1. Nature and Form of Mass Media
Definitions: Media; Mass Media; Communication; Globalisation; Ownership / Control

Basic types: Print, Electronic. Include Internet, E-Mail, Chatrooms as forms.

Ownership / Control: Basic historical trends / developments

Ownership patterns: Conglomeration and Concentration

Historical development of different media (print and electronic)

Social Change: Technological determinism / Cultural determinism; digital liberation / digital corporatism

Role of State: Ownership of media; control and regulation patterns. Examples from different societies (UK, USA, Chine, Iran)

Globalisation: Economic and political changes; the global village; time and space compression; cultural homogeneity (MacDonaldisation); Access to and control of information.

Socialisation and social control: Manipulation Theory; Hegemony; Cultural Pluralism.

Role of media in society: Functionalist, Marxist, Pluralist, Post-modern theories: Relate these to questions of ownership and control

Mass society / mass culture theories
2. Media Content:
The Selection and Presentation of "News": Instrumental and Hegemonic Marxist, Pluralist and Post-modernist theories (evidence for and against)

Political / ideological bias

News values (e.g. Immediacy, Cultural importance, Expectedness, Personalisation)

Agenda setting and agenda building

The role of professionals (examine ownership and control debate)

Representation of social groups: examine theories and evidence based around class, gender, ethnicity and age.

Representation of ideas (Marxist, Pluralist, Post-modern theories).
Stereotypes / scapegoating

Moral panics (and deviancy amplification)

Content analysis / semiology: uses and limitations, (basic understanding related to studying media: representations)
3. Media Audiences
Patterns of listening, viewing, reading: Basic trends considered in terms of class, gender, ethnicity and age.

Audience: Homogeneity / heterogeneity (differentiation)

Theories of media uses / effects:

Behaviourist (e.g. Hypodermic syringe)

Uses and gratifications;

Two-step flow;

Reception analysis;

Cultivation analysis;

Reinforcement theory;

Cultural effects.
4. Popular Culture and Identity
Definitions:

culture;

subculture;

high and low (popular) culture;

identity;

youth culture and subculture;

consumer culture;

production and consumption

Theories of youth culture / subculture:

Functionalist (e.g. Merton, A.Cohen, Miller)
Marxist (e.g. P.Cohen, Hall and Jefferson)
Interactionist (e.g. Matza, S.Cohen)
Feminist. (e.g. McRobbie)

Modernism (define essential economic, political and cultural features)

Post-modernism (define essential economic, political and cultural features)

Media saturation (Lyotard)

Hyper-reality (Baudrillard)

Fragmentation and diversity
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