Introduction
Media in general terms refers to the tools of mass communication. Telephone, magazine, internet, radio, newspaper, television, cinema and fax are the elements of media. Images in media are used as a useful tool to deliver the message to the audience. Media like television increases our knowledge by providing access to the information all over the world. Images in the media have the most substantial impact on the behaviour of an individual. Movies as a part of media show different types of violence in one form or another.
Magazines display different visual images that profoundly influence female readers. Adults and teenagers mostly spend their time reading magazines related to fashion trends. Most of the models in the magazines are tall, slim and attractive that draws reader attention. Advertisements can be created to influence a buyer towards the purchase of a particular product. Some of the commercials have hidden message in them. For example, young people eating fries and drinking sweet drinks can have a powerful influence on the young adults or buyers. Images that show violence somehow influence young people. For example, they start believing that society accepts whose violent while it’s not. Thes kinds of images have the high impact on the power and soul of an individual.
Nowadays, life without media is unacceptable. Media provides channels that help people to stay connected with one another. One can receive different kinds of information related to events or what is happening around the world. For example, when people of Egypt started their protest against their rights, the images when broadcast on television influenced others to fight for their rights. Those advertisements that get one’s attention, person stared visualising himself or herself in the ad.
Discussion
Two different readings will be discussed in this paper. First one is on “Locating media power”, and another one is “A cultural approach to the communication”. In both of these reading, the influence and importance of media power have been discussed. Further, we explain each passage and then compare them in the end of the essay.
Locating Media Power
The Place of Media Power mainly focuses on an area neglected in previous studies of the media, the meetings between media and ordinary people. This study explores what happens when people who regularly consume the media witness media processes in action, or even become the object of media attention themselves. Such encounters tell one a great deal about his or her attitudes towards the media world. This also offers a new way of thinking about the media’s impact on contemporary social life, the basis of their social authority, and the possibility of challenging it. The initial emphasis of the writer was the interaction between the ordinary people with media people and also focuses on the places where they meet like on filming studios or sets. Symbolism in media which author defined as the power of creating or constructing reality is intensely discussed. We often talk about media power when we hear a biased statement from the organizations or from news on poitical situation of the country (Prat, 2015).
The author has argued two arguments. First one is related to the interaction between the ordinary people and media people. The second one that is supported by an author is media power is far from the social life. The author explained that symbolism in the press is a social process but is complicated as well. Media power is not just media texts that are absorbed by the audience. However, the symbolism in media is more involved at every level of social interaction. Media power is reproduced through the use of actors in the advertisements, what they do and what they say is critical things in the ad. The author claims that in his perspective media have social effects on a bigger picture that is because we believe that the authority of media discourse in many contexts. The approach of the author has differentiated it from others by explaining that what it means to be living in a society that is being dominated by the large-scale media institutions. The message that is encoded in any advertisement, it is essential to consider how would audience decodes that particular message in the ad.
The most important effect of the media is not sustained certain specific ideologies but to widen the near talk about things. This was argued in one of the researchers made by Channel. But there are other implications attached to these studies like the use of men and women in this study shows little consideration towards the integration of themselves into media. Another approach ahs have been discussed In threading that is related to the anthropology of media consumption. This approach explains how people look towards an advertisement and how well they impact their lives. Roger Silverstone argues that media needs to be understood as an overall social process that involves audience, reader or listener but it also focusses on how people interact with media. Silverstone explained television as par excellence of our culture. A most important point that is discussed in this study is that the most central part of our culture operates principally through the media which itself has its power. Form this Silverstone ake a conclusion that issues of religion cannot be kept separate from the problems of the force.
One of the main focuses of an author is to see the effects of things that are social facts and social realities. An analogy of Durkheim explained this relationship by telling that social impacts start from the privileged role in framing one’s experiences of the social society. Television he believed is a platform from where anyone can get any information that they think is social. At the functional level, it is not that easy to separate Television form radio and the press. Communication as a social platform is often underestimated. For the media as media, it is considered as more effective than television and radio (Prat, 2014). But then the press has also been characterised by the broad and regular availability. Point to be discussed is not about identifying the differences between different media platforms but to look at the functionality and importance of these media platforms (Peppiat, 2016).
The Durkheim’s analysis of the social origins of the profane distinction is useful within the universal religion. Most of the other researchers have argued that it is useful, but most of them said it is not. However, the author finds it relevant to the location of media perspective.
One of the main challenges faced by the author is to connect general concerns of locating the media with detailed empirical work. According to the author, the connection lies between how people interact with the media processes. In most of the time’s wood framing has been used. That is because it connects ordinary people with the media. The use of fame in this context contrasts in multiple ways. First, concerning devices through which media studies and sociology. The second one is associated with a framework of expectations and plans which are associated with the frame.
To cover objectivity and subjectivity of the media, frame word has been used. By objectives, the author means the media institutions that connect media workings while by subjectivity means cultural and social as[ects or processes through which those objectives are adapted culturally. Media involves various forms of media like radio, television and press. The author explains when we consume media as an ordinary course of an event, the primary concern of us is not about the objectivity of the mechanism rather than on subjectivity. So far the reading provides a theory, based not on media texts or audiences’ interpretations of them (reception studies), nor on the structure and economics of media institutions and media markets but based the place of media power instead on analysing the direct interactions between non-media people and media institutions, and non-media people’s talk about them (Caaffery, 2017).
