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Broader Philosophical Issues

- How do we identify reality?

Our reality is defined as what we can all agree on, which in turn, is defined by the dominant discourses of our time

  • religion
  • science
  • statistics
  • state
  • the media?

All this ties in with a central area of study...

Phenomenology is....

  • the understanding that the the process of interpreting reality is at the same time, something which constructs reality
  • For instance, if we look at the universe through a telescope, we get the impression that we are a speck of life in an incomprehensiby huge universe
  • But if we look at the universe through our natural senses, we gain the impression that our universe is centred around ourselves.
  • In each case, it is the method with which we come to comprehend things which structures and informs how we think things 'REALLY' are

So, what role does the media play in structuring how we think things

'REALLY' are?

Habermas’s concept of media effects stems from his depiction of the interrelation of ‘system’ and ‘lifeworld’

Lifeworld (Communicative Action)

“Subjects acting communicatively always come to an understanding in the horizon of a lifeworld. Their lifeworld is formed from more or less diffuse, always unproblematic, background convictions. This lifeworld background serves as a source of situation definitions that are presupposed by participants as unproblematic.” (Habermas, 1984: 80)‏

The gradual infiltration of the lifeworld by systemic understandings and notions of truth. That is, systemic

messages become so unproblematic and widely accepted, they become accepted as truth.

Normative Media Effects - the systemic colonisation

of the lifeworld

Differences in Normative and Behavioural Research

Introduction

  • Whereas behavioural media research focuses on how media changes behaviour, normative media research focuses on the media texts' relationship to wider discourses and systems
  • Because it does not focus on measurable changes in behaviour, normative research tends to suggest that media effects are far broader than simple behavioural changes - they argue that media changes our perception of reality
  • Normative media research tends to use the tools of critical discourse analysis - which analyses the construction and context of the text - in order to come to its conclusions
  • This is what you'll be doing in your next major assessment - the group presentations

Phenomenology

Differences in Normative and Behavioural Research

Conclusion

Broader philosophical issues - how to identify reality

Normative Media Effects - the systemic colonisation

of the lifeworld

Reconciling normative and behavioural

understandings of media effects

How Can We Reconcile Behavioural and Normative understandings of

Media Effects?

Normative and empirical approaches to media effects don't contradict each other

Behavioural 'cultivation theories', such as

mean world syndrome,

Bandura's Social Learning Model

and particularly Parentti's take on Social Learning

all suggest that media plays a central role in establishing our 'pre-existing values and beliefs'

and normative theory tends to agree that strong willed individuals are less susceptible to media directly effecting their actions (although their actions are still conditioned by the lifeworld their media use creates).

behavioural research highlights the difficulties in making effective media and helps us understand why mass media is produced the way it is.

Normative media research focuses on media messages as texts

as such, it focuses on how media messages form part of broader discourses

that 'stand in' for reality

This kind of analysis - critical discourse analysis - is what we'll be doing in the second half of this unit

Normative theory tends to argue that media effects are far more complicated than empirical research suggests.

In some ways observation understimates effects:

  • Sometimes the effects are too broad to be empirically tested – e.g. what effects do smart phones have on culture?

  • Sometimes the effects are too small to be empirically tested – e.g. effect of one beauty ad on body image

In some ways it overestimates effects:

  • Sometimes correlation is confused with causation

  • Sometimes the process of research affects the results of that research

The central argument of the normative approach is that 'media effects' don't exist in isolation from other cultural and economic structures (and problems)

System (a domain of Strategic Action)

Where action is coordinated not through unproblematic agreement but through the use of the coercion offered through either money or power.

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