AGENDA SETTING & FRAMING

Agenda setting is a theory brought up by McCombs and Shaw who believe that “the mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of items on their news agendas to the public agendas”. 

McCombs and Shaw say that we look to news professional for cues on where to focus our attention, “we judge as important what the media judge as important” (Griffin, 2009, p. 359).

According to Littlejohn(1996), there are two levels of agenda setting. The first level enacts the common subjects that are most important and the second level decides which parts of the subjects are important. From this, the media agenda will affect the public agenda which then will affect the policy agenda.

During our lecture about the theory, Chris had asked us to solve about a problem that country X is facing. The priorities are set to be on the government agenda and the public agenda.

Government agenda

Frame Amplification:  public spitting and urination are being focused on as unhealthy and could affect the economy

Frame Extension: a clean environment will help increase a healthy lifestyle

Frame Bridging: foreign companies would only invest if the government take actions on the public urinating and spitting and used the money and invest them for education and health purposes.

Public agenda

Frame Amplification: focus on the children’s education and its benefit

Frame Extension: Extend the need for children’s welfare and education which will help the economy in the future

Frame Bridging: developing more schools will help decrease the crime rate and gain investor confidence in the country

References:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. NewYork: The McGraw-Hill                Companies  

Littlejohn, S. W. (2002). Theories of Human Communication.(7th edition). New Mexico :         Wadsworth

MEDIA ECOLOGY

Media ecology as defined by McLuhan is “the study of different personal and social environments created by the use of different communication technologies” (Griffin, 2009, p. 313). Media ecology basically looks into how we are affected by the varieties of technologies presented to us.

According to Postman, “Its intention is to study the interaction between people and their communications technology. More particularly, media ecology looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling and value; and how our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival. The word ecology suggests the study of environments: their structure, content and impact on people in their daily lives” (Ott & Mack, 2010, p. 266).

The medium is the message

Medium refers to a particular type of media: a book, newspaper, radio, television, telephone, film, website or email (Griffin, 2009, p. 313).  The above statement is based on McLuhan’s theory of media ecology. All the while that we thought medium and message as two separate things, McLuhan saw them equally as one (same). We also tend to look pass the medium and only concentrate on the content to which McLuhan wrote, “For the ‘content’ of a medium is like a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind” (Griffin, 2009, p. 313). There wouldn’t be any content without medium and therefore the medium itself is the message.

Media ‘Hot’ and ‘Cold’

McLuhan (1997) distinguished the difference between a hot media and a cool media whereby hot media are low in participation whilst cool media requires high participation or completion by the audience.

For examples:

The image at the top is a Time’s magazine and it is a hot medium. According to McLuhan (1997), “A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in “high definition”. High definition is the state of being filled with data...hot media do not leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience” (pp. 22 - 23). Time’s magazine provides audience with data in the sort of articles and requires low participation from the audience which answers why it is a hot media.

Whereas the image at the bottom which shows a different coloured iPhones is an opposite of the hot media. These iPhones are considered as a cool medium because it requires a high participation from the audience. McLuhan (1997) stated that, “telephone is a cool medium, or one of low definition, because the ear is given a meagre amount of information. And speech is a cool medium of low definition, because so little is given and so much has to be filled in by the listener” (pp. 22-23).

References:

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).                           New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

McLuhan, M. (1997). Understanding media: the extensions of man.                   London: Routledge

Ott, B.L., & Mack, R.L. (2010). Critical media studies: an introduction.                  Retrieved from http://books.google.com.bn/books?                                    id=htwHHQJ4Sw0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&&f=false

SEMIOTICS

Semiotics, also known as semiology, is the study of signs and the social construction of its’ meaning which was initiated by a linguist named Ferdinand de Saussure (Branston & Stafford, 1996, p. 5).  Griffin (2009) defined semiotics as “the study of the social production of meaning from sign systems; the analysis of anything that can stand for something else.”

There are three types of sign: iconic, indexical and symbolic. Any sign we see has its’ own inseparable combination of signifier and signified. A signifier is the term for any sign in its’ physical form as we perceive it through our senses whereas a signified is the meaning associated with the sign (Griffin, 2009, p. 324).

“According to de Saussure, the process of signification is accomplished by two elements of the sign. He called the physical element (word, image, sound) the signifier and used the term signified to refer to the mental concept invoked by a physical sign in a given language code” (McQuail, 1994, p. 245)

Denotation as described by Barthes (1967) is the ‘first order of signification’ as it explains the connection between the signifier (physical aspect) and the signified (mental concept) of a sign. Whilst connotation is the ‘second order of signification’ as it refers to other related meaning which may be brought up by the object signified (McQuail, 1994, p. 246)

For example: 

The image above is a sign of a man hugging a woman from behind as well as two bottles of perfume. The denotation to this image is that a man wearing a black long sleeves shirt is standing behind a woman wearing a black tube, circling his left arm around the woman’s neck and his hand grasping the woman’s right arm which the woman extended to the back of his hair. The man is staring straight while kissing the woman’s right cheek whilst the woman is closing her eyes, parting her red lips with her head slightly tilted upward and her left hand with a ring on her finger touching the man’s left arm. In front of them are two squared bottles of perfume, the dark blue bottle on the left side and the dark purple bottle on the right side and between the bottles of perfume, at the very top is a 10 small letter word ‘intimately’, in the middle is a 7 capital letter word ‘BECKHAM’ and at the very bottom with a darker coloured font is a 5 capital letter word ‘NIGHT’.

The connotation to this image is that the man and the woman want to appear looking sophisticated, authoritative and powerful by wearing black and the black tube the woman is wearing represents sexiness as well as femininity. Their postures connote passion for sexual and intimate and somehow arousal as they are seen to be sniffing each other. Since there are two different coloured bottles of perfume, the blue coloured bottle connotes masculinity, coolness and calmness and so it is likely made for man whereas the purple coloured bottle connotes elegance, spirituality, mind and nerve calming and so the purple coloured bottle is likely made for woman. The word ‘intimately’ connotes personal and closeness whereas ‘BECKHAM’ connotes a surname of the famous English couple; a footballer named David Beckham and his singer turns fashion designer wife Victoria Beckham. 

References:

Branston, G. &Stafford, R. (2006). The Media Student's Book (4th ed.).                New York: Routledge.

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).                            New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

McQuail, D. (1994). Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction.                     Great Britain: The Cromwell Press Ltd.