CCT300: Critical Analysis of Media

CCT300: Critical Analysis of Media September 15: Media analysis and McLuhan’s laws of media

Administration • Get on the course wiki if you haven’t already • First in-class assignment is to create personal *wiki* - not a page. • Should look like xxx.wikispaces.com vs. cct300-f11.wikispaces/xxx. • Using previous personal wikis encouraged – build a portfolio! • Comic analysis questions?

Forms of Media Analysis • Analysis of media form and genre • Technological/media effects determinism • Critical political economy • Mass and public media • Cultural studies • Sociotechnical systems approach • Future forecasing

Media form and genre • Analysis of essential elements – e.g., McCloud’s first chapter on “what is comics?” and six-step model (to be discussed end of month) • Attempts to define classificatory boundaries and identifies canonical and ideal type constructions (why?) • Little consideration of consumer/producer impact – culture often deliberately left out (e.g., Manovich, which we’ll look at near the end.) • More on genre construction next week

Media effects determinism • Media as pervasive causal force • Often done with reductionist scope (e.g., X media consumption causes Y social effect- hard to prove since most connections aren’t really as simple as X->Y (examples?)

Qualified media effects model • Two-step process – X causes Y through intermediating factor Z • Cultivation theory – pervasive media exposure causes Y – not one example of X but prolonged sustained exposure to X • Examples?

Critical political economy • More of an economic determinism model – capital, relations of power and ownership structure determines media • Often Marxist based, but libertarian/capitalist models may also qualify (e.g., critiques of public broadcasting) • Often similarly reductionist – does everything boil down to simple financial considerations?

Public v. Mass Media (Mills) • Localized cultural practices • Horizontal power structure • Relatively equal ratio of leaders/followers • “Jack of all trades” • Global culture, with little individuation • Centralized power structures • Few leaders, many followers • Specialization and division of labour

Implications for Media Form • Mass media for mass audiences in mass societies • Quantity of eyeballs as basic economic force in private media markets • Mass media as central bonding experience • Mass media as centralized cultural control

Demassification • Rise of the postmodern / postindustrial / information age • Individuals and localized communities reemerge and gain in importance • Media as tools of creation and expression, not simply passive channels of reception • Examples? • Problems?

Cultural Studies • Analysis of media in context of use – producers, consumers alike • More about the complexity of interactions among stakeholders in particular contexts vs. precise measurement or investigation of global principles • Interesting stories, but are they generalizable? (not scientifically, but transferable, perhaps)

Sociotechnical Systems • Media as sociotechnical system - less cause/effect than mutual causation, driven by technical and social change • Emergence of industrial society and its effect on the shaping of communication forms • Radio as example – a potentially decentralized medium of production was rationalized into a mass medium

Future forecasting • Often the interest is not what’s now, but what’s next • Planning for future changes could lead to higher ROI on technical investment • Example: Productivity paradox in IT - early invesments in technology did not yield significant results – why? What changed? • Issues with forecasting?

McLuhan - Laws of Media • An attempt to find a universal dynamic of media change (!) • A bit of a departure from his more famous works which are broad (and sometimes rambling?) cultural studies approaches, and/or accessible pieces (e.g., Medium is the Massage w/Quentin Fiore) • Represented as tetrad - four intersecting simultaneous influences • Grouped into two forces - ground (historical/cultural convention) and figure (emergent forces/media)

Four Forces of Tetrad • Enhancement (positive change, amplification) • Retrieval (recovery of past forces – e.g., what’s old becomes new again) • Reversal (new or resurgent challenges jeopardizing new media – e.g., unintended consequences) • Obsolescence (erosion of older values/forces; e.g., what is made less relevant) • Again, all operate in concert simultaneously – one does not necessarily trump others

Examples of Tetrad Analysis • http://www.anthonyhempell.com/papers/tetrad/concept.html • Best way to learn this one is practice – take a medium and unpack it using the four elements

In-class assignment: Do a tetrad analysis • Pick a medium, any medium • What are the figure elements (enhancement/reversal)? • What are the ground elements (retrieval/obsolescence)?

Next week… • Media genre analysis

CCT300: Critical Analysis of Media