From audience research to content research to control research to effect research, we have learned 4 basic knowledge topics of communication, today is the last media research, if students follow us to push together to learn it, after reading today's article, it is recommended that you review the 5W research of communication science as a whole.
Effect Studies: Low-hanging fruit, why do many people always plant pits in classical effect theory? Let's take stock of the theoretical transmutations in the new media environment
Audience research: must do thematic collation 01 | In the era of scarcity of attention, from the masses to the post-audience, ordinary people are no longer at the bottom of the communication chain? Do you know what has changed in audience status?
Control Research: Must Do 03 | This year's new transmission of the hottest TOP5 test center, this topic must be arranged
Content Research: Must Do Special Topic 04 | This part of the content, if not examined, is already there, and it will die as soon as it comes out
Without further ado, I'll go straight to the media research topic:
1
What is a medium
Basic definition
Broadly speaking, any intermediary that connects two things can be called a medium. In human communication, it specifically refers to the intermediary that allows symbolic information to flow and transmit directly or indirectly between people (interpersonal, organizational, and mass) or within the individual himself.
Evaluation: The medium helps to construct a mimetic environment full of symbolic meaning and representation, which not only affects people's perception of the external world in their minds, but also affects the change of people's ideas and concepts. When a new medium encounters the old medium, it will have a profound impact on the old media and the entire society and culture, which will bring about changes in the means of social interaction and change people's view of time and space.
The double meaning of medium
(1) Refers to the carrier, channel, intermediary or technical means of information transmission, that is, the material entity that disseminates information symbols. Including: language, script, books, telegram, telephone, movie, radio, television, Network, etc.;
(2) Refers to social organizations engaged in the collection, processing, production and dissemination of information, that is, media organizations. Including newspapers, publishing houses, radio, television stations, etc.
There is a conflict among the teachers here, and McGuire believes that the medium has different meanings in different contexts, mainly four: as a technology medium, as a content medium, as an information format medium, as an organizational medium (that is, we usually understand the media). The Media Environment School, on the other hand, studies the medium as a technology and as an information format.
Hu Yiqing's view that the medium as an institution or an entity organization rather than a metaphor has led communication studies astray, leading them to focus only on and describe media practices, measuring the commercial and political effectiveness of communication machines.
The different understandings of the medium actually stem from people's different entry points for research perspectives.
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="29" > the history of media change</h1>
Sorted out the veins:
The development of human media has experienced continuous evolution from oral media, paper media, print media, electronic media, digital media (alternative media, new media) and so on. (Small reminder: About the strong derivation of the medium, let's look at the content of pages 431-442 of the paradigm and genre book)
We also see another perspective of media change: mass media - social media - intelligent media (this is associated with the deepening of the evolution of digital media)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="36" > media to social and technological relationships (discussing the process of media development).</h1>
(In fact, this part of the content, we have discussed in the last part of the media and social topics, the content is overlapping with each other, students can combine it.) ）
Media determinism, also known as media technology determinism, refers to the fact that human beings are suspended in the environment created by media technology, and their concepts and behaviors are subject to the limitations of the media environment and reconstructed due to the changes in media technology.
Media technology determinism has two main implications:
First of all, technology is an independent force that develops according to its own logic, and the internal logic of the development of technology lies in technology and does not depend on human will. That is to say, although technology is born of human needs, once it is used, it is easy to get out of human control.
Second, many times, technology shapes human development rather than serving it. After the emergence of a technology, people and society enjoy the limited "freedom" it provides, but more in accordance with the logic of technology to change their work, lifestyle, and even value system.
For a long time, "media determinism" has been used to attack all theoretical views to emphasize the importance of technology, but this criticism is often one-sided, and the real sense of technological determinism is far from a simple causal inference.
There are two views on the impact of media morphology evolution on society (the relationship between media and society and technology), one is technological determinism and the other is cultural determinism. In fact, the evolution of the medium is a complex process of interaction between technology and society, at different stages and different circumstances, the influence of technology and society is different, and it is not possible to generalize whether technology is dominant or society is dominant. We can find that different media have different social environments from combing the history of media evolution, and the alternation of new media and old media is not an absolute replacement, just like Paul Levinson said about media compensation.
