Report on media and translation

By Hajiba Aberran
Translation and ccross-culturalcommunication
master program

This chapter examined the concepts of translation and media studies. It was not until the
1960s that translation received acknowledgment as an independent field of study. Since then,
the study of translation has evolved to cover many aspects and disciplines in different fields of
study. It moved from the linguistic view of translation as a series of word replacements into the
more complicated process of translation that involves knowledge of many other fields such as
sociology, culture, and history.

The chapter also highlighted the main theories and concepts that media studies revolve
around. Media studies involve the analysis of media messages, how they work together, and
how they affect society. Interested researchers in the field of media analyzed its messages in
terms of the content of the media message, how this content is presented, why is it presented,
and for whom and by whom. They arrived at forming basic concepts in media studies that are:
narrative, genre, representation, ideology, audience, and institution. This chapter also examined
the main theories of audience reception of a media message: the hypodermic needle, two-step
flow, uses and gratification, and reception theory. A glimpse of the Internet and its relation to
the media was also provided.

The media is a very powerful tool in today’s world. It plays a huge role in the
construction of modern societies’ belief systems and decides “the significance of things that
happen in the world for any given culture, society or social group” (Thornborrow, 2004:56).
Therefore, whatever is reported by the media is considered important, not necessarily for the
public but for the media institution. Media institutions are “those enduring regulatory and
organizing structures of any society which constrain and control individuals and
individuality...the term more precisely refers to the underlying principles and values according
to which many social and cultural practices are organized and coordinated" (O'Sullivan et al.,
1983, cited in Wilson, 2010). Since the media plays a vital role in shaping the values, ideas, and
belief system of a society, it could be a manipulative tool in favor of the media institution
Media studies involve “studies from theory, criticism, and debate about the media”
(Lusted, 1991:6).

This chapter reviews some of the main theories of translation studies that contributed to
the evolution of the field throughout the years. It also explores the key concepts of media studies
with a special focus on the Internet, given that the data used for analysis in this thesis were
obtained from the Internet.