Media industries and audiences

Lecture 1

In the exam:
 Theories and concepts: main theoretical approaches and perspectives to the
study of mass mediated communication and in historical perspective

Today’s main messages:

1. Mass media are pervasive: influence many aspects of contemporary

society
2. The sociology of media involves seeing media as a social process
3. One key sociological concern is the tension between structural
constraint and human agency

I. Why media and communication theories?

 Theories enable to understand patterns in the media industry

 Babbie: a theory is a systematic explanation that relate to a particular
aspect of life
 Understand media is difficult= changes all the time
 We spend a lot of time using media: on an average a day we use it 8 hours
a day

II. Why media and communication theories?

 Media have become a dominant social institution in our society

 The mass media are a powerful socializing agent = media enables us to
understand each other, shared values
 There are many popular assumptions about the effects of media

III. Why a sociological perspective?

 Interested in what people do with media

 We don’t take things for granted= we see things as socially
constructive
 That means a media technology (spotify) can be socially constructive
 Because how it is used depends on different factors
 We look at all the different social actors that influence how it is developed
IV. Reflecting upon your choices (class

 Agency refers to independent actions, when you use uour own

autonomous decisions
 Structure: take into account economic perspective, all the constrains
 Often talk about constrains in human
 Structure and agency always work at the same time: there’s a tension
between both, influence each other
 Human agency: interview style, politicians behavior
 Structural constraints: ratings, conflict frame politician’s behavior
V. Producing talent is shaped by

 Human agency (individual style, taste)

 Structural constraints (economic pressure of safe bets)
 Structural constraints constituted by human agency (e.g finding the new
Amy Whinehouse)

 It’s a tug of war: two forces that pull in the opposite

direction

VI. A short history of the media

1. See slide
2. See slide
3. The advent of mass communication and mass media (refers to
media that operates on a large scale, to many people), it’s a one
way flow of content (content that goes from producers to
audiences)
=This starts to shift with the appearance of Internet: audience
starts to talk back (not a one way flow anymore)