Factors affecting media ecology

A hierarchy shows conflict among other hierarchies, guilt is inevitable and results in society breaking a hierarchy. There are way to resolve ones guilt which is transcendence, mortification, and victimage which all show how we cease hierarchies and transfer guilt on others. However there are two archetypal symbolic forms that provide to help and resolve guilt which are tragedy and comedy. As society faces problems they develop media in such forms to address the fact and work through them. For example a medium in media shows how society is influenced in a particular manner such as the internet. The internet acts as a positive and negative medium which uses technology on one hand to relay a message and on the other hand uses messages as participation for individuals to partake in open ended discussions.

Media as an ecology...

Neil Postman was the first to coin the term media ecology which refers to the matter of how the media in communication affects the human perception, understanding, feeling and value. It also shows how our interaction with the media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival. The environments of our media show how the structure and content impact society. The environment is a system that influences society in the ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. It shows how books, radio, film, and television are meant to be explicit and tries to find out what role the media forces us to play in our reactions. The major implication of the media ecology is that our reality that we are presently in cannot be experienced as a separate entity from the outside world. There are several concepts to which that can produce the same effect as material ones...

Plaisir vs. Jouissance

From one characteristic of jousissance, liminality shows how a male is not clearly a male or a female is clearly not a female. With this it shows how media can be interpreted in different ways in order for the audience to use several different perspectives to interpret the media. On the other hand plaisir shows depthlessness which enjoys the culture of surface and spectacle aesthetics as a way to be closed off from the world. Abjection from jouissance shows how cultural boundaries are crossed with media in which the audience experiences something our of the norm. The gore that abjection displays in zombie movies exhibits an appeal to the audience from its disgust and unnatural display. Finally, carnivalesque shows how historical phenomenon give a great curiosity in humour and chaos for example halloween and mardi gras. 

Media Erotics...

The media erotics shows how us as a society examines media and assesses the pleasures of media in terms of our sensuous, creative, and transgressive ways. There are many resistive pleasures that are exhibited in media which entail contextual pleasures, tactical pleasures, creative pleasures, and cumulative and incremental pleasures. These pleasures show how we interpret media in our own desires. there are open and closed texts which show active participation from society and active participation from a particular individual. When we use plaisir pleasure is is a comforting feeling that is dominant in culture vs. jouissance pleasure which is a disruptive pleasure that goes against the norm of society. The five characteristics of taking part in jouissance is; abjection carivalesque, intertextuality, irony, and liminality...

Different types of meanings in media...

In our society we develop a circuit of culture that allows us to interpret media in a certain way from representation, regulation, consumption, production and identity. We develop a polysemy which is many meanings of a certain media context that is open to multiple interpretations. This just semiotic excess and producerly that gives a more open interpretation of media. Second, there is a polyvalence that denotes media which gives different interpretation. Finally, there is the blame on several different influences that give certain meaning to media artifacts.  With this it automatically gives certain meaning to individuals without their own interpretation.

Reception Analysis

Reception analysis shows how us as individuals in society perceive different types of media and what kind of meaning we give to certain media. Roman Jakobson which is a Russian linguistic analyst shows how the context of media is passed to the message which then is then interpreted by the sender and receiver which is then passed through a channel and then finally encoded. The old traditional analysis of reception states that the media influences false consciousness to make society accept the views and messages being conveyed. In today's modern analysis there is a two step flow system that engage certain individuals more and pay more attention to opinion leaders for example twitter. With this information people are more influenced now to perceive opinions and take various views inconsideration to process the information. 

With the way our society receives media, are we doing it this right way???

Queer in our modern world

In today's media there are more open homosexuals that star in hit TV shows, and are known celebrities. By having our society more exposed to the queer theorists as a way to eradicate gender classification, there is a higher level of comfort towards gay and lesbian people. We are seeing more and more comfortable situations with sexuality in males and females in media today. Our society is becoming more aware of gender and the social constructions that create a certain type of gender rather than sexuality. Before the 19th century homosexuality wasn't heard of, an individuals sense of identity has just been established with the deployment of sexuality. with our society becoming more visible to diversity several types of personalities are now in media and accepted amongst our society.

What Does Queer Mean???

In our society there had been much debate on the openness of sexuality among men. There is a Queer Theory in which it is an interdisciplinary perspective that explores the binary code between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Queer theorists seek to exhibit how the labels that our culture places on individuals give shortcomings and discredit social power and political privilege. Queer is defined by whatever is at odds with the norm, radical questioning of social norms, and to make strange with institutions. The term Heteronormativity states that heterosexuality is the norm and sexual orientation states that relations between man and woman are the only fit. It also states that there are sexual stereotypes that place a negative connotation in that heterosexuality is normal and homosexuality is abnormal and all the power is in the heteronormative systems.

Is our society changing for the best??? Are we now giving equal opportunity regardless of sexual orientation???

