Tag Archives: lectorial

Medium Theory!

According to Murphie and Potts, “Medium theory is a special type of media study that focuses on such characteristics of each medium and on how each medium (or each type of media) physically, socially, psychologically distinct from other media.” (2002). There are 3 metaphors for this – media as conduit (textual analysis), media as languages (affordances) and media as environments (medium analysis).

An interesting way of explaining it was also described as hot and cold media – hot being information fed right to your brain say via a book, and cold media being something like TV – background noise, people choose to tune in and out to it. I thought this explanation was interesting and fed into media communication theories a little – with ‘hot’ being like the Bullet theory (in which media has a direct and instant influence on audience’s opinions) and ‘cold’ like the Users and Gratification theory (in which media does not influence an individual, and people consume media for their own entertainment and needs).

Media Characteristics

In the lectorial yesterday we got to talking about different media platforms – or institutions – like Facebook, ABC and things like community media. So what characterises these mediums into institutional? Facebook’s main values are to connect people. It’s personalised and focuses on communication with friends and family, sharing, community and the entire thing is very inclusive. Someone even pointed out the fact that even it’s emails use inclusive and informal language with sentences like ‘we’ve missed you’.

ABC on the other hand, is much more formal. They’re neutral politically and culturally – and although they’re funded by the government they tend not to favour one political side over the other.

I don’t know much about community media – but from what I know it talks mostly about non-for-profit radio and magazines. It’s less hierarchal than normal radio and doesn’t have an agenda. It tends to capture a wider range of voices and is less driven by commercial interests. It’s also somewhat of a training ground for newcomers.

Collectivist

I made some notes about Media institutions from the lecture. They are ‘enduring’, have regulated and structured activities, develop working practices, the employees and people associated are expected to share values and the public is aware of the status. The word Brian used to describe these ‘shared values’ was that media institutions are collectivists – that is to say, each individual must reflect the values of the group as a whole. When I was thinking of examples of this, I got to remembering a few times in which people have publically been racist or homophobic and ‘doxed’ to the point of being fired from their job.

This happened quite frequently as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement – from at least what I’d been seeing on social media and news outlets (though news tended to favour white perspectives). I saw a few incredibly racist people being tracked down via the web for comments on their Twitters and Facebook’s that resulted in companies cut affiliations with them as they do not reflect the values of the firm. I think that’s a perfect example of ‘collectivist’ media institutions – or at least, the good side. The other example I can think of is when singers or bands cancel shows/performances in regions as a result of the place’s not LGBT+ friendly laws or regulations as a sort of protest.

Marriage as an institution

In the lecture yesterday Brian pulled up a photograph of a man and a woman, clearly on their wedding day and posed the question of Marriage as an institution. We then had a discussion with our peers about what marriage means to us, or what it generically symbolises. I thought this was an interesting idea, because the way media portrays the concept of marriage and the way it is reduced to things like a white dress and a black suit is often quite fair from the actual ‘sanctity’ of it. But I digress.

By talking about what marriage symbolises, especially with the rest of the class, helped get a sense of peoples’ perspectives. I think most people were pretty cynical, myself included and my friend even said “50 percent of marriages end in divorce” which sort of summed up the mood.

I wrote a few dot points down about what I was saying and what others were too. The most obvious is that it symbolises a union, a legal contract and monogamy. It has generations worth of rituals – like hen’s night and the rings and depending on the religion of the two individuals in question, a church. I think mostly though, it represents a very outdated social expectation and as someone said we are socialized to aspire to marriage as the ultimate relationship achievement. Whereas for many, marriage is just a legal contract and doesn’t consider things like gender and sexuality – rather it reinforces a gender conforming ideal of wife and husband. Don’t even get me started on the fact that Australia, among 174 other countries haven’t even legalized gay marriage yet.

Fandomonium!

In today’s lecture we got to touch on audience a little, which was good for me and my PB4 group because that’s the topic assigned to us. It was toward the end of the lecture, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it, but what Brian did say was quite useful. First off, we talked about what audiences are – active audiences being participants of media consumption, from fans and fandoms to ‘mass’ audience (though Brian assures us that term is a little outdated now).

I think the element of that demographic that stuck out for me the most was fans and fandoms – which I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider myself a fan of at least one Media platform (I am a teenage girl after all).

Fandoms interest me a lot, when I consider them from the outside rather than as just a subjective participant in one. There’s a lot of elements of fandoms that are like a sub-culture – a group of people with one common interest, who band together to create something unique and special to them. Fandoms host hoards of talent – from writers (fan-fictions) to artists (fan-art). Fandoms grow and develop together, from the very beginning of something – say a show pilot – to the very end. Some fandoms go on for years after something has become dormant, this is most true in the Harry Potter fandom, which continues to be a major online platform for millions of different people around the world.

Fandomania (puns, puns, puns!) is something that has struck probably everybody my age – you’d have to be truly embarrassed to say you don’t belong to a fandom. Because really, fandoms are everywhere – think about the 60’s and the Beatles – that was its own fandom minus the internet component. There are different levels of intensity of course, like, my mum watches Escape to the Country but that doesn’t mean she goes on her laptop to an online community to discuss the latest cottage shown on the show. No, the very depths of fandoms tend to be reserved for content aimed at teenagers and young adults – things like bands, One direction for example, and movie series’ like Marvel and DC.

I think Fandom culture is something very new and should be explored, especially in relation to media producers and audiences in this day and age.