1st Test Review

The test covers all material covered in the lectures and readings from the beginning of the course
to the week of the test.

Disclaimer: this review is intended to serve as a supplement and aid to students’ own efforts at
studying for the test. While the instructor has tried to be as comprehensive as possible in
preparing the review, students would be well-advised to not rely exclusively upon it.

Media and Society

Readings:
1. Media and Communication in Canada, ch. 1 (“Defining the Field”)

Content:
• medium vs. mass media
• traditional/legacy media vs. new/digital media
• technological convergence
• corporate convergence
• telegraph → telephone/radio → television
• utopian vs. dystopian view of media development
• mathematical/transmission model vs. social model of communication
• mass communication/mass audience
• dimensions of mass media
• private/commercial vs. not-for-profit ownership
• the Broadcasting Act

History and Theory

Readings:
1. Media and Communication in Canada, ch. 2 (“Media: History and Social and Cultural
Forms”)

Content:
• meanings of culture
• political vs. economic vs. individual role of media
• two-step flow of communication
• the public sphere and news media/journalism vs. concentration of ownership
• the Internet/social media as public sphere
• the Renaissance → the Reformation → the Enlightenment/Industrial Revolution
• early newspapers vs. later newspapers
• objectivity vs. partisanship vs. "filter bubbles”
• libertarian theory vs. social responsibility theory vs. mass society thesis vs. political economy
• challenges facing Canadian media

Content and Meaning

Readings:
1. Media and Communication in Canada, ch. 3 (“Media Content: Studying the Making of
Meaning”)

Content:
• representation
• semiotics
• signifier vs. signified vs. sign vs. referent
• denotative vs. connotative
• meaning as natural/universal vs. intertextual/polysemic
• encoding vs. decoding
• factors influencing decoding
• dominant-hegemonic vs. oppositional vs. negotiated readings
• literary criticism/New Criticism
• structuralism/post-structuralism
• discourse analysis
• critical political economy
• content analysis
• genre/media analysis

Audiences

Readings:
1. Media and Communication in Canada, ch. 4 (“Perspectives on Media and Audiences”)

Content:
• ancient Greek vs. Roman vs. medieval audiences
• printing press → mediation
• modern audiences
• hypodermic needle/magic bullet theory
• agenda-setting theory
• cultivation analysis
• uses and gratifications research
• the Frankfurt School/critical theory
• high vs. low vs. mass culture
• the Birmingham School/British cultural studies
• Marxist analysis
• ideology/false consciousness
• feminist research
• the gaze
• reception analysis/fan studies
• audience measurement
• ratings
• broadcasting vs. narrowcasting
• audience fragmentation