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LANGUAGE OF RADIOAND

MEDIA THEORIES

Roselle Nicodemus

Julienne Vega

Arade Villena

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Language of Radio

Descriptive

Precise

Repetitive An element of nowness (Hilliard, 1967)

Permits its audience a subjective as well as an

objective orientation

Entertaining

Relatable

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Theories on Media Effects

CULTIVATION THEORY

Developed by George Gerbner

Media cultivates social paranoia

Violence as a part of everyday life Viewer profile (television types)

Heavy viewer: watches TV for four hours or more

Light viewer: less time spent watching TV, more selective

(turns off TV after having watched a show that they like)

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CULTIVATION THEORY

Gerbners Findings

1) Chances of involvement with violence

2) Fear of walking alone at night

3) Perceived activity of the police

4) General mistrust of people: Mean World

Syndrome

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CULTIVATION THEORY

Mainstreaming

The process of

blurring, blending and

bending that heavyviewers undergo

TV homogenizes its

audience

Resonance

First hand experiences

on violence are

resonated throughsymbolic interpretation

on screen

Real life=TV,

TV=violent, reallife=violent

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CULTIVATION THEORY

Fear: a paralyzing emotion

Worry can make people prisoners in their own

homes, change the way they vote, affect how they

feel about themselves Heavy TV viewing affects a persons world view

Therefore, it is important who gets to tell the stories

within a culture

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AGENDA SETTING THEORY

Developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald

Shaw

Watergate incident

The media does not tell us what to think, but what to

think about (agenda setting function)

We look to professionals for cues on where to focus

our attention

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AGENDA SETTING THEORY

Observation: people only attend to news that does

not threaten their established beliefs

People who have a willingness to let the media

shape have a high need for orientation (index ofcuriosity).

Who sets the agenda for media? The gatekeepers

of media or the media elite

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SPIRALOF SILENCETHEORY

Pioneered by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann

Refers to the increasing pressure people feel to concealtheir views when they think they are the minority andability of people to openly express themselves when

they are the majority Fear of isolation

Media mutes the minority while it glorifies majority

At the same time media can make the majority look like

a minority Minorities that are unafraid of being isolated have the

chance of swaying and molding public opinion

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SPIRALOF SILENCETHEORY

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MAGIC BULLETTHEORY OR THE

HYPODERMIC NEEDLETHEORY

Media injects information into the audiences heads

Treats the audience as passive receptors of information

Shapes peoples opinions, manipulates their thoughts

States that the audience will take in and believe anything

the media shares

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SYMBOLICINTERACTIONISMGeorge Herbert Mead

Humans acts toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to

those people or things.

-Herbert Blumer

Meaning is not inherent in an object but, instead, it is based on

how we interpret the world, and make use of symbols around us

Language, symbolisms and social interaction allow us to

formulate concepts and thought processes

Basically refers to the effects of language of the one who

speaks to the one who hears

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SEMIOTICSRoland Barthes

Discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie, because ifsomething cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth;

it cannot, in fact, be used to tell at all.

-Umberto Eco

Process of interpreting signs, the meaning of sign relation

Connotation - seemingly straightforward, but subtlycommunicates ideological or connotative meaning

Reality as a system of signs

SIGNIFIER (physical form, image) + SIGNIFIED (meaning

associated with image) = SIGN (inseparable combination of

signifier and signified)

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Theories on Influence

SOCIAL JUDGEMENTTHEORY

The amount of discrepancy between the position advocated and the

stance of the listener is what makes or breaks a persuasive attempt.

Attitude scale on our minds.

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Peoples perceptions are altered dramatically by

group membership. Different person espousing the same position may

differ considerably in their tolerance around this

point.

Ego-involvement refers to how crucial an issue is in

our lives.

Once weve judged a new message to be within our

latitude of acceptance, we will adjust our attitudesomewhat to accommodate that new input.

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COGNITIVE DISSONANCETHEORY

C.D. The distressing mental state that people feel when they findthemselves doing things that dont fit with what they know, or having

opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold.