A cultural approach to Communication
In the artistic reading approach to communication two concepts of communication have been discussed that are prevailing in the American culture since the nineteenth century. First one is the transmission view of communication and another one is Ritual view of communication. Transmission view of discussion is most commonly found in American culture. It is sometimes defined as giving information to others. The main idea of this view is to transfer signals from one place to another with the sole purpose of control. It is derived from an ancient perspective of sending messages to increase the spend and effects of a word. When Christian community of Europe come in contact with the non-Jewish population of America by transportation, it is considered as one of the forms of religious implications of communication. In the middle of the nineteenth century, telegraphs replaced the identity of communication and transportation. Samuel Morse prophesized the first ever message of the transmitter as the purpose of the invention was to see “What Hath God Wrought”. As the forces of technology, science and secularisation gained ground, religious metaphor fell away. From the telegraph to computers the possibility of moral improvement is present whenever these machines are invoked.
The ritual view of communication is the older view. In fact old enough that dictionary to list it down. From a ritual point of view communication defined as sharing, participation, fellowship or association of a common faith. This view is directed not towards the extension of messages in space but towards the maintenance of society in time. The ritual aspect of communication is not dominant in the American culture as their eyes are glued to the transmission view of the discussion. Though the traces of ritual light can be found in many studies like Durkheim’s “Elementary forms of religious life”. In American society, the concept of culture is a weak notion. The difference between ritual and transmission view of communication can be grasped briefly by looking at the alternative conceptions of the role of a newspaper in social life.
There are different problems associated with examining Newspaper from the ritual view of communication. They view newspaper as less as gaining information and more as a trading mass. Writing and reading the paper is a ritual act and considered as more of a dramatic one. The news is regarded as a historical reality, a form of culture invented by a particular class in a specific point of history in transmission view of communication. Under a ritual aspect of the disclosure, the news is just a drama. From the previous works done on the connection, the author derives a definition of communication as a symbolic process whereby reality is maintained, produced, transformed and repaired. One of the significant problems associated with the communication is it refers to the most common human behaviour. Conversation with the help of symbolism and language depicted the expression of a human being. Word often confuses and distorts one’s perception of this external world.
The models of communication today found more science than in religion although the implications are the same. Models of communication are not merely a representation of communication rater a representation for communication. Existing models of communication are less an analysis than a contribution to the chaos of modern culture .communication begins in the struggle to learn and to describe. To initiate this process in our minds and to pass it on the results of that process onto others, it entirely depends upon certain communication models and certain rules. It has been argued by Raymond William that experiences we get in our lives and that shapes our mind is communication.
Comparison and Contrast of studies
Based on the readings provided, the representation of media in both the readings is different. Locating the media focuses on Television and radio. It tells us about how the news or information from television is perceived by the public. Audience gets the information according to their beleifs and thoughts and gets impacted according to that. However in reading Cultural studies approach to communication, representation of media revolves around two concepts of communication on ethat focuses on the rotual view of communication and other on transmissional view of communication. It has been found in the reading that now transmissional view of communication is more prominently found in British countries. However with transmissional approach to communication, traces of ritual view of communication are always present along with transmissional view. Media texts have the power and knowledge to shape audience’s understanding (BBC.com).
Relationship between producer audience is not fully explained in both the readings, but in Locating the media reading it has been explained that audience should be identified in the first place so that the message that producer of film or songs or anything wants to deliver targets the target audience and audience will get the message effectively. Television media has been mostly used in Locating the media and transmissional and ritual views of communication are focused on cultural approach to communication. It is important that one should know about the audience. As it shows the message that producer wants to convey is either received to the riht audience or not.
Conclusion
According to me, the relationship between producer and audience is the current media enviorment of United Kingdom. There are many wasy by which producer attracts the audience. In UK producers before and after making a film reaches out to the target audience by continuos researching techniques like test screening (Bromley, 2014). The main reason behing researching the target audience is to let producer know about who is the audience what they want from the producer and how audience could be targeted. For example, making a comedy film which features a young guy and women. The right campaign would be on magazines that are mostly red by teenagers and young adults, rather than advertising on television. It is important that roducer should know what audience he or she is targeting. A distributor is responsible for “In between” phase of producer and audience. The production of the movie or film is the making of it. Engagement is the term that usually means that audience attention is the changing social media trend. The media industry has become a fast paced industry and clearly is doing all it can to stay on top and reach its potential consumers.
References
Prat, A., 2015. Media capture and media power. In Handbook of Media Economics (Vol. 1, pp. 669-686). North-Holland.
Prat, A., 2014. Media power.
European Journalism Centre (EJC). (2018). United Kingdom – Media Landscape | European Journalism Centre (EJC). [online] Available at: http://ejc.net/media_landscapes/united-kingdom [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].Caaffery, A., 2017. Objectivity and Subjectivity.
Michael Bromley, 2014. Media Landscapes.
Peppiat, R., 2016. THE UK MEDIA LANDSCAPE.
Explorewriting.co.uk. (2018). Objectivity and Subjectivity. [online] Available at: http://www.explorewriting.co.uk/objectivityandsubjectivity.html [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].
Encyclopedia Britannica. (2018). Theatrical production – Relation to the audience. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/theatrical-production/Relation-to-the-audience [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].
BBC Bitesize. (2018). BBC Bitesize – GCSE Media Studies – What is Representation? – Revision 1. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/education/guides/z9fx39q/revision [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].
