User:Jiang jiteng/Media culture

Media Culture
Music, television, news and film are products of media culture. These tools allow people to create self-perception and  to interact with various sociological groups. Media culture also establishes and legitimates culturally accepted views and morals. In Western  societies, media culture is an instrument that perpetuates labels stereotypes based on class, race, gender, religion, and sexuality. Due to the emergence of capitalism, consumerism shapes media culture, vice-versa. Since birth to death, media culture teaches people how to comprehend, interpret and critic  various messages and meanings.

There are 9 different products of media culture: Shared experience, Broadcasting, Internet, Culture lag, Propaganda, Advertising, Consumer Culture, Creative Culture and Gaming Culture. Shared experience refers to the process of connecting with others. With the development of social media, human interaction is borderless. Now people all around the world can establish shared notions by connecting with each other. Broadcasting media is on the large scale of mass media because it targets bigger audiences from one source. For instance film, news outlets, television and music. As a result, people across the globe can developed on shared values. Internet Media gradually developed during the 1990s. Today, anyone can publish media that can reach large audiences at a global level. So, this means that people now have the free will to create, interpret and judge mass media. Culture lag, is the idea that technology developed much faster than culture. This may be a conflicting concept because this means that culture will have to adapt to the technology  of human necessity. For example, the topic of privacy emerged much later than the beginning of internet media in the 1990s. To continue, Propaganda can often be used in the political spectrum. This is a tool political entities will use to impose positive or negative  views and attitudes on the audience. Advertising is attributed to the economic side of media. This contributes to compagnies that pay media platforms to commercialize their products. This leads to an increases in competition between various cooperations and even misinformation about certain products. Consumer culture is also influence by the economic spectrum of media. Media contributes to the supply and demand chain because it blurs the line between what people want and need. Creative culture is a recent concept that refers to the idea that anyone can create media for the world to see. Finally, Gaming culture least explored topic since video games are still new to society. This refers to the idea that culture can emerge in fictional worlds.

So, it is widely accepted that media has an impact on the behaviour  individuals and societies, this refers to the theory of media effects. In fact many communication scholars find that children are the most influenced by media because of their limited critical thinking skills (Bryant & Thompson, 2002; McCombs & Shaw, 1972; McLuhan, 1964). The ability to mesure media effects on an individual is one of the challenges during researches. Since every search depends on one’s socioeconomic status, race, age, gender, mental condition, the results will always be subjective. For instance, the effects of listening to violent music will have different affects depending on the person. In all, media effects generates attitudes, opinions and behaviours on humans but the results will most likely differ.

Poststructuralism and Media Culture
The poststructuralist approach is a sociological and philosophical theory that is key to political studies. In simpler terms, it emphasizes the role of communication and language in international relations. The role of media is fundamental to poststructuralism, many scholars such as  “Michael J. Shapiro (1988, 1997) and Cynthia Weber (2006), analyse television shows, film, and photography” ( Baylis,2017 ). As society becomes more interconnected, now more than ever scholars need to pay attention to its impacts. For instance, in 2020 the Black Lives Matter movement became a worldwide phenomenon, with the help of news and media coverage. In addition, film and television can also allow people to see the world through different perspective. Take for example, the 2019 Netflix series title “When They See Us” which depicts the Central Park Five case in 1989. In sum, pop culture and media are both tools that create a space for critical thinking skills and different perceptions  the world.

Social Applications and Media Culture

The impact of social media and media culture is significant. With today's highly advanced technology, people are increasingly shifting the platform for accessing and processing information to social media. They can access a wide range of data on applications such as Instagram, Facebook, or WeChat and process the files and disseminate it to a broader audience. Social media has recently seen a rise in its users and has consolidated users from different parts of the world. Increasing numbers of people choose to join social media and they assist people in interacting by forming the online community.

There are critical applications used for interactions in social media. The two most popular social applications include social network sites (SNSs) and platform-based social games. They are gradually integrating into users' daily life. SNS users currently are at 2 billion globally, accounting for roughly 30% of the world's population. The platform-based social games allow individuals to play online games and interact with others. Since the games are virtual, people interact with folks from distant places, improving the socialization between different cultures. Most applications are of different ages, and cultures use the applications for various reasons.

Social media is different from media cultures. Social media is different, and the content of communication among users influences different parts of a community. Such developments include political activity change or varying points of view. On the other hand, the media culture is the westernized system of socialization fostered by the westernized way of life. Such culture is influential in helping people to learn new ways of life and share their experiences across different media platforms.

As people socialize and interact through the media, they tend to form new ideas through their conversations to shape a particular community's political, social, and cultural aspects. However, some countries have established mechanisms to restrict the population to a specific media use. For instance, Internet censorship users of China's social media are affected, and other applications are not allowed to work in the country. The only applications and social media platforms available include We Chat and Weibo, rather than Facebook and Twitter. As a result, forms of expression and online activity will differ from those of such country. A significant number of people use the social platform to discuss politics in china. It can be a venue for political activity, and some creative, humorous, and satirical messages are constructed in ways that avoid online censorship.

Social media is part of the phenomenon known as mediatization, and social media is increasingly integrated into other sectors of society as mass media. At the same time, due to the proliferation of information and the lack of supervision, some false information is often spread through the platforms. Untrue, inaccurate, and deceptive information will negatively impact users and even affect their life and physical health of users. These false claims can be taken as accurate information, and users' opinions can be changed, and actions are taken accordingly. The Internet's interconnection has also been exploited to distribute propaganda to further the goals of an individual or group. The propagation of incorrect and sensational information through social media has resulted in the loss of countless human lives. There were multiple incidents of lynching in which enraged mobs killed innocent persons after allegations that the victims had committed a crime spread. Furthermore, criminals have used social media sites like WhatsApp and Facebook to promote falsehoods and scams.

Feminist Approaches and Media Culture
The feminist approaches related to media culture is something that can stem from feminist theory in relation to media culture. With the term feminism in itself having such a broad term, the feminist communication theory is something that branches off into many other concepts, thus providing us with feminist approaches on media culture. These approaches will often highlight how media has impacted women, the roles of women in media environments, how to dismantle certain perspectives with media culture etc..

For example, Angela McRobbie's analysis of teenage girls based on a popular magazine at the time called 'Jackie'. McRobbie uses a 'structural feminism' approach in order to analyze "the ideology of femininity in magazines and other medias, as identified through codes of romance, personal/domestic life, fashion/beauty, pop music and new sexualities." (Laughey, 2007). These codes had shown how these different aspects, when presented in the form of the popular media of the magazine 'Jackie', significantly impacted these individuals. The codes and case study showed how these aspects affected the way the teenage girls at this time acted, thought and portrayed themselves. Through approaches like McRobbie's it is shown how media culture had significant impact on women at this time. McRobbie's more recent research continuous to show how this is a prevalent reoccurrence in media culture and women.

Feminist approaches can also be applied when discussing media culture in terms of fashion, and how it can relate to other media's like music, magazines, celebrities etc.. An example of this, is looking at the postfeminism approach and how it is explained by certain researchers, that women and many young girls become victim to postfeminist styled fashion. Meaning, a style of fashion that is promoting the early and/or over sexualization of clothing to girls at a young age solely because of how they are marketed with the ideologies that come with a postfeminist approach. This particular concept, is not to disregard the meaning that postfeminism approach provides for society and women, but to see how a specific way of feminist thinking has affected women and media culture.

There are many feminist approaches to discuss, as well as different ways for researchers and individuals to apply these approaches to media culture. It is important to remember that feminist approaches are not the only way to understand media culture or dissect media culture, but one of many ways to do so.