Soft/Hard Media Determinism: Paul. Levinson is the third generation representative of the North American School of Media Environment. His major works include "Human History Playback: Media Evolution Theory", "Soft Weapon: The Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution", and "New New Media", which has the reputation of "McLuhan in the Digital Age"
This theory is Levinson's revision of the academic icon McLuhan's technical determinism, which he calls McLuhan's theory of media evolution "hard media determinism" and his own theory of evolution "soft media determinism". He said that some media scientists believe that information systems have an inevitable and irresistible impact on society, and they call this relationship hard media determinism. Intellectually speaking, the medium rarely produces absolutely inevitable social outcomes. Rather, they offer the possibility of events that arise, and the status and impact of events are the result of many factors, not just information technology. Media scientists call this relationship soft media determinism.
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="56" > media theory</h1>
Media deformation
The theory was proposed in 1997 by Roger Fidler, an American electronic publishing prophet and forerunner. Using the principles of biological evolution, he defined media deformation as "the deformation of the media" often triggered by the complex interaction and interaction between factors such as perceptual needs, competition, political pressure, social and technological innovation.
This concept explains the law of media morphology, and new media do not arise independently, but gradually emerge from the evolution of old media. The old medium does not die after the emergence of the new medium, but adapts and continues to evolve.
Media evolution follows the following 6 principles:
1) Co-evolution and co-survival. All forms of communication media coexist and evolve together within an ever-expanding, complex adaptive system. Whenever a new form emerges and develops, it affects the development of each other present form over many years and to varying degrees.
2) Morphological changes. New media never emerge spontaneously and in isolation – they are gradually born out of the morphological changes of the old medium. When newer forms emerge, the older forms adapt and continue to evolve rather than die.
3) Proliferation. Emerging forms of media will add the main features of the original forms. These characteristics are passed down and popularized through the communication code we call languages.
4) Survive. All forms of communication media, as well as media enterprises, will be forced to adapt and change in order to survive in a constantly changing environment. The only other option they have is death.
5) Opportunities and needs. New mediums are not widely adopted simply because of their technological superiority. The development of new media technologies always requires opportunities and social, political and/or economic incentives.
6) Delayed adoption. For new media technologies to become commercially successful, they will always take longer than expected. The development from proof of concept to universal adoption often takes a human generation (20-30 years). From this deduction, online media and traditional media will jointly form a "symbiotic coexistence reality", rich composite combinations are always greater than a single, and media cooperation inside and outside the system is destined to make the communication effect better.
Media innovation
Media innovation refers to the innovative development of media concepts, technologies, forms, and uses based on media reform. In recent years, the trend of multimedia globalization is obvious, and various media around the world have further interacted, infiltrated, merged and united. The traditional media concept and communication technology are indisputably disintegrated and cut by the magic of digitalization, and then reorganized and integrated, forming a media carrier with more advanced concepts and more powerful functions, that is, the media communication lineup of modern industrialization multimedia interaction and complementarity. Media innovation is based on the media concept and communication technology innovation, from the inside out of the change, it will not only bring a new media practice, but also enhance the audience's media experience, subvert the entire media industry form. The main ways of media innovation are: changing the concept to adapt to the new environment, innovating technology to invent new products, and respecting users to provide new uses.
Brian Winston: Media Innovation and Diffusion Models
For how social factors determine the emergence and development of media technology, British scholar Brian Winston proposed an important "accelerator" in "Media Technology and Society" - "brake" mode (throttle - brake mode). The model holds that progress is achieved as if it were going down an upward escalator, or as optimists call it, an escalator down. This rapid, twitching progress, which has been repeated in the history of communication, is a reflection of the process of power interaction between media technology and society.
In this model, the accelerator is the social need to transform the "prototype" into an "invention" and push the invention into the world—leading to the diffusion of the invention. Winston calls this social need "supervening social necessity"; at the same time, there is a brake, that is, social repression, that is, the combination of general social constraints that limit the potential of the invented device to fundamentally disintegrate existing social forms. Winston refers to this particular set of social determinants as "the repressive law of radical potential."
