MIT 1050: Week 1

Why Study Media?

How do we know what we know?
1. Social norms that we learn almost from birth.
a. For example: we aren’t aware of it at the time, but we are almost
immediately indoctrinated into a particular binary gender system. That is,
blue for boys, pink for girls. Media studies scholars might ask why, and what
role media messages play in making those distinctions appear natural or
commonsense.

Institutional State Apparatuses:

 Family, Church, School, Government, Legal System, Culture, Communication
 ISA’s are used to teach social norms
o Note: Culture and Communication are newly added; this is because when ISA’s
were invented technology didn’t exist to the level it does today. This so called
“new media” has profoundly changed political and social life and will continue to
do so.

Media:
 Circulates cultural commonsense, it tells us:
o Who is important
o What is important
o What people and groups are like?
o How we think and behave
o Who can do what

Video examples:
-Video depicts the sexist ways in which women are represented in the broadcast of Olympic
sporting events.
 Virginie Bouchard isn’t “interested in competing” because she poses for selfies with
toothpaste, or asking her to twirl after winning her match
 Suggesting that the female Olympic gymnastics competitors should “be shopping in a
mall right now.”
Bro appropriating – a discipline where a female athlete’s success is repackaged and
presented as a male one.
-Video discusses how Hollywood producers see women in comedy by turning it around.
-Video discusses the differences between how the media depicts white and blacks.
Media:
 Content – the things that we see, or hear, or play. They are primarily products of
cultural industries. Blogs might not always be products of cultural industries, although
most blogs are produced on platforms provided by a company for the purpose of
communication.
 Forms of media:
o Television – the content within television, not the actual TV.
o Blogs – online.
o Video Games – consoles and apps.
o Books – traditional and e-books.
o Newspapers – online and offline.
o Apps
o Recordings – streams, records, CD’s.
o Movies – in theaters, DVDs and streams.
o Social Networks – Instagram, Facebook, Tindr, Snapchat, TikTok, etc.
o Advertisements – online, print, billboards, everywhere.
o Magazines – online, print.
o ETC. – essentially, any content that communicates.

Mediums:
 Before the rise of digital technology, a medium was a physical object that played or
delivered content, for examples, television set, stereo, radio. Now, all of this media
content can be delivered on a range of objects. Media is software and a medium is
hardware, however this doesn’t work as well anymore because the internet is not a
physical object but it does carry content.
 Forms of mediums:
o Televisions – the thing on the wall, the physical TV.
o Internet – carries messages.
o Computers – laptop, desktop, phones, even watches.
o Audio Playback Equipment – wireless speakers, headphones, earbuds, etc.
o Game Consoles
o Streaming Services – Netflix, Disney, Spotify, Apple Music, etc.

The Media:
 Refers to companies that produce media, in common usage it is often used to signify the
professional news media, specifically the mainstream media but it can also be used to
signify television and film studios and so on.
 Entertainment Media:
o Film and Television Studios
o Technology Companies
o Music Industry
 o Content Providers
 News Media:
o Newspapers
o Magazines
o Television
o Websites