Media Theory

Media research attracted scholars from the humanities and from the social sciences. Important theories in literature, sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, among others, have guided communication scholars. As the 1980s drew to a close, greater social dependent on media and greater understandings of communication processes encourage the development of better integrated and more unified approaches to Media research, that is, communication science or culture-centered paradigm or communication science and culture-centered paradigm (Baran and Davis 349, 367).

Communication Science

Communication science, also called mainstream mass communication theory, was eventually defined in the late 1980s by researchers who sought to eliminate unfruitful fragmentation and to provide a defining core philosophy for the scientific study of all forms of communication. It is an effort to be inclusive rather than to be exclusive, to reject obsolete assumptions of the limited effects paradigm, and to unify all empirical researchers in the field of communication (Baran and Davis 344, 355, 359).

According to Charles Berger and Steven Chafee in Handbook of Communication Science:

Communication science seeks to understand the production, processing, and effects of symbols and signal systems by developing testable theories containing lawful generalizations that explain phenomena associated with production, processing, and effects. This definition is sufficiently general to embrace various communication contexts, including the production, processing, or effects of symbol or signal systems, including nonverbal, in interpersonal, organizational, mass, political, instructional, or other context (qtd. in Baran and Davis 355).

Communication science excludes culture-centered theories, despite their claims to inclusiveness, because they do not meet the criteria of scientific research – theories should explain phenomena and should consist of lawful generalizations that are testable using empirical research methods (Baran and Davis 355).

In 1987, Berger and Chaffee suggested a communication science based on the four levels of communication analysis: intraindividual, interpersonal, organizational, and macroscopic. On the other hand, Susan Pingree, John Wiemann, and Robert Hawkins suggested a communication science based on the two stages in the communication processes: antecedents of communication, which involve the study of abilities, situations, orientations, personality traits, among others, that lead to communication behaviors; and consequences of communication, which involve the study of the results or outcomes of communication and of the results of necessary characteristics of communication, strengths of effects, and mechanism of effects (Baran and Davis 356, 359, 367, 369).

Limited Effects Perspective

Communication science adheres to the many definitions of social research initially formulated by Paul Lazarsfeld, who developed the limited effects perspective with the assumptions that (1) mass media’s role in the lives of individuals is limited, but it can be very dysfunctional for some types of people; (2) empirical social research methods can be used to generate theory through an inductive research process; (3) the role of the mass media in society is quite limited; media primarily reinforce existing social trends and only rarely initiate social change; and (4) when media are responsible for social change, these changes are often dysfunctional; they disrupt a stable and benign social order and his contemporaries (Baran and Davis 13, 179, 355).

The limited effects perspective may have gained popularity partly because it provided a comforting answer to the questions that troubled social elites throughout the 1930s. When propaganda threatened to subvert democracy, limited effects theory argued that most people could not be directly reached and influenced by facts, not on a speculative notions about the subversive power of the propaganda or how the media might corrupt culture (Baran and Davis 123).

Culture-Centered Paradigm

Cultural analysis, also called American cultural studies, are less concerned with the long-term consequences of media for the social order and are more concerned with looking at how media affect our individual lives. Critical cultural studies, also called British cultural studies, are less concerned with developing detailed explanations of how individuals are influenced by media and are more concerned with how the social order as a whole is affected (Baran and Davis 282, 285).

Cultural Analysis Theories

Some of the most influential cultural analysis theories are cultivation analysis, symbolic interactionism, framing and frame analysis, and social construction of reality. These theories examine the role of media in our culture and assumed that media have influence through the role that they play in shaping everyday life culture (Baran and Davis 279).

Cultivation Analysis

Cultivation analysis, developed by George Gerbner, addresses macroscopic questions about the role of media in society. Unlike, other cultural analysis and critical cultural studies theories, it attempted to use traditional social scientific research methods to evaluate its assertions and to examine very large-scale humanistic questions. Though cultural analysis theories are apolitical, cultivation analysis tried to influence social policy. Cultivation analysis represents a hybrid theory that combines cultural analysis and critical cultural studies and that combine communication science and the culture-centered paradigm (Baran and Davis 302, 305).