The Four Laws of Medium
Known as the "Swan's Song", Marshall McLuhan and Eric McLuhan proposed the Four Laws of Media in the 1988 Law of the Medium: Ascension - Obsolescence - Resurrection - Reversal. McLuhan notes that "these four laws are laws about the effects of technology and artificial products. They represent not a sequential process, but a set of synchronous laws. These four aspects have been the laws inherent in every kind of artificial product from the very beginning."
Promotion: A new medium is the enhancement of existing communication capabilities.
Obsolescence: As society continues to evolve, old media become obsolete and obsolete.
Resurrection: The old media will not disappear or perish completely, but will reappear in society with a new look.
Reversal: It means that things must be reversed, and reversals will occur after the potential is pushed to the limit. (The opening of the Internet will eventually lead to closure: with the closure of real life and with heterogeneous groups.) ）
The four laws of the medium focus on the law of the development of the media itself, providing a developmental analytical framework for the development and application of new technologies.
4
The main representatives and theories of media research
Innes and the media bias theory
The Canadian political economist, the originator of the Toronto School, was the first to conduct systematic research on mediated contextology, and his theories influenced McLuhan. He examined communication in the evolution of the form of human civilization, believing that all civilizations exist by controlling the space field and time span, and related to it is the temporal and spatial tendency of the communication medium, so the rise and decline of civilization is closely related to the dominant communication medium. At the heart of his communication theory is the division of media bias. He is the author of Empire and Communication (1950) and Bias of Communication (1951).
Innes argues that any medium of communication has a bias, and he divides the media into "time bias media" and space bias media from the monopoly of knowledge. One or the other. The former is a medium with a heavier texture and strong durability, such as clay, stone and parchment, which is convenient for the control of the time span; the latter is a lighter texture and easy to transport media, such as paper, modern electronic media, etc., which is convenient for the control of space.
Time—focus on the spoken language—cultural orientation with the past as the center, the emphasis on tradition—helps to establish authority and form a hierarchical social system. But it is not conducive to the control of the power center over the borders.
Space—with a focus on writing—culturally oriented features centered on the present and the future—contributed to the expansion of empires, increased the control of power centers over the periphery, and formed centralized but not hierarchical social systems.
Marshall. Mcluhan
Canadian communication scientist, representative of the Toronto School, media determinist, representative works: "Mechanical Bride", "Gutenberg Heroes", "Understanding The Medium: An Extension of Man", "Media as Information". He inherited Innes's ideas and linked the medium to the history of the development of human civilization. Main points: media is information, media-human extension, the division of hot and cold media and the concept of "global village", in terms of the evolution of media forms, McLuhan proposed the law of media: ascension, obsolescence, resurrection and reversal, and predicted the arrival of the information age. He was also a pioneer in the theory of media ecology. He expanded the concept of media not only in mass communication and interpersonal communication, but also in all media of interpersonal interaction.
(Extension: Stevenson, Kelly, Meloz, and Thompson, inspired by McLuhan, all began to pay attention to the media itself, and all identified with the fundamental nature of social life.) The media reconstruct time and space, so they help shape the social relations between subjects. ）
Merovitz
Media Situationalism
Merowitz believes that context should be seen as an information system. The media information environment facilitates the circulation of information in the same way as the material place. The information environment created by the media is even more important than the physical place. The great influence of electronic media on society lies in the fact that it reorganizes the social situation and weakens the importance of the material place to the situation, so that people's behavior is no longer limited by the material site and who is present.
Unique behavior requires unique situations. The separation of different situations will make the separation of different behaviors possible, and the overlap or confusion of different situations will cause behavioral confusion. Each unique behavior requires a unique situation. Situations are dynamic and variable, and factors that constrain the separation and combination of situations include individual life decisions and the use of media by society. The use of mass media has blurred the boundaries between different situations and moved performances that are only suitable for some people to be watched by society as a whole.
