADVERTISING
MARKETING DESIGN
In last decade, rise of computers etc has spawned new areas of investigation:
NEW MEDIA STUDIES
CYBERSTUDIES
INTERNET STUDIES
CYBERCULTURE STUDIES
WEB STUDIES
These mass of disciplines is what academic study of C has became to after a century. Began in France 100yrs ago.
1900 semiotics- Ferdinand de Saussure
Studies the role of signs as part of social life
Signs are:
· SIGNIFIER- Sign saying ‘Griffith Library’
· SIGNIFIED- Actual library
· DENOTATION- literal account. ‘bumping roads’
· CONNOTATION- draws out cultural associations. ‘sexual’
· SEMANTICS- relationship of signs with what they stand for- appreciation of words, their meanings
· SYNTACTICS- formal structural relations between signs- rules of grammer, spelling, sentence structure. They way we read and carry messages. The way we decipher the symbols of a page
· PRAGMATICS- relationship of signs to interpreters of sings- perhaps arguing meaning of a sign.
COMMUNICATION STUDIES (USA)
1920s - Bullet (Inoculation) Theory = Maximum effects
The mass media is a vehicle through which selected content could shape opinion and belief, change habits of life, actively mould behaviour and impose political systems.
Example: Movie showing singlet- next week singlet sales increase.
1930 - Application of Statistical Method
Kolmogorov systematised probability theory so small but random samples could predict large social effects. EG samples of populations eg ratings. Take small random sample of ppl to understand large social effects- the mathematics.
1940 - Minimum Effects
The resistance of US soldiers to Nazi propaganda and Lazarsfeld's studies of voting behaviour showed exposure to propaganda communicated through the mass media had only 'minimal effects' on citizens. Nazi propaganda had no effect- so maximum effects theory not true. More effect from family community connection on voting habits.
1950s - Looking for effects - connections to psychology
Ppl set out to see what nature of media effects was- looked at these areas : Advertising* Kids* Violence* Politics. Result: there were conflicting/ mixed findings as there are a range of ways to study media effects.
1960s - Marshall McLuhan
McLuhan defines media as technological extensions of the body. He frames media effects as 'hot' to 'cool' in terms of the intensity of different media on the physical senses - radio and cinema are hot because their dense information consumes the audience, telephone and television are cool with less intense information.
1970s - Mixed Effects
*George Gerbner and Larry Grosss 'cultivation hypothesis' identified the way the public's perceptions of a crime 'problem' were shaped and cultivated by the ways in which the media reported and portrayed criminal violence.
*Media set agenda for what ppl talk about. Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw's observations on agenda setting indicated that the rank order of issues voters nominated as important in an election closely correlated with the rank order of issues raised in the press. Eg enviro concerns arouse from mainstream media
'spiral of silence' theory suggested that presentation of viewpoints in the media produce a decrease or increase in the willingness of citizens to express those viewpoints. Eg. Ppl are validated.
1980s - Return of Maximum effects
Media v. powerful in establishing nature of debate in society
MEDIA STUDIES (UK)
Raymond Williams
How media works with culture in people’s lives. Not literary, systematic methods- CULTURAL. ‘u can study media product….but what is interesting is how media works with culture in ppl lifves’.
Stanley Cohen; Moral Panics
Media creates moral panics.
Glasgow School
Through close analysis of news programs, they revealed their ideological content. Observing closely content n use of content of news.
Stuart Hall, Birmingham School
Understood that effects of media msgs are in hands of viewer who decodes the msgs. Audience has power to decode then use.
Argued that the message intended by the producers may be read in a variety of ways by the audience: they might accept the preferred reading; negotiate their own reading by contesting the preferred message or; produce an oppositional reading by rejecting the preferred strategy.
Active Audiences
Ien Ang clains that only ‘a perspective that disp[lays sensitivity to everyday practices & experiences of actual audiences themseleves’ can supply any true insight into TV viewers.
CULTURE STUDIES (Europe)
1930s Walter Benjamin
How reproduction of posters/ paintings to reproduce moments have benefits and dangers. Eg anyone nowadays can have mona lisa- destroys integrity of art and also democratizes it.
1940s Frankfurt School
"Real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies. The sound film, far surpassing the theatre of illusion, leaves no room for imagination or reflection on the part of the audience- hence the film forces its victims to equate it directly with reality. Trying to make sense of Hollywood.
1950s Situationists – Society of the Spectacle
Consumption of spectacles most Important part of life- eco rationale for lide where personal things most imp to society used to be regarded
1960s Habermas
Pub sphere where pub opnion forms.
1970s Louis Althusser
Louis Althusser theorised the media as Ideological State Apparatuses which, he argued, institutionally produce and reproduce "the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence" and so constrict the opportunities for uncoerced debate between those individuals.
1980s Baudrillard – Simulacra
The real was represented, now the hyperreal was simulated… this is the world that we live in.
1990s Fraser - Subaltern counterpublics
Pushed for femi in mead- to effect our lvies. Interesting contribution.
NEW WAVE & FUTURE OF THEORY
Not one sub-discipline of C is going to tell the whole story.
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