SOC101Y

1. SOC101Y Introduction to Sociology Professor Robert Brym Lecture #7 The Mass Media 2 Nov 11

2. Percent Watching TV 15+ Hours per Week, Canada, 2007 Hours TV viewing rises with age • TV viewing varies by sex • 29.5% percent of men • watch TV 15+ hrs/wk • 28.9% of women watch • TV 15+ hrs/wk Age 20-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75+ • TV viewing falls with wealth and education • < 30% of population 15+hrs: PEI, ON, SK, AL, BC • 30-35% of population 15+ hrs: NL, NS, NB, QC, MB • >35% of population 15+ hrs: YT, NT, NU

3. Media Usage, USA, 2005 (hours per capita, projected) Number of hours in a year: 8,760. Number of hours in 365 eight-hour nights: 2,920 (33% of the total number of hours in a year). Number of hours per year the average American uses the mass media: 3,649 (42% of the total number of hours in a year; 63% of waking hours assuming eight hours of sleep per day). Increase since 1996 in number of hours per year the average American uses the mass media: 11%. Note: Time spent at live performances is only 0.3% of the total and is therefore not represented in the graph.

4. The mass media refer to print, radio, television, and other communication technologies. “Mass” implies that the media reach many people. “Media” signifies that communication does not take place directly through face-to-face interaction. Instead, technology intervenes or mediates in transmitting messages from senders to receivers. Furthermore, communication via the mass media is usually one-way, or at least one-sided. There are few senders (or producers) and many receivers (or audience members).

5. Facebook Default Privacy Settings, 2005 and 2010 Entire Internet All Facebook users Friends of friends Friends You

6. 1450 Printing press (Gutenberg) 1702 First daily newspaper (London Daily Courant) 1833 First mass circulation newspaper (New York Sun) 1837 Photography (Daguerre) 1840 Telegraphy (Morse) 1875 Telephone (Bell) 1895 Movies (Lumiére) 1906 Radio (Marconi, Tesla) 1941 Commercial TV 1948 Long playing records 1952 VCR 1961 Cable TV 1969 ARPANET (US Dep’t of Defense) 1975 Microcomputer (Apple) 1983 Cell phone 1989 World Wide Web (Berners-Lee)

7. Number of Internet Users Worldwide, 1996-2010 1996 40 million 2000 361 million 2010 1.97 billion

8. Internet Use by World Region, June 2007 Users (in percent) Penetration (in percent) World Africa Middle East Asia Latin America Europe Australia etc US/Canada

9. Why the Mass Media Grew • The Protestant Reformation promoted literacy. • Democratic movements promoted mass involvement. • Capitalist industrialization promoted the search for profit.

10. Theories of Media Effects • Functionalist (coordination, socialization, social control, entertainment) • Conflict (legitimation of injustice and inequality, source of profit) • Symbolic interactionist (audience interpretation) • Feminist (under- and misrepresentation of women and other minorities)

11. Canada’s Media Giants, 2007 CTVGlobeMedia (BCE and Thomson, Toronto, $4.3b/yr; CTV, Globe and Mail, TSN, major urban radio stations) Rogers (Rogers, Toronto, $3.9b/yr; cable TV, ISP, 29 radio stations, 62 magazines, Sportsnet, Blue Jays) CanWest Global(Asper, Winnipeg, $2.9b/yr; Global TV, National Post ,10 major urban dailies) Shaw (Shaw, Calgary, $2.8b/yr; Cable TV, ISP, 49 radio stations, etc.) CBC(public, Toronto, $1.6b/yr; CBC-TV, Radio-Canada) Quebecor (Péladeau, Montreal, $1.0b/yr; Sun newspapers, major Quebec newspapers, cable TV, etc.)

12. Global Media Giants, 2007 (rank and annual revenue) • Rank and name US $b • AOL Time Warner (U.S.) 46.5 • Disney (U.S.) 35.5 • Comcast (U.S.) 30.9 • Vivendi Universal (France) 29.6 • News Corp. (U.S./Australia) 28.7 • Bertelsmann (Germany) 25.7

13. Political Murder in the New York Times

14. High e.g., specific government and corporate policies The Relationship Between Centrality of Values and Diversity of Media Opinion Diversity of media opinion e.g., capitalism, democracy, consumerism Low Values

15. Audience Reaction to Pro-Choice TV Dramas • Pro-life women from all social classes think abortion is never justified and reject the mass media’s justifications for abortion. • Pro-choice working-class women who think of themselves as members of the working class adopt a pro-choice stand as a survival strategy, not on principle. • Pro-choice working-class women who aspire to middle-class status distance themselves from the “reckless” members of their own class who sought abortions on the TV shows. • Pro-choice middle-class women believe that only an individual woman’s feelings can determine whether abortion is right or wrong in her own case.

16. Occupations in Prime Time TV by Gender and Race, USA, 2003-04 Percent Criminals by Race/Ethnicity Top Ten Occupations by Gender Percent Sex Race/Ethnicity

17. Summary of the Four Theories • Functionalism identifies the main social effects of the mass media: coordination, socialization, social control, and entertainment. By performing these functions, the mass media help make social order possible. • Conflict theory offers a qualification. As vast moneymaking machines controlled by a small group of increasingly wealthy people, the mass media contribute to economic inequality and maintaining the core values of a stratified social order. • Interpretive approaches offer a second qualification: audience members filter, interpret, resist, and sometimes reject media messages according to our own interests and values. • Feminist approaches offer a third qualification. They highlight the misrepresentation of women and members of racial minorities in the mass media.