Neil Bozeman's medium is metaphor
American media culture researcher and critic, belonging to the Toronto School, founded the media ecology, representative works "The Disappearance of Childhood", "Entertainment to Death", "Technology Monopoly - Culture Surrenders to Technology". In Entertaining to Death, Neil Bozeman argues that the medium is not a mere vehicle for carrying information, but a metaphor that defines the real world with a hidden and powerful hint, in which the form of the medium is crucial, and a particular form of the medium prefers a particular content, ultimately shaping the characteristics of the entire culture. Potsman believes that in the era of electronic media, a large amount of information that has nothing to do with the audience is produced as a tool for entertainment and passing the time, changing the "information-action ratio" and making people conform to the status quo.
Paul Levenson
If McLuhan is the "pioneer", "prophet" and "saint" of the digital age, then Paul Levinson is the pioneer of online education: "McLuhan in the digital age". His Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium is a classic book about McLuhan, but it goes far beyond McLuhan. In Levinson's own words: "The Digital McLuhan is actually two books. A book about McLuhan's media ideas and their impact on our lives. Another book, writing my own thoughts, is about how Mai's thought can help us understand this new era." Paul Levenson used the "rearview mirror" to see the shortcomings of McLuhan's "media determinism" and proposed his own theory of media evolution:
Anthropotropic evolution of media
The "human trend" theory of media evolution demonstrates a tendency of media technology to evolve to become more and more in line with human needs and facilitate the exchange of information using it. The development of media technology is carried out on the basis of constantly meeting the needs of human beings themselves, and people have initiative and selectivity in the development of media technology. It highlights the subjective initiative of man in order to revise McLuhan's "media determinism."
The "remedial media" theory
The theory of "compensatory media" is used to illustrate the rational choices that people make in the evolution of media. He believes that any subsequent media is a remedy and compensation for the function of a certain media or a certain innate deficiency of the media in the past, that is, human beings are constantly making rational choices in the process of media evolution, and any subsequent media is a remedy and compensation for some deficiencies in the past media. The evolution of the medium is the result of human selection, and the medium that better meets people's needs is preserved.
Through the "remedial medium" theory of evolution, Levinson got rid of the pessimistic arguments of scholars such as McLuhan and Bozeman that man was subject to technology, and subverted McLuhan's predictions by emphasizing the ability of human reason to control the future.
5
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="133" > media research methods</h1>
Psychoanalysis: Focuses on the motivations of "characters" and the implicit meaning of popular culture themes in a particular society or period. Representative figures - Freud, Adler.
Berrelsen: Quantitative analysis - Berrellson is the proposer of the content analysis method, he defines content analysis as a quantitative description of the apparent propagation content objectively and systematically.
Berelson: Berelson is an American sociologist, an important founder of the effect theory of communication in the United States, and a representative figure in political communication, and his academic works include: "The People's Choice", "Research on the Formation of Public Opinion in Elections and Presidential Elections", and "Content Analysis in Communication Studies" (co-authored with Lazarsfeld).
His main contributions are reflected in the Iri survey with Lazarsfeld, an important founder of secondary communication theory, and Lazarsfeld, Katz and others put forward the social relationship theory of audience research, emphasizing the image of social relations between people on the audience, focusing on the analysis of the daily social glutamate of the audience members on their media information acceptance behavior
Roland Barthes: Qualitative analysis ----- structuralism and semiotics reject the method of measurement, arguing that meaning comes from the relationships, relative positions, and contexts of the text, rather than from the number and denotational balance of supporting symbols. Interpretive research focuses on meaning that is hidden in the text rather than explicitly visible superficial meaning, content analysis emphasizes sampling, and structuralism holds that all content should be treated equally.
Comparison of information content analysis and text structure analysis
Information content analysis: quantitative, fragmentary, systematic, generalized, extended, obvious meaning, objective
Text structure analysis: qualitative, panoramic, selective, exemplary, special, implicit, and relevant to the reader
Hybrid approach: The Glasgow Media Group's research on BRITISH TELEVISION news used a systematic quantitative approach to study the prominent elements of television reproduction.