The Between The Audience And The Media Consumed By Stuart Hall

Jenkins talks about how the consumption of media products is a collective process, in other words, the collective intelligence is seen as an alternative source of media power. He describes how within popular culture, the collective meaning making is shaping and changing the ways religion, education, laws, politics, advertising and how the military operate (4). Jenkins discusses a process called “convergence of modes”, he explains that media and communication are becoming interconnected like the telephone and television.

The article "Mind Over Mass Media" by Steven Pinker uses logos, ethos, pathos, and other rhetorical elements to effectively communicate that mass media is a positive development and is not a reason for panic. The first noticeable rhetorical element in Pinker’s essay is the presence of a rhetorical triangle. A rhetorical triangle is made up of a rhetor, the audience, and the rhetor’s purpose. In this essay Steven Pinker is the rhetor because is the one trying to make a point to the audience. The audience is the reader of the article who is listening to the rhetor. Finally, the text or point the rhetor is trying to make is that e effects of mass media are not a cause for panic. In fact mass media is an effective way for humans to keep up with the modern age. The clearly defined rhetorical triangle in Steven Pinker’s essay is a surface level example of rhetorical elements in the text.

Furthermore, the author dwells into mediated popular culture which pertains specifically to movies, TV, songs, and advertisements along with the way they communicate

When comprising an argument, the use of rhetorical strategies is essential to planning out how one presents both the chosen argument and the evidence for their position. To understand these strategies and how they are used allows for a deeper understanding of the argument and invokes critical thinking. For instance, in Journalist Joanmarie Kalter’s piece “Exposing Media Myths: TV doesn’t affect you as much as you think”. The author attempts to convince the reader that the notion, that TV is the number one source of information used today and therefore holds immense sway over the general public, is false. And because of how the rhetorical strategies are used in the article. She manages to get the reader to second guess the notion that TV holds

In Robert Scholes essay, “On Reading a Video Text” Scholes asserts that modern visual media or “video texts” provide a powerful vehicle for “cultural literacy.” By making use of “visual fascination” in mass media and in particular, commercials, these “video texts” use this part to bring viewers out of boredom and pique their interest. Following this, “narrativity” comes into play not only giving viewers the story but providing them with the ignition for their on context using their own cultural knowledge and experience on the commercial. The final step in the process is the ideological confirmation that is “cultural reinforcement,” the securing of one’s place in a body or group. With “video texts” more widely seen than traditional forms of

All throughout history we have used metaphors to describe people, places, events and emotions; so it is perfectly fitting to describe the mediums with which we project our ideas as a metaphor as well. This is Neil Postman 's basis for his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Television and other media outlets have conditioned us to accept entertainment in every aspect of life; but most of all it masks the state of public affairs and politics. Through his book, Postman begs that we recognize the ways in which media shapes our lives and how we can use them to serve us instead of hurt us. Broken into two parts, Amusing Ourselves to Death focuses on a historical analysis of media, then discusses the television media-metaphor in more detail. Postman examines how media has infected every aspect of public discourse by prizing entertainment as the standard of truth.

Assignment: As the documentary Miss Representation explains, “The media is now the message and the messenger.” Every day, we take in countless hours of media that influence how we view others and in turn how we view ourselves. It is our responsibility to consume media in an intelligent way AND fight back against negative messages put forth by the media.

Clive Thompson and Neil Postman are authors who discuss specific mediums through writing. Postman writes about the television and newspaper and Thompson writes about the internet age. Both of these authors use the same approach on their respected mediums. In comparison they both have the same piece of writing. Comparing side by side, it reveals a bigger idea that the communication medium always outweigh the cons.

Moats passage presented the reader with an interesting statement about decoding and its purpose. Decoding can refer to a conversion, analyzing, or interpreting. Moats focuses on the importance of a child’s ability to decode. It is stated that to further become an effective reader, understand the significance of words, appreciate reading, and be more likely to then expand one’s knowledge from reading one must practice decoding. Four key points that Moats demonstrates to be important are the alignment of decoding instruction with the stages of reading development, alignment of decoding instruction with the structure of the English language, teaching the code the way children learn it most easily and the current trend.

Postman (1987) claims that television is an evil that destroys the purpose and complexities of public discourse. He argues that important issues are oversimplified and drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Chaffee and Metzger (2001) confirm this assumption by remarking the evolution of print and radio into television and television into new media. Establishing the similarities between Postman’s chief complaints about the television medium and the new media then rearing its ugly head. Chaffee and Metzger indicate the shift in the denotations of mass, media, and communication. With technological advancements, it is impossible to ignore the new media and its impact on modern culture.

In Hall’s encoding and decoding model he argues that encoding and decoding the meaning of media is not a single-sided process but one shared by both the producers and the audience. The producers encode their preferred meaning into the media using frameworks of knowledge, relations of production, and technical infrastructure (Hall, 1997). Frameworks of knowledge are the producers’ beliefs and what they assume about the audience’s beliefs. Relations of production are the needs of the financial side of the industry. Technical

Four theorists are the contributing authors of the active research theory. These authors evolved the role audience play and their ability to actively engage with communication medians. The idea of deconstructionism was the focus of the work of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault during the 1960’s. Later in the twentieth century theorist Raymond Bauer developed The Obstinate Audience. In the early 1980’s a theorist by the name of Stuart Hall challenged the traditional theories of an audience role in the media and developed his encoding/decoding theory. Each contributed to the current understanding of the active role audiences engage in when information is presented.

Traditionally, mass-communication theorists and researchers have conceptualized the process of communication in terms of a circuit: production, distribution, and consumption (p. 51). Since the late 1940s, they have represented communication as a linear process: SENDER-MESSAGE-RECEIVER. I propose to re-think this model,

The book begins with Neil Postman describing how the way we communicate, whether it is orally or through written material, has an effect on how we interpret our world. He then goes more specifically into how television has changed our culture. Postman’s intention for writing this book is to “show that a great media-metaphor shift has taken place in America, with the result that the content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense”(16). There is no problem with television being used as a form of entertainment, but when entertainment takes over serious issues, it may become dangerous. I agree with this to some extent; I think that there are current events that need to be taken seriously, but some audiences may need that comic

Reading is an act of perception, analysis, and interpretation done by the reader to get the message to be conveyed by the author in media writing. According to Farr (in Dalman, 2013: 5) suggests that "Reading is the Heart of Education, the reading of reading comprehension is an essential prerequisite for mastery and enhancement of students' knowledge, so after reading the text the reader should be able to understand the text. First, give information, for example by reading newspapers and magazines, secondly, give entertainment, for example by reading a novel.The third one, most importantly reading can provide new knowledge.The book can provide understanding as well as entertaining and providing information.