LECTURE NINE

AGENDA SETTING – How the media CONSTRUCTS ‘REALITY’

→     An individual’s conception of reality is socially constructed through a process of communication using shared language. Reality is mediated through social life and the experiences each individual goes through. Media play a large role in ‘constructing’ or ‘mediating’ the social world as we understand it.

→     Through PUBLIC, POLICY, CORPORATE and MEDIA agendas individuals within the community associate and categorise topics or issues that relate to them and the way upon which they structure their lives.

→     As stated by Coleman, McCombs, Shaw and Weaver (2008) - “Agenda setting is the process of the mass media presenting certain issues frequently and prominently with the result that a large segment of the public come to perceive those issues as more important than others. Simply put, the more coverage an issue receives, the more important it is to people.”

→        ASSUMPTION (1) The mass media do not merely reflect and report reality, they FILTER and SHAPE it.

→        ASSUMPTION (2) Media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues.

→     The mass media creates ‘IMAGES OF EVENTS IN OUR MINDS’.

→     WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

o   “Propaganda is used as a tool to help shape images in the minds of human beings in support of an enterprise, idea or group. Propaganda can be used to substitute one social pattern for another.”

o   As stated by LIPPMANN  - people rely on the images in their minds in formulating judgments rather than by critically thinking.

→          

→     Elite media often set the agenda for issues in other media

→     The AGENDA SETTING FAMILY

1.    Media Gatekeeping

2.    Media Advocacy

3.    Agenda Cutting

4.    Agenda Surfing

5.    The diffusion of News

6.    Portrayal of an Issue

7.    Media Dependence

LECTURE EIGHT

PUBLIC MEDIA
→ In comparison to commercial media (profit driven media production), public media has a mission to serve or engage the public. Public media ‘may be for profit so long as its sole purpose is to serve the public and not turn a profit’.
→ Examples include SBS and the various versions of production that the ABC has to offer. The international media landscape has enveloped the public media forte through BBC and other international productions.
→ ‘PUBLIC VALUE’(According to the BBC) is:
1. Embedding a ‘public service ethos’
2. Value for licence fee money
3. ‘Weighing public value against market impact’
4. Public consultation

→ Directly from the lecture – Challenges for the PUBLIC MEDIA front involve
o To produce quality –while the budget might be tight PM need to produce programming that people want to watch (less commercial imperative)
o To make themselves relevant (do they have a role to produce programs that mass audiences want to watch (ratings and audiences numbers?)
o To engage with the democratic process (to provide programs that give voice and access to the political process, both mainstream and niche)
o To inform the public (hard and soft programming, accurate and balanced, reflective of the nation.)
o To be independent (regulators and independence of funders government).

LECTURE SEVEN

COMMERCIAL MEDIA

→     Commercial media is expanded throughout society today. Examples of commercial media include channels seven, ten and nine and Austar and Foxtel subscriptions. Commercial media exists to aid as the ears and eyes of advertisers and to gain substantial profit. Commercial media fluctuates on a business’s success, generating profit through selling advertising. Commercial media is not government funded rather licence funded as it is a profit-driven media production.

→     Major players in the commercial media production game involve the likes of News Limited, WIN Corporation and Southern Cross Broadcasting – producing Newspapers, Cable TV (No FTA), Film, Magazines, Books and Sports.

LECTURE SIX

WEB NEWS

→     OLD MEDIA (Traditional, Heritage or Legacy media).

WEB 1.0              Information Web – focusing mainly on companies.

WEB 2.0              New Media – The ‘SOCIAL’ web – interactive, user generated, social networking.

·         Facebook

·         YouTube

·         Skype

Web 3.0               Semantic Web – ‘machine-readable meaning to the packets of information’; focusing mainly on the individual.

·         Meta tagging

·         Search Engines

→     ENTITLEMENT – through an exercise in the lecture where Dr Redman offered each member of the audience a small bag of jellybeans. As a member of the audience I understood completely the concept he was aiming for when he revoked his decision to give each of us jellybeans. As an audience, we felt we had the right to the jellybeans we had just been given when in actual fact we did nothing to gain the beans.

This can be lined to the fact that newspapers everywhere are turning to the internet and a service which as of recently was free is enabling the PAY scheme. We as consumers of the news feel as though something that was free beforehand is not right to now be an item that we need to purchase. The fast tracked future is well on its way with memberships, purchasable news and the evolution of the internet.

LECTURE FIVE

Week fives lecture was conducted by Dr John Harrison who based his presentation on ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’, the ‘tasteful and distasteful’ elements of media use and production today. Throughout the course of his explanation he accessed the use of three ETHICAL THEORIES:

→     DEONTOLOGY

o   The rules, principles and duties that all ethics codes are based on.

→     CONSEQUENTIALISM

o   Obtaining the greatest good for the greatest number, no matter who we had to stand on to get there. The end may justify the means.

→     VIRTUE

o   ‘GOODNESS’ derives from the good habits or dispositions of character that pose structure in an individual. Virtues such as temperance, courage and justice attribute to the ‘golden mean’ of behaviour.

CODES

→     MEAA CODE

→     PRIA CODE

→     AFA CODE

→     AANA CODE

→     Apparently CODES are a waste of time…

Dr Harrison furthered the topic with in depth discussion regarding LANGUAGE and IMAGES in advertising… RULES (Deontology) of VALUES (Virtue), YOU DECIDE.

LECTURE FOUR

A PODCAST interviewing 2 ABC radio presenters, Richard Fidler and Steve Austin asking them about radio production.

Richard Fidler – Conversations

Fidlers program focuses on biographies and ‘conversation of ideas’.

Fidler stated that ‘you must be generally interested in the story for it to sustain the whole hour’.

Fidler - Afternoons

An entertaining program aimed at creating amusement through that ews reports of the day.

Fidler stated that Radio is very different to other media such that:
- intimate
- people can multitask when listening
- listeners feel included and radio must facilitate this.

Steve Austin - Radio Host of Evenings - consisting of three shifts:
1. Talk Back: encourages audience participation
2. Panel: encourages and engages a specific audience to participate
3. Intimate: personal stories expressed to convey emotion and human experience.
Challenge - keeping people talking, must establish a repour - emphasize vocally and speak tenderly.

Components of a good radio
-Exploring human experience and emotional responses
- Talk less and Listen More
-  People are Time Poor and radio uses this tho their advantage e.g. in the car
- Annunciation is important
-  Need a diverse vocab
-  Need to break down the barrier between you and the listener through creating pictures with words.