12. Conclusion: From Movies and Conduct
By: Herbert Blumer
The purpose of chapter twelve is
to explain the impact movies have on people’s lives.
·
Motion pictures
usually serve as a source of imitations on beauty, mannerisms, and
relationships.
·
Motion pictures
are influential in mind and control of adolescence they often serve a teacher
on how life is suppose to be.
o Adolescences view movies as a world they would like
to experience, provides direction and focus to desires and ambitions.
·
Motion pictures
are created as a form of art that is used to provoke emotion through horror,
excitement, romance, adventure, and etc.
13. The Integration of Communication
By: Malcolm M. Willey and Stuart A. Rice
Chapter thirteen explains the
way mass communication delivery constantly changes through innovation.
·
Communication is
distribute through print (books) and non print (phonograph, speeches, and
music)
·
Constant
improvement of the way communication is distributed for example: buses
competing with street cars, newspapers vs radio, and etc.
·
There are two
contradictions: Reinforcements of community patterns with the increase
communication from mass communication innovations on attitudes and behaviors
with the local community. (local mail, transportation, telephone, and newspapers)
·
Standardization
over wider national and international regions
14. "Toward a Critique
of Negro Music" by Alain Locke
In
this excerpt, Locke uses a critical eye to examine the state of African
American music within the larger American cultural context.
·
African Americans are victims of two "vicious
extremes": (98)
- uncritical praise
- calculated disparagement
- Their music suffers from "the bitter tonic of criticism...or the soothing syrups of flattery." (99)
- The Negro musical genius has been subjected to "commercial control, cheap imitation, and easy plagiarism." (100)
- Uses the "labored fusions" of Carpenter, Gruenberg, Gershwin, and Grofe as examples
15. From "Technics and
Civilization" by Lewis Mumford
Mumford discusses how new communication technologies have
altered our view of the world, namely how we see ourselves in a
constantly-connected world.
- New communication technologies have bridged the gap between time and space; communication is now quicker than ever and the distance between two people is less of a barrier to communication
- However, "men tend to be more socialized at a distance" Ex: Instead of making a dozen five-minute telephone calls, it would be more efficient just to leave a note for people to read and understand.
- The danger is that, now that we have these new communication technologies, we'll use them even when the occasion calls for a more antiquated type of communication, like writing
- This connectedness has an effect on our personal lives: p. 105's example of the man alone in the wilderness who still thinks of himself as "being watched."
16. The Business Nobody Knows by Rorty
In this essay, Rorty discusses
"the business nobody knows" - advertising. He says people often
mistake "a function of the thing for the thing insult" - in advertising's
case, he refers to the business of preparing and placing ads.
·
Publishers of
newspapers and magazines should call their enterprises "advertising
business" because they must "serve the profit interests of the
advertisers who employ and pay them." (107)
·
Advertising
shapes the economic, social, moral and ethical patterns into "conformity
with the profit-making interests of advertisers." (107)
·
"Mass
advertising perverts the integrity of the editor-reader relationship essential
to the concept of democracy." (108)
17. The Influence of Radio upon Mental and Social Life by Cantril and
Allport
This essay explores the benefits
of radio over other forms of communication. The main argument is that radio
contributes to democracy.
·
Radio has made
communication faster and cheaper and has made the world even smaller by
reaching a large population of people. "The clamor for higher standards of
living has been increased through more widely disseminated knowledge of the
world's goods." (111)
·
Radio is a
powerful tool of democracy:
o Social distinctions are abolished and there is a
consciousness of equality and commonality with a personal appeal. (111)
o Encourages people to think and feel alike.
Broadcasters have to appeal to the greatest number of people, so they aim at
the average intelligence, middle class and avoids controversy. (111) One must
take sides and "everything tends to be categorical." (113)
o "Equalizes the opportunity of enjoying art,
education and entertainment, and at the same time makes their level everywhere
the same." Radio can level up or level down someone's cultural outlook.
(112)
·
While "the
effort required to overcome the distraction [of a radio] may actually enhance
concentration on the task at hand [like studying], the cost is strain and
fatigue. (114)
·
Radio is
"improving the capacity of the average man to listen intelligently to what
he hears." (114)
18. Foreword From Public Opinion Quarterly (1937)
Editors, Public Opinion Quarterly
In
this foreword for the magazine’s first issue, the editors discuss how the
improvement of communication has enabled mass public opinion to become a force
determining political and economic action. Government agencies, institutions
and businesses must now divert resources to advertising and public relations.
