Week 1: Fall 2007

Lecture notes: week one

Weds.

Purpose - Personal Media experience

Complete Media Inventory (demonstrated by me)

Share with others, class composite inventory

You are what you eat? What interpretations can be made by one’s media use? What societal implications can be made?

What is the purpose of media experiences – who do they serve? What if we are all different, is there a societal benefit or cost?

Cause and Effect vs. Cultivation Theory

in 1969, Gerbner and his colleagues "began to chart the content of prime-time and weekend children's television programming, and Gerbner et al (1986, p. 25) noted that 2,105 programs, 6,055 major characters, and 19,116 minor characters had been analyzed by 1984. Significantly, Gerbner et al. (pp. 25 - 26) noted the following patterns: " (Miller, 2005, pp. 283 - 284)

• Men outnumbered women three to one on television
• Older people and younger people are underrepresented on television
• Blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented on television
• Seven percent of television characters are "middle class"
• Crime is 10 times as rampant in the "television world" as it is in the real world

• "First-order cultivation effects refer to the effects of television on statistical descriptions about the world" (Miller, 2005, p. 287). For example, "a first-order effect would suggest that heavy viewers would overestimate the likelihood of being the victim of a crime" (Miller, 2005, p. 287).

• "Second-order cultivation effects refer to effects on beliefs about the general nature of the world" (Miller, 2005, p. 287). For example, "a second-order effect would suggest that heavy viewers would be more likely to view the world as a mean or scary place" (Miller, 2005, p. 287).

Two ways "in which cultivation theorists have extended their theory to account for small effects and differences in effects among subgroups" (Miller, 2005, p. 286) are the concepts of mainstreaming and resonance, added to the theory.

• Mainstreaming "means that television viewing may absorb or override differences in perspective and behavior that stem from other social, cultural, and demographic influences. It represents the homogenization of divergent views and a convergence of disparate viewers (p. 31)" (Miller, 2005, 286).
• Resonance "is another concept proposed to explain differential cultivation effects across groups of viewers. The concept suggests that the effects of television viewing will be particularly pronounced for individuals who have had related experience in real life. That is for a recent mugging victim or someone who lives in a high crime neighborhood, the portrayal of violence on television will resonate and be particularly influential" (Miller, 2005, 286).

Homework – weekly pattern, integration of classwork and homework

Informal Writing – Media in My Life due Friday

Chapter one, media tour tracks 7, 8, 14 due Monday

Friday:

Purpose – Understanding of Cultivation Theory and introduction to course

Video of Cultivation Theory (how the research is dated – current trends in TV, the impact of the Internet)

Tmap: Gender, Class, Race

Burgess Pet Peeves: talk you out of taking this class

Most important course you will take – I teach it that way,

ambivalence and commitment
mistakes happen – it’s what you do with them, efforts to correct pattern, learning from mistakes, communication, preparation, office hours

active class – learn every day

Syllabus

Course Website

- homework and calendar

- access to resources