Mass Media

Culture and communication are inseparable, and mass communication is a particularly powerful, pervasive, and complex form of communication because it involves a message that reaches such a large amount of people. Our level of skill in the mass communication process is very important. This skill is not necessarily a simple one to master (it is much more than booting up the computer, turning on the television, or flipping through the pages of your favorite magazine). But it is, indeed, a learnable skill, one that can be practiced. This skill is media literacy—the ability to effectively and efficiently comprehend and use any form of mediated communication. Media Literacy Television influences our culture in innumerable ways. One of its effects, according to many people, is that it has encouraged violence in our society. For example, American television viewers overwhelmingly say there is too much violence on television. Yet, almost without exception, the local television news program's highest ratings is their nightly newscast with the most violence. “If it bleeds, it leads” has become the motto for much of local television news. It leads because people watch. So, although many of us are quick to condemn improper media performance or to identify and lament its harmful effects, we rarely question our own role in the mass communication process. We overlook it because we participate in mass communication naturally, almost without conscious effort. Media literacy is a skill we take for granted, but like all skills, it can be improved. And if we consider how important the mass media are in creating and maintaining the culture that helps define us and our lives, it is a skill that must be improved. The 8 Elements of Media Literacy Media literacy includes these characteristics: 1. A critical thinking skill enabling audience members to develop independent judgments about media content. Thinking critically about the content we consume is the very essence of media literacy. Why do we watch what we watch, read what we read, listen to what we listen to? Is that story you saw on Twitter real? If we cannot answer these questions, we have taken no responsibility for ourselves or our choices. As such, we have taken no responsibility for the outcome of those choices. 2. An understanding of the process of mass communication. If we know the components of the mass communication process and how they relate to one another, we can form expectations of how they can serve us. How do the various media industries operate? What are the obligations of the audience? How do different media limit or enhance messages? Which forms of feedback are most effective, and why? 3. An awareness of the impact of media on the individual and society. Writing and the printing press helped change the world and the people in it. Mass media do the same. If we ignore the impact of media on our lives, we run the risk of being caught up and carried along by that change rather than controlling or leading it. 4. Strategies for analyzing and discussing media messages. To consume media messages thoughtfully, we need a foundation on which to base thought and reflection. If we make meaning, we must possess the tools with which to make it (for example, understanding the intent and impact of film and video conventions, such as camera angles and lighting, or the strategy behind the placement of images on a newspaper’s website). Otherwise, meaning is made for us; the interpretation of media content will then rest with its creator, not with us.\ 5. An understanding of media content as a text that provides insight into our culture and our lives. How do we know a culture and its people, attitudes, values, concerns, and myths? We know them through communication. For modern cultures like ours, media messages increasingly dominate that communication, shaping our understanding of and insight into our culture. The ability to enjoy, understand, and appreciate media content. Media literacy does not mean living the life of a grump, liking nothing in the media, or always being suspicious of harmful effects and cultural degradation. We take high school and college classes to enhance our understanding and appreciation of novels; we can do the same for media texts. Learning to enjoy, understand, and appreciate media content includes the ability to use multiple points of access— this means to approach media content from a variety of directions and understand that it can have many different messages and meanings. We control what we think something means, making for our own enjoyment or appreciation. For example, we can enjoy any one of the hit movies from the Hunger Games trilogy as an action-laden adventure full of explosions, danger, and romance, the perfect holiday blockbuster. But as movie buffs we might see it as a David-and-Goliath, underdog-takes-on-the-powerfulvillain tale. Or we might read it as an analogy for what’s happening in America’s contemporary economy of growing income inequality and harshness of life for those near the bottom. Maybe it’s a history lesson disguised as dystopian fiction, reminding us that our country was born of revolution against those who would rule us. Or maybe it’s just a fun way to spend a Saturday night, entertained by the same industry that so delighted us with other special-effects extravaganzas, like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Doctor Strange, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In fact, television programs such as Blackish, The Daily Show, The Simpsons, Game of Thrones, and Family Guy are specifically constructed to appeal to the media literacy skills of sophisticated viewers while providing entertaining fare for less skilled consumers. Blackish and The Daily Show are produced as television comedies, designed to make people laugh. But they are also intentionally produced to provide more sophisticated, medialiterate viewers with opportunities to make personally interesting or relevant meaning. Anyone can laugh while watching these programs, but some people can empathize with the daily travails of an upper-middle-class African American family working to deal with race while they pursue the American Dream (Blackish), or they can examine the failings and foibles of contemporary politics and journalism (Daily Show). 6. 7. Development of effective and responsible production skills. Traditional literacy assumes that people who can read can also write. Media literacy also makes this assumption. Our definition of literacy (both reading and writing) calls not only for effective comprehension of content but also for its effective and efficient use. Therefore, media-literate individuals should develop production skills that enable them to create useful media messages. If you have ever tried to make a narrative home video—one that tells a story—you know that producing content is much more difficult than consuming it. If you have ever posted to Snapchat or Instagram or uploaded a video to YouTube, you are indeed a media content producer; why not be a good media content producer? 8. An understanding of the ethical and moral obligations of media practitioners. To make informed judgments about the performance of the media, we must know, respectively, their legal and ethical obligations. Return, for a moment, to the question of televised violence. It is legal for a station to air graphic violence. But is it ethical? If it is unethical, what power, if any, do we have to demand its removal from our screens?