Lecture Four

The Mass Media and Society

2nd December

1. Characteristics of new digital media

2. Definition of and critical look at the mass media

3. Relationship between art and mass media

1. 'Late age of print'

- Term came from media theorist Marshall Mcluhan

- Age of print began around 1450

- Gutenberg's printing press fundamentally changed the world - created better communication

The role of the reader

- The electronic book - is it 'democratic'?

- reader takes on the role of the author

- new technologies gives reader more power - pushing theory forward

Computer Media

- The way we read has changed because of:-

hypertext

hypermedia - many media pictures, sounds etc

ables you to 'surf'' through knowledge

reading becomes more fun

- Often important information is missed as we skip through what we believe to be irrelevant - leads us to believe that we know all information

- Lost in information

2. Definition of mass media

- Modern systems of communication and distribution supplied by relatively small groups of cultural producers, but directed towards large numbers of consumers

Thinking critically about the mass media

- Negative

1- superficial, uncritical, trivia

2- viewing figure measure success

3- audience is dispersed

4- audience is disempowered

5- encourages the stats quo (its conservative)

6- encourages apathy

7- power held by the few motivated by profit or social control

8- bland, escapist and standardised

9- encourages escapism, seen as a drug which anaesthesises us

- Positive

1- not all mass media is low quality

2- social problems and injustices are discussed by the media

3- creativity can be a feature of mass media

4- transmission of high ad material

5- democratic potential

Artists use of mass media

- John A. Walker, art in the age of mass media

Key questions

Can art be autonomous (exists on its own in a vacuum)?

and

Should art be autonomous?

- Jackson Pollock

No social commentary

No represential meaning

Designed to be just a painting

'Elitest' art

- Thomas Crow, Modern art in the common culture

- Tony Abruzzo

- Warhol

Green coca-cola bottles (1962) - 'i consume therefore i am' consumer existence
Marilyns (1962) - uses 'anti art' colours, shown as mask like representation - opposite to true life where in fact she was a depressant drug addict.


-Repition of images in mass media desensitises us
- 'High and Low Culture' (high art and low art)
- When artists work is used in mass media it often benefits both sides - artis benefits from media etc (such as pears soap ad)
- Myra Hindley Painting (Marcus Hardy) caused high media histeria - painting possibly so famous because of mass media. Without the mass media she would have been forgotton like so many other criminals

Conclusions
1. New media is changing the way we consume and read text and images
2. Theorists of the mass media have different viewpoints seeing it either as
a) negative and a threat
OR
b) positive, pleasurable and democratic