According to Gerbner, television “cultivates” a worldview that, although possibly inaccurate, becomes the reality because we believe it to be the reality and we base our judgments about our own, everyday world on that “reality.” Gerbner also argued that although the effects of television are observable and measurable, independent effects on the culture at any point in time might be small, that impact was, nonetheless, present and significant. The impact of television on our collective sense of reality is real and important, even though that effect may be beyond clear-cut scientific measurement, may defy easy observation, and may be inextricably bound to other factors in the culture (Baran and Davis 303, 305).

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism, also called social behaviorism, was coined by Herbert Blumer and was developed during the 1920s and the 1930s as a reaction and criticism to stimulus-response theory. Symbolic interactionism posits that our actions in response to symbols are mediated and controlled largely by those same symbols. A person’s understanding of and relation to his or her physical or objective reality is mediated by the symbolic environment – the mind, the self, and the society that we have internalized. The meaning we give to signs and symbols define us and the realities that we experience. As we are socialized, culturally agreed upon meanings assume control over our interactions with our environments (Baran and Davis 286, 289).

Framing and Frame Analysis

Framing and frame analysis, introduced by Ervin Goffman in 1974, provides a systematic account of how we use expectations to make sense of everyday life situations and the people in them. According to Goffman, we radically and constantly change the way we define actions, situations, and other persons as we move through time and space. Goffman argued that we do not operate with a fixed or limited set of expectations about social roles, objects, or situations because we have enormous flexibility in using and creating expectations. Goffman also implied that social cues learned from using media could be used to mark the boundaries of social worlds in everyday life (Baran and Davis 298-299).

Goffman used the term frame to refer to a specific set of expectations that are used to make sense of a social situation at a given point in time. According to Goffman, individual frames are like notes on a musical scale – they spread along a continuum from those that structure our most serious and socially significant actions to those that structure trivial and playful actions. We learn how to frame serious actions by first learning frames for playful actions (Baran and Davis 299).

Goffman’s theory provides an intriguing way of assessing how media can reinforce and elaborate a dominant public culture. (Baran and Davis 301).

Social Construction of Reality

Social construction of reality assumes that our experience of reality is an ongoing social construction, not something that is only sent, delivered, or otherwise transmitted to a docile public by some authority of elite. This assumption contrasts with mass society theory, which envisioned vast populations living in nightmare realities dominated by demagogues, and limited effects paradigm, which focused on the effective transmission of ideas and information from dominant sources to passive receivers (Baran and Davis 291).

It implied the active audience assumptions where the audience does not just passively take in and store bits of information in mental filing cabinets; they actively process information, reshape it, and store only what serves culturally defined need (Baran and Davis 291).

Critical Cultural Studies Theories

Critical cultural studies have emerged as an important and alternative perspective on the role of media in society. It has its roots in Marxist theory but has been influenced by other perspectives including textual analysis and literary criticism. It argues that mass media could and should be used to guide and to implement constructive social change. Media are typically thought, however, to support the status quo and to interfere with the efforts of social movements to bring about useful social change (Baran and Davis 338).

Unlike other theories, critical cultural studies are explicitly based on a set of social values. These values are use to critique existing social practices and institutions that undermine or marginalize important values. Alternatives to these practices and institutions are offered. In some cases, other critical cultural studies theories are develop to guide useful social change (Baran and Davis 339).

Critical cultural studies view exiting mass media as a cultural industry, one concerned with the manufacture and distribution of cultural commodities. This industry is highly constrained in what it does because profits must be earned if the media are to grow and to survive. Cultural commodities consist of bits of everyday life culture that are lifted out of context, repackaged, and then marketed as news and entertainment. Repackaging typically involves considerable distortion, which in turn fosters many misimpressions about personal identities and the larger social world. Often, these misimpressions provide support for the status quo. Criticism has entered on advertising and political communication. Advertising is said to create unnecessary needs while political communication intrudes into and disrupts politics. Entertainment content distorts our perspective on ourselves and on the social world (Baran and Davis 339).

Unlike earlier schools of Marxist theory, most critical cultural studies theories reject the view that mass media are totally under the control of dominant and well-organized elites who cynically manipulate media content in their own interest. Instead, media are viewed as a public forum in which many groups and people are able to participate. However, elites are seen as enjoying many advantages. Most media content is found to sustain and to support the status quo – even, perhaps especially, when it is under stress or breaking down. Also critical cultural studies theories reject simplistic notions of audience effects like those in mass society theory. Even when media content explicitly supports the status quo, audiences may reject or understand this content. Audience members have been found to engage in oppositional decoding of media content, arriving at interpretations that differ markedly from those intended by message producers (Baran and Davis 339).

