Media & Society: 03

Defining ‘mass media’

Why ‘Mass’? Communication models. “Producer-Text-Audience”. Contrasting the ‘dominant’ and ‘critical’ paradigms.

Tasks

Read the McQuail chapter, “Models and Concepts”; it outlines very quickly and in a rather abstract way, the many ways that academics and people within the media industries have tried to understand and model ‘the mass media’.

Slides

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Reading

Chapter 3 “Concepts and Models for Mass Communication”, McQuail, D. (2010) Mass Communication Theory. SAGE, London.

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