·
Mass media especially radio and the motion pictures raises
the problems of private editorship and governmental control. (p. 117)
·
The Public
Opinion Quarterly proposes to be the clearinghouse on the phenomena of
public opinion, as well as promote and direct scientific research. (p. 177)
19. Human Interest Stories
and Democracy From Public Opinion
Quarterly (1937)
Helen MacGill
Hughes
News
began to be written more simply and in the form of personal stories for the
benefit of the uneducated. This often dramatic approach allowed a broader
audience to personally connect with the news. Adjusting the telling
of the news in order to be inclusive fostered a free society.
·
By changing the vocabulary in their stories, writers could
tell the same story but in a way that the uneducated could understand and enjoy
it. (p. 119)
·
The newspapers communicated through the familiar, eventually
introducing unknown elements thus exposing the uneducated to a broader view of
the world.
(p. 121)
(p. 121)
·
Different classes had the same exposure to the news. (p.122)
20.
From The Fine Art of Propaganda (1939)
Alfred McClung Lee and Elizabeth Briant Lee
critically evaluate radio orator Charles Coughlin, who view these
anti-democratic radio personalities are dangerous. They argue that propaganda
has moved to an instrument of aggression (p. 125).
·
People
need to learn how to analyze propaganda.
o
Some
propaganda is in own interest and some threaten and distort our views.
·
Propaganda
is an opinion that serves the purpose of influencing individuals and groups.
·
There are
seven ABC’s of propaganda
o
Ascertain
(conflict element)
o
Behold
(own reaction to conflict)
o
Concern
(today’s propaganda and conflict)
o
Evaluate
(your own propaganda)
o
Find the
Facts (before coming to conclusions)
o
Guard
(always fight omnibus words
·
Define
democracy using political, economic, social, and religious.
21.
A Powerful, Bold, and Unmeasurable Party? From The Pulse of Democracy (1940)
George H. Gallup and Saul Forbes Rae argue that the
true voice of the people is heard through public opinions polls.
·
Surveys
enable people to speak for themselves (p.129).
o
Public
opinion thus must be measured.
·
People
should be able to voice their opinion rather than be dominated by a small
clique.
·
Considers
public opinion as a pulse of democracy.
o
Which is
constant thought and action of citizen.
22. Democracy in Reverse: From Public Opinion
Quarterly (1940)
By: Robert S. Lynd
In this excerpt, Lynd questions
the value of public opinion polls
- Public Opinion polls are performing an important service, to science as well as to practical affairs.
- Current public opinion polls take over naively the assumptions about human nature and about democracy.
- “majority” becomes “right”
- Issues cannot be solved simply by people’s taking positions “for” or “against” them and then totaling up “the truth”.
- The central issue this generation faces is the change-over from laissez faire individualism to the centralized coordination of complex things important to the living of the mass of the people.
- The danger of public opinion polls is in their eagerness to be “objective”
23. Needed Research in Communication: From the
Rockefeller Archives (1940)
By: Lyman Bryson, Lloyd A. Free, Geoffrey Gorer,
Harold D. Lasswell, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Robert S. Lynd, John Marshall, Charles
A. Siepmann, Donald Slesinger, and Douglas Waples
This excerpt conveys the
urgent mission envisioned for communication research.
- The memorandum proceeds from two assumptions
- Events are obliging the central government to take on wider and wider responsibility for the welfare of the people
o
If the exercise of the responsibility is to be
democratic, more effective ways of keeping the government and the people in
communication with each other will have be created.
- If the government and the people are to keep in touch, more effective ways of communicating will have to be created.
- Thesis of this memorandum
o
Research will be essential to make communication a
two-way process.
o
Research will be essential to report how the people
feel themselves affected by proposals or decisions thus explained.
24. On Borrowed Experience: An Analysis of Listening to Daytime Sketches
By: Herta Herzog
Chapter twenty-four describes
why people choices certain radio daytime sketches to listen to and the impact
the sketches how in their lives.
·
The radio
programs were chosen based on the listener’s life problems
·
Listening to the
sketches: offers an emotional release, allows the individual to wishfully
remodeling their life while doing one’s chores, and listening provides an
ideology and adjustment
·
Applying the
story lines to their lives
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