Current media research has begun to converge on a common set of issues and themes. These are shared by many qualitative and quantitative researchers. Critical cultural studies have played an important role in identifying themes and prioritizing issues. Despite the serious questions that have been raised about the value of this approach, it has proven heuristic. This has occurred even though all too often this research is densely written using arcane neomarxist terminology. Critical cultural studies theorists make bold assertions and explicitly incorporate values into their work. They provide a useful challenge to mainstream mass communication theory (Baran and Davis 339).

Marxist Theory

Marxist theory, developed by Karl Marx in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, is another version of mass society theory, which was developed by revolutionaries who wanted to impose radical changes and by monarchists who wanted to restore old political order, but with important additions and alterations. Marx identified urbanization and industrialization as problems but argued that these changes were not inherently bad. Instead, he blamed capitalists for exacerbating social problems because they maximize personal profits by exploiting workers. Although mass society theorists demanded the restoration of the old order, Marx called for the creation of an entirely new social order where all social classes would be abolished. The workers would rise against the capitalist and demand and end to exploitation. They would band together to create an egalitarian, democratic social order (Baran and Davis 11, 317-318).

Neomarxist Theory

Neomarxist theories deviate from classic Marxist theory because it focused concern on the superstructure issues of culture and ideology rather than on the base. Neomarxist theorists assume that useful change can begin with peaceful and ideological reform rather than violent revolution. Some neomarxist theorists have developed critiques of culture that call for modest reforms while others call for radically transforming the superstructure (Baran and Davis 318).

Frankfurt School

Modern cultural critical theories have two different sources, neomarxist theory and humanist approaches. In the 1930s, one of the prominent schools of neomarxist theory was developed at the University of Frankfurt and became known as the Frankfurt School. Two of the most prominent individuals associated with this school were Max Horkheimer, its long head, and Theodor Adorno, a cogent and prolific writer. Unlike other neomarxist theories, the Frankfurt School combined Marxist theory with textual analysis and literary criticism (Baran and Davis 319-321).

British Cultural Studies

Today, neomarxist theorists are divided into two most important schools: British cultural studies and political economy theory. British cultural studies combine Marxist theory with ideas and research methods from history, linguistics, anthropology, and textual analysis and literary criticism. It criticized and contrasted elite notions of culture, including high culture, with popular, everyday forms practiced by minorities. It has attempted to trace historic elite domination over culture, to criticize the social consequences of this domination, and to demonstrate how it continues to be exercised over specific minority groups or subcultures. (Baran and Davis 321).

Political Economy

Political economy, on the other hand, study elite control of economic institutions such as banks and stock markets and then try to show how this control affects many other social institutions, including the mass media. It accepted that classic Marxist theory assumption that the base dominates the superstructure. It investigates the means of production by looking at economic institution, and then they expect to find that these institutions will shape media to suit their interests and purposes (Baran and Davis 324).

Communication Science vs. Culture-Centered Paradigm

Communication science uses quantitative researches, which were viewed by culture-centered theorists as American fetish. It employs systematic but not selective methods and strategies to develop and to evaluate theories. Culture-centered paradigm uses qualitative researches, which were viewed by communication science theorists as “irrational” and “unscientific.” It employs unsystematic but selective methods and strategies to developed and to evaluate theories (Baran and Davis 14-15, 283).

In communication science, theories are developed and evaluated through empirical research methods, some microscopic and macroscopic and some based on surveys, experiments, and participant observations, which are accepted as scientific ways of dealing with social phenomena. In culture-centered paradigm, theories are developed and evaluated through debates and discussions among proponents of opposing and contrasting positions, which were dismissed as too subjective, overly speculative, and empirically unverifiable (Baran and Davis 113, 115, 283, 328, 348. 350).

In a series of seminal essays, James Carey, a leading proponent of culture-centered theories, found one essential difference between communication science and culture-centered theories. He said that communication science theories focus on the transmission of accurate information from a dominant source to passive receivers while culture-centered theories are concerned about that everyday ritual that we rely upon to structure and to interpret our experiences (Baran and Davis 284).

