Week 2 Lecture Notes and Views (Friday Tutorial)

I mentioned in my last post a very brief description of the Week 2 Lecture of this course. In this post, I have my lecture notes of that week, and what I thought of them (my thoughts are in italics).

Media Theory

Communication Studies (USA)
*During WW1, there were thoughts and acts of trying to convince populations of something, like a trend.
eg. selling stuff through movies (guy wore singlet, singlet sales went up)
This was known as the "Bullet (Inoculation) Theory", which produces Maximum effects (1920s).

Marshall McLuhan
- thought that TV and other media had turned the world into a 'global village' (1960s).
He worked out the theory of rating how a media source 'grabs' an audience:
Cinema and radio = 'hot' media
TV and telephone = 'cool' media

My Thoughts:
This is a very uncomplicated way of looking at how the media can affect audiences. Using the old method of 'hot and cold', you can tell what types of media can be the most affective (or, the most influential).
'Hot' media refers to the type of media that you HAVE to listen to, such as a cinema or radio, because it's in the same room (or area, such as a car radio) as the audience. Also with cinema, if a product is in the movie, the audience would want to purchase that product (or something similar) in order to feel 'up with the times' or 'trendy'.
'Cold' media refers to the opposite of 'hot' media- you can change the channel on the TV when an advertisement comes on, or hang up when you recieve a call about advertisement (telemarketers, yuck!).


Media Studies (UK)
*It's interesting to think about how a culture is defined by its media.

Stanley Cohen
- analysed the 'competition' between the representitives within the media.

Stuart Hall
- pointed out the different processes of decoding the messages from the media
- the audience were the ones with the 'power' to decode these messages.

My Thoughts:
The 'competition' between the media representitives that Stanley Cohen had analysed is a very prominent feature amongst the technology and media giants today. Fighting for the limelight with every opportunity presented to them, advertisements for products or other media-worthy things is quite common- just look at how the current affair shows (A Current Affair (Channel 9) and Today Tonight (Seven Network)) fight it out on who seems to be the better candidate on how to present the problems people face in life, or handling major news.
Stuart Hall's theory of the audience being the one who has the 'power' to decode the messages that the media sources send them, is quite right. With the media, the audience has to decode which resources presented to them are considered to be reliable or not, a.k.a., which news story from each different Network is more reliable? And so on.

Culture Studies (Europe)

Walter Benjamin
- worked as a critique (1950s)
- produced kids' radio.

New Wave and the Future of Theory
*Quantitative and Qualative research

My Thoughts:
I have already covered the basics on what Quantitative and Qualitative research in a previous subject, so I will give the basic definitions here, just for reference sakes.
Quantitative research- The research method where it is based on statistics and numbers, in reference to a researched topic.
Qualitative research- The research method where it focuses on a more detailed and analysed view of the statistics researched. Like, why are there that many people on that one area? Etc.

I know that there is more, but this is what I have learnt from Week 2, and it has made me think about how technology has changed the media so that we are unable to escape from media advertisement, no matter how subtle.

The task for this week's tutorial is to talk about how technolgy has changed my life, and I know it has.
I definately have friends on the internet that I have never met in person- I've known some of them for over 3 years, and it's really amazing how we tell each other stories of our lives, yet we never actually see them in person and experience them ourselves. I do plan to visit them one day in the near future, but right now, as a poor Uni student, I'll have to stay in my home country for a little while longer. They are a not much different in comparison to the friends I see in person, due to me knowing them for as long as I have. We all have the same interests, and I talk to them through chat programs like MSN, just like the friends I see in person. I don't see my 'flesh and blood' friends as often as I would like, so I use MSN to communicate with them. The only major difference between these two categories of friends is I see one lot in the flesh, while the other lot live overseas and are too far away to see in person.
Mobile phones and my iPod have become a major part of my life, where I cannot leave the house without them, thinking of the excuses that my iPod could come in handy when I wait for a lecture or tute to start, or that my mobile is a link to all my friends that I cannot give up. I remember a time when I forgot my mobile, leaving it at home while I went to school. The whole day afterwards, I felt the feeling of loneliness and confusion, because I did not have my 'link' to my friends outside of school.
Technologies like these have definately become a major in my life, alongside the internet and my car's CD player.
What influenced me to start using these technologies in the first place? Sadly, it was me wanting to follow trends. I never had a mobile till I started Year 11- by that time, some people were on their 3rd or 4th mobile. Same goes with my iPod- I recieved mine when I was in Year 11 also, several months behind everyone else. Now, looking back, I was glad that I recieved a mobile and an MP3 player. Homework was never the same again without my listening to music; and I'm now able to communicate with friends who don't live as close to me as they used to.
So, yes, technology HAS become a major part of my life, and I would change along with the evolvements that can change technology, because that's what life is all about- adapting to the changes that can occur.