Media & technology

1. Media & Technology

Media & Technology

2. Technological Stratification

The digital divide: uneven access along race/class/geographic lines
Knowledge gap: gap in information for those who have less access to
technology

3. Planned Obsolescence

Business practice of planning for a product to be obsolete or unusable for
the time it is created.

4. Types of Media and Technology

Print News
Television and Radio
New media
All interactive forms of information exchange
Blogs, podcasts
Social media
Virtual worlds

5. Global Implications

Media globalization: worldwide integration of media through the crosscultural exchange of ideas
Technological globalization: cross-cultural development and exchange of
technology

6. Theoretical Perspectives: Functionalism

Commercial functions
Entertainment function
Social norm functions
Life-changing function
Narcotizing dysfunction: when people are too overwhelmed with media input to
really care about the issue

7. Theoretical Perspectives: Conflict

Control of Media/Tech
Gatekeeping: the process by which thousands of possible messages are
shaped into a mass media-appropriate form and reduced to a
manageable amount
Those with the means can buy ad space.
Social Control/Digital Surveillance
Panoptic surveillance: a form of constant monitoring

8. Theoretical Perspectives: Symbolic Interactionism

Neo-Luddites: people who see technology as symbolizing the coldness and
alienation of modern life.
Technophiles: people who see technology as holding the potential for a
brighter future.

9. Symbolic Interaction & Tech

Symbolic Interaction & Tech
The media create and share symbols that become part of the social
construction of reality
+ Media can be a reference group:
It influences you as an individual
The individual compares herself to the media