Media studies is an academic discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of the mass media. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but it mostly draws from its core disciplines of mass communication, communication, communication sciences, and communication studies.
Researchers may also develop and employ theories and methods from disciplines. There are many different areas of disciplines that are involved in the study of media coming from culture, psychology, politics, and the economy. These include cultural studies, rhetoric (including digital rhetoric), philosophy, literary theory, psychology, political science, political economy, economics, sociology, anthropology, social theory, art history and criticism, film theory, and information theory.
Origin
Former priest and American educator John Culkin was one of the earliest advocates for implementing a media studies curriculum in schools. He believed students should be capable of scrutinizing mass media, and valued the application of modern communication techniques within the education system. Culkin wanted to study the effect of media on young students, highlighting how much more time they spent watching various television programs than studying. He shared how there was a significant cultural gap between those who had grown up in the “electronic age”, which included television. Older generations were more used to analog style media. Culkin is also credited with advising creators of the television show “Sesame Street”, due to his insights on how media could potentially affect children. In 1975, Culkin introduced the first media studies M.A. program in the U.S, which has since graduated more than 2,000 students. Culkin was also responsible for bringing his colleague and fellow media scholar Marshall McLuhan to Fordham University and, subsequently, for founding the Center for Understanding Media, which became the New School program. The Center for Understanding Media is credited with introducing students to the subject area of communication, education, and the arts. The course work included conducting research and carrying out various projects within these subjects. Both educators are recognized as pioneers in the discipline, credited with paving the way for media studies curriculum within the education system.
Global contributions and perspectives on media studies
Canada In his book "Understanding Media, The Extensions of Man", media theorist Marshall McLuhan suggested that "the medium is the message", and that all human artefacts and technologies are media. His book introduced the usage of terms such as "media" into our language, along with other precepts, among them "global village" and "Age of Information". A medium is anything that mediates our interaction with the world or other humans. McLuhan wanted to investigate how media shaped people within society, drawing from examples in the past and present, as well as potential implications for the future. Given this perspective, media studies are not restricted to just media of communication but all forms of technology. Media and their users form an ecosystem, and the study of this ecosystem is known as media ecology. Media ecology also holds that our environment ultimately changes as a result of technology. Griffin, Ledbetter, and Sparks elaborate on this theory in their book, stating "...adding smartphones to a family doesn't create a 'family plus smartphones.' The technology changes the family into something different than what it was before."
McLuhan says that the "technique of fragmentation that is the essence of machine technology" shaped the restructuring of human work and association, and that "the essence of automation technology is the opposite". He uses an example of the electric light to make this connection and to explain how "the medium is the message". The electric light is pure information, a medium without a message unless it is used to spell out a verbal ad or a name. A characteristic of all media is that the "content" of any medium is always another medium. For example, the content of writing is speech, the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph. The change that the medium or technology introduces into human affairs is the "message". If the electric light is used for a Friday night football game or to light up a desk, it could be argued that the content of the electric light is these activities. The fact that it is the medium that shapes and controls the form of human association and action makes it the message. The electric light is overlooked as a medium of communication because it lacks content. It is not until the electric light is used to spell a brand name that it is recognized as a medium. Like radio and other mass media, electric light eliminates time and space constraints in human association, fostering deeper involvement. McLuhan compared the "content" to a juicy piece of meat being carried by a burglar to distract the "watchdog of the mind". The effect of the medium is made stronger because it is given another media "content". The content of a movie is a book, play, or maybe even an opera. At first, McLuhan was ostracized and misunderstood by his academic peers for his radical commentary on media, but praised by artists, businesspeople, and the youth. His findings within this area helped guide many industries including marketing, psychology, and management, as he shared how media has the power to activate all five senses.
McLuhan discusses media as "hot" or "cold" and touches on the principle that distinguishes them. A hot medium (i.e., radio or a movie) extends a single sense in "high definition". High definition refers to the state of being well-filled with data. A cool medium (e.g., a telephone or television) is considered "low definition" because it provides only a small amount of information and leaves much to be filled in. Hot media are low in participation, because they give one most of the information while excluding certain information. Meanwhile, cool media are high in participation because they inclusively provide information but rely on the viewer to fill in the blanks. McLuhan’s analysis of the 1960 presidential election changed how presidential campaigns were conducted, even today. For example, people who tuned into the radio ( a “cool medium”) were not as moved by campaign speeches as opposed to people who viewed them through the television ( a “hot medium”). McLuhan used lecturing as an example of hot media and seminars as an example of low media. Using a hot medium in a hot or cool culture makes a difference.
In his book, Empire and Communications, University of Toronto professor Harold Innis highlighted media technologies as a powerful contributor to the rise and collapse of empires. Innis' theory of media bias utilizes historical evidence to argue that a medium will be biased towards either time or space. He claims that this inherent bias will reveal a medium's significance to the development of its civilization. Innis identifies media biased towards time as a medium durable in character like clay, stone, or parchment. Time-biased media are heavy and difficult to relocate, which keeps their message centralized and thus maintains economic and social control within the hands of a hierarchical authority structure. He defines media in favor of space as a lighter, more transferable medium like papyrus. Opposite to media in favor of time, Innis explains that the transferable quality of media biased towards space permits civilizations to expand more quickly across vast areas, thus benefiting the growth of sectors like trade. Space biased media influences an empire to decentralize its power and widen its reach of influence. Though these biases compete with each other, Innis argued that an empire requires the presence of both time and space-biased media to succeed as a lasting civilization.
France One prominent French media critic is the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who wrote books like On Television (New Press, 1999). Bourdieu asserts that television provides far less autonomy (or freedom) than we think. From his perspective, the market (which creates a hunt for higher advertising revenue) not only imposes uniformity and banality but also necessitates a form of invisible censorship. For example, television producers often "pre-interview" participants in news and public affairs programs to ensure that they will speak in simple, attention-grabbing terms. When the search for viewers leads to an emphasis on the sensational and the spectacular, people with complex or nuanced views are not allowed a hearing.Cass R. Sunstein, New York Times, Television, a French sociologist explains, dumbs itself down, August 2, 1998.
Bourdieu is also remembered in the discipline for his theory of the habitus. In his work Outline of a Theory of Practice (Bourdieu, 1977), Bourdieu claims that an audience's media preferences are shaped by their social context. How an individual interprets and engages with their surroundings, or their habitus, is defined by the lasting and transferable elements of character that structure their consumer preferences. Bourdieu explains that, though durable, the habitus is not set in stone; it instead acts as a "strategy-generating principle" allowing individuals to navigate new and unfamiliar situations.
Bourdieu expanded on the theory of the habitus, introducing his famous term, cultural capital. According to the French sociologist, cultural capital signifies an individual's socially or culturally valuable skills and knowledge. He claims that these competencies are developed through one's upbringing and access to education resources, and can be unconsciously shaped by their social environment. Bourdieu highlights this accumulation of competencies as a determining factor in one's life chances. One's cultural capital, such as a university degree, can lead to more opportunities, thus linking the concept to both economic and social capital. Bourdieu explains that it is through the content of the different capitals that the habitus will structure an individual's consumer taste.
Germany In Germany, two main branches of media theory or media studies can be identified.
The first major branch of media theory has its roots in the humanities and cultural studies, such as film studies ("Filmwissenschaft"), theater studies ("Theaterwissenschaft"), German language and literature studies ("Germanistik"), and Comparative Literature Studies ("Komparatistik"). This branch has broadened substantially since the 1990s, leading to the development and establishment of culturally based media studies (often emphasized more recently under the disciplinary title Medienkulturwissenschaft) in Germany.