Gender Stereotypes in Media

There is the first wave of feminism which was during the 19th and early 20th century which mainly focused on the inequality of women and the lack of voting rights. The second wave of feminism was in the 1970's and 1980's pertaining to women's liberation in civil rights. There after continued the third wave of feminism which was in the 1990's and after which then characterized the sexual agency. With this movement there was a consequence in gender stereotyping in which media promoted the idea body type in which eating disorders and body altering surgeries were becoming more common. With the effect of media on our society today, is the need for perfection in our bodies becoming more of a demand and closely examined due to small imperfections?!?!?!

Are YOU a Feminist?!?!?!

Feminism suggests that it is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. By doing so they wish to diminish propaganda which deliberately stems to shape perceptions, cognitions, and direct behaviour of individuals to achieve the desired responses. There are several key terms to the feminist analysis; feminism, sexism, essentialism, and patriarchy. Several types of gender stereotypes suggest that males are dominant over females. By creating a masculinity depicting males and femininity depicting females it shows a dominance in media with males over females.

What can our society do in media to prevent gender inequality???

How do we perceive media through psychoanalysis???

When we analyze media we use Jacque Lacan's theory of the Borromean rings which states that the REAL (the gap in representation),the IMAGINARY (the fantasy), and the SYMBOLIC (the codes) shows how we process media in the human psyche. Although Sigmund Freud and Jacque Lacan had difference in perceiving media they had the similarity of the PHALLUS which is the symbol of power in the creation of the human psyche. This shows power and dominance in our media to show desire, fantasy, scene, and deferral. All in all, we give media a male dominance to show power and control to gain the attention of viewers.

What is Psychoanalytic Analysis???

What is psychoanalytic analysis? Why study it? 

Psychoanalytic analysis shows how the influence and creation of many media influence the mental drives of society. This is shown in the individual's psychology, the media psychology, and the way the two interact with each other based on the media consumption. The individual that pioneered the concept was Sigmund Freud. He defined different types of consciousness in which we perceive media. Perceptional Consciousness which is ones senses, Pre-Conscious which is ones short term memory, and finally the Conscious Mind which is the sum of both put together. in which he analyzed the individuals mind in separate sections. He defined the human psyche into different sections; the ID which is the pleasure principle, the SUPER-EGO which is the reality principle, and the EGO which reacted based on the super-ego and seeks to please the ID. Why do we study it? with media consumption we experience the conscious and unconscious in terms of the way we perceive certain types of media.

How do we perceive media?

There are several aspects in which we perceive media. The ideological process that we instil when viewing media shows how certain ads catch our attention and divert our attention as well. First a myth is produced in which a story or speech confirms an ideology in relationship to the cultural object in media. Second a doxa is in place in which a grey area is is drawn which we do not draw attention unless drawn to. Finally a hegemony is dealt in which one ideology challenges another ideology to gain dominance. Since we use ideology and race together in media there are 4 aspects that create the effectiveness of media ads. 1. symbolic annihilation 2. stereotyping 3. assimilation and finally 4. othering. These steps emphasize the way ads are manipulated in order to draw our attention to what they want us to pay attention to.

Are we AWARE of what is around us?

With our crazy world we live in, do we really follow the saying and "stop and smell the flowers"? with our cultural analysis we are so distracted we do not look closely to the things around us. This notion causes us to develop a structural feeling. When someone says "is it cold outside" we start to think about the weather when we weren't thinking about it until it was caught to our attention. This causes our society to be blinded by media in the ads we encounter. It creates an ideology that 1. limits the range of ideas 2. sets social relations 3. sets some interests over others and 4. interrelate individuals into subjects.

As we are being made aware of certain things in media, does media pick and choose what we should believe and be aware of???

What Makes a Sign...a Sign???

There are certain implications we can make about signs, we know the truth and nothing else. There is a triangular method to signs that involve a sing being an object, representation, and the interpretant. There are iconic features about a sign that reference an object or symbolic references that bear no relation to the object itself. There are certain signs in our life that have indexical meaning that can be either a denotation (index) or connotation (symbol). The way we interpret signs show that we use narration in the form of tense, mood, and voice for associating the sign.

The way we interpret signs is associated with our own knowledge and well-being to perceive it in a way it favours our own reality.

What is Culture????

According to Matthew Arnold, culture is the best and brightest such as the opera, it includes sophisticated arts and individuals. However Raymond Williams says that culture is the most complicated word because it doesn't separate high culture apart from low or pop culture. The Rhetoric Analysis from Plato suggests that we are in a cave and that when we are so accustomed to our ways and venture out, we do not accept the truth to use symbols and signs to influence culture. When we use an image or sound to distinguish an object the concept is then returned with the association. The three characteristics of a sign in our culture are; arbitrary - the meaning of a sign is dependent on its social historical context, linear - which is a system that gives meaning to the previous word or symbol, and finally difference - which recalls from the absence or opposite of a sign.

Does the context of a sign or symbol in our culture have different meaning based on location and social culture???

What Should We Do About This???