The tension of dissonance motivates us to changeeither our behavior or our belief in an effort to avoid

that distressing feeling.

Belief and attitude changes that take place because

of cognitive dissonance.

Not only do we tend to listen to opinions and select

materials that are consistent with our existing beliefs,

we usually choose to be with people who are like us.

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Selective Exposure Prevents Dissonance

Mass media have a minimal effect on their audience . Because

the audience tends to turn a blind eye to information.

People tended to select information that lined up with what

they already believed and ignored facts or ideas that ran

counter to those beliefs.

Postdecision Dissonance Creates a Need for Reassurance

Motivates us to seek reassuring information and social support

for our decision.

Minimal Justification for Action Induces a Shift in Attitude

A claim that the best way to stimulate an attitude change in

others is to offer just enough incentive to elicit counterattitudinal

behavior.

Compliance without inner conviction.

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POLITICALECONOMY VIEW

IDEOLOGY. Meaning in the service of power.

Here, Marx directly links ideology to the ruling class, which derives itspower from its control of capital.

The role of the media here is that of legitimation through theproduction of false consciousness, in the interests of the class whichowns and controls the media.

Ownership is considered the primary means through which the rulingclass exerts control over media institutions.

A political economy approach leads us to expect that capitalist-owned media decisions and content will tend to favor those witheconomic power.

Media content is a cultural commodity of a capitalist system.

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Variations in Ideology by Funding Source

Altschull starts with the assumption that media reflect theideology of those that finance them, or pay the piper.

Whether the press is called free or state-controlled, it reflects

the ideology of the paymaster.

Instrumental Variation of Political Economy The media can be considered an important elite power

group.

The business class has mobilized to stave off public opinion and

the possible consequences of additional government regulation.These strategies take advantage of the professional

occupational routines of journalists to further the corporate

ideology.

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Elite News Source Structure

By relying on repeatable formulas, entertainment programsencourage a feeling of social stability resistant to substantial

social change.

Prefers recurring format of balancing commentators or guests

that present any disagreement within an adequate comfortzone.

A Propaganda Model

Media serve the dominant elite.

Carrying out their function is said to recquire systematicpropaganda.

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Herman and Chomskys 5 news filters:

(1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profitorientation of the dominant mass-media firms;

(2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media;

(3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government,business and 'expert' funded and approved by these primary sources andagents of power;

(4) 'flak' as a means of disciplining the media; and

(5) 'anti-communism' as a national religion and control mechanism.

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The government is able to produce great quantities of

authoritative news through its vast information staff, andcorporations have large budgets for public relations efforts that

effectively subsidize the cost of information gathering for the

media (Gandy, 1982).

The conservative critique of media bias grants major power to

the journalists who makes news decisions, leading right-wing

media research to focus on documenting individual political

bias among the gatekeepers.

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References:

Aspinall, Richard. Radio Programme Production; a Manual for Training. Paris:

Unesco, 1973.Hilliard, Robert L., ed. Radio Broadcasting: An Introduction to the Sound Medium.

Hastings House, 1967.

Henneke, Ben G. The Radio Announcer's Handbook. New York: Rinehart, 1948.

The Spiral of Silence Theory. Communication Theory. 2010.http://communicationtheory.org/the-spiral-of-silence-theory/. Retrieved

November 14, 2011.The Spiral of Silence Theory. Changing Minds. 2011.

http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/spirals_silence.htm. RetrievedNovember 14, 2011.

Spiral of Silence Theory in Mass Communication Context. Honors: Spring 2001Capstone Workbook. 2001.http://www.uky.edu/~drlane/capstone/mass/spiral.htm. Retrieved November

14, 2011.Shoemaker, Pamela J. (1996). Mediating the Message: theories of influences onmass media content2ndEdition. Whiteplains,N.Y.: Longman, c1996

Griffin, Emory. (2009.) A First Look at Communication Theory 7th Edition.N.Y.10020, McGraw Hill Companies, Inc.