Carey also argued that communication science theories are tied to the transmissional perspective – the view that mass communication is a process of transmitting messages at a distance for the purpose of control, that is, persuasion, attitude change, behavior modification, uses and gratification, and socialization through transmission of influence, information, and conditioning (Baran and Davis 284).

Carey further argued that culture-centered theories are tied to the ritual perspective – the view that mass communication is not directed toward the extension of messages in space but the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs. In other words, communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed. Carey traced the origin of the ritual view to textual analysis and literary criticism (Baran and Davis 284-285).

Lastly, proponents of culture-centered theories believe in powerful media effects and ask us to accept their view of media influence using logic, argument, and our own powers of observation rather than presenting us with scientific evidence. Others offer empirical evidence for their belief in powerful media, but they use innovative research methods, and so their work is held suspicion. Communication science views culture-centered theories as too speculative and argue that empirical research generated from this research has been loosely structured (Baran and Davis 279-280).

Synthesis or Convergence is Possible

Before Berger and Chafee, Robert Merton said that synthesis or convergence in media theory is not possible:

Some sociologists still write as though they expect, here and now, formulation of the general sociological theory broad enough to encompass the vast ranges of precisely observed details of social behavior, organization, and change and fruitful enough to direct the attention of research workers to a flow of problems for empirical research. This I take to be a premature and apocalyptic belief. We are not ready. Not enough preparatory work has been done (qtd. in Baran and Davis 163).

Merton found his model for social science in physics. He further argued as follows:

What characterizes physics is an array of special theories of greater or lesser scope, coupled with the historically grounded hope that these will continue to be brought together into families of theory… If the science of physics, with its centuries of enlarged theoretical generalizations, has not managed to develop an all-encompassing theoretical system, then a fortiori the science of sociology, which has only begun to accumulate empirically grounded theoretical generalizations of modest scope, would seem well advised to moderate its aspirations for such system (qtd. in Baran and Davis 163).

However, he was never correct with his proposition. In the 1980s, empirical researchers in the field of communication who developed the limited effects perspective were unified under one banner – the communication science perspective. And though other theorists said that cultural analysis and critical cultural studies theories are more fragmented that that of the limited effects paradigm, today, they are working toward one common perspective – culture-centered paradigm.

It is at this juncture that I say that synthesis is possible because communication science and culture-centered paradigm are not that distinct with each other because they both identified important social roles for media, emphasized that individuals make active use of media, permitted cautious optimism about the ways that media might contribute to improving the quality of our lives in the future, and recognized that media operate within an essentially competitive social environment where the power of the media is challenged and constrained by other social institutions. (Baran and Davis 349).

It is also worthy to mention that a number of efforts are currently underway to restructure and reconceptualize the field of communication. During the fall and summer of 1993, the Journal of Communication devoted two issues to essays by 48 scholars on the “future of the field.” The essays graphically illustrate the wide range of views now held in the discipline. In general, the essays are optimistic. They reflect the view that as a field, communication has important advantages over more traditional academic disciplines (Baran and Davis 348).

The synthesis or convergence between communication science and culture-centered paradigm is possible. It was demonstrated by Larry Gross and George Gerbner when they developed cultivation analysis. Horace Newcomb in 1978 even wrote that more than any other research effort in the area of television studies the work of Gross and Gerbner and their associates sits squarely at the juncture of the humanities and the social sciences. This was also demonstrated by Theodor Adorno when he and his colleagues in Frankfurt School collaborated with American social researchers employed empirical research methods (Baran and Davis 306, 320).

Borrowing from Murdock, the two approaches, which differ in their research methods and their academic disciplines, must not compete but rather cooperate to formulate a unified approach to Media research. With this position, I am winding up my essay by quoting Klaus Krippendorf:

I am suggesting that the strands of scholarship mentioned above could be woven into a radically new and virtuous synthesis, seeing human first as cognitively autonomous beings: second, as reflexive practitioners of communication with others (and this includes social scientists in the process of their inquires); and third, as morally responsible interveners in, is not creators of, the very social realities in which they end up living. To embrace this news epistemology, let me end this essay by suggesting that communication scholars recognize the social constructability of reality, with all of its consequences (qtd. in Baran and Davis 367).