Is there really such a thing called media regulation?!?!?!

With so much media advertising and marketing going on in our society who's are the good guys and bad guys? Using consequences and contingencies that have the effects on society and factors it plays on regulation it creates tensions. Public interest which favours regulation Vs. free market which favours deregulation that government regulation and media self regulation will never see eye-to-eye. For example tobacco companies show that their product is not harmful to our society and have false science to exhibit false information. Several social effects such as; aggressor affect, victim effect, bystander effect, and catharsis effect illustrate the effects of media on our society. But what are we doing about this?

Do guns really kill people??? Or is it the violence in movies, TV shows, and video games that do???

Reality aka "Media Reality"

What is real and what isn't real?!?!?!

As we read or watch the news we cannot help but believe what is being published or spoken. What hat is real and what is not? One thing we know for sure is that the truth is out there, however it's presented is a different story. Therefore what we need to do with the media is problem solve, assess different outcomes, measure and produce the tangible results and benefits, examine and rationalize, and finally be pragmatic because what you know and what you don't know are totally different things. Three individuals that are key pragmatists are; William James which focused on the individual and developed radical empiricism, John Dewey which focused on the social issues and believed in pragmatic meliorism, and finally Richard Rorty which focused on the essential truth and relativism.

So now what??? What do we do about this???

News...a commodity like no other...

There are several types of news; sports news, breaking news, weather news, and evening news... but what separates the commodity and the important information. News media is influenced by large corporations which creates a filter that have advertisers choose the influence of media prosperity and anticommunism. There are several news information biases; it is personalized which focuses on the individual and not the society, dramatized that emphasizes crisis, fragmented that isolates stories from one another, and finally authority disorder that try to interpret events for us. 

The consequences of the news conventions are; gatekeeping and agenda setting which shows that media determines what is news, homogenization that is the same approach in delivering the news night after night, an increase in soft news that provide more entertainment and finally attribution that is responsible for social ills.

what we see as news can be very well deceiving....but what is real and what is controlled by corporations for profit and commodity?

we have to look past the filters and and not succumb to soft news...

Media Organization

Organizational analysis shows the structure of an organization and the process it takes to influence society. There are different forms of structure in organizational analysis such as; the role of individuals which is the hierarchy, the division of sections which is the specialization, and finally the formal standards that is the formalization of an organization.  With the structure and process of an organization it carries the organizational culture. There are performances, narratives, textual, management, and finally technology that are conventions that govern the way an organization work. Behind conventions there various parts that fall in the professional organization such as; motivation, sharing, naturalization, resilience, and direction. The way a company achieves this is by; training, hiring, evaluation and promotion, recognition and wards, and finally professional societies to achieve professionalization.

Is every organizational analysis true in relation to news media?

Organizations can take on various roles which can leave the viewer eating out of their palms...

Advertising...

ARE WE ALL VICTIMS OF ADVERTISING?!?!

With the ruling class creating a neoliberalism upon the working class; it creates a rule of the market, it cuts public expenditure for social services with: deregulation, privatization, and it eliminates the concept of the public good or community. With advertising it creates a false consciousness to society because it distracts people from the realities of society.

When advertising a product, companies use sexuality to create a commodity fetishism. With the automobile advertising campaigns showing an attractive woman photographed with the car, society is led to believe that "If i buy this car, I will get the attractive woman as well". 

We all succumb to the imagery that advertising but how is it all organized???

Marxist analysis

Who owns and controls the media???
         What role do the media play in society???
                  What ideas are spread and neglected by the media???
                           What kind of heroes are shown in the media???

These are the questions that arise when examining a marxist analysis.  Marx suggests that the ruling class determine the mode of production. They create feudalism which creates a monopoly around land in exchange for service or labor. This creates the capitalism which affects attitudes, values, personality types, and culture.


The ruling class....
- believes its own message
- make it their primary goal to develop and perfect the illusions about their class
- justifies its status and makes it difficult for society to realize they are being exploited
- try to state that capitalism is natural


Are we all victims of capitalism?!?! 

Do we subconsciously give in to the ruling class from advertising?!?!

What is NOT media?!

What is NOT media?!
According to my last post, media was something that connected us, a medium for instance. But now what ISN'T a medium? If media can be brand names, television, radio, internet, and magazines, I guess everything else that doesn't connect us isn't media. But what doesn't connect us??? Theoretically everything in life connects us to SOMETHING. Food can even be a medium for life because we need to ingest it in order to live. Therefore, the question shouldn't be "what is not media?", but "what are the categories of media?"

What is MEDIA???

What is MEDIA???

Media is actually all around us! From the brands of clothes we wear to the signs and symbols that we interact with everyday. 

Media is not only television, radio, internet, magazines and newspapers but also mediums that connect us. For example any sign or object that connects an individual with another source or realm is considered media. In the instance of a television remote, it is considered to be media because it connects us with the television that engages us to media. Anything that connects us is considered media, but now the next question is what is NOT media???