Popular Media and Social Theory/Social Theory and Popular Media

• David Gauntlett’s wonderful site www.theory.org.uk/ is a must for all media students – see especially his tips for first time media students.

Media Saturation:

• The Kaiser Family Foundation is a useful source of data on the extent of media saturation in the USA. See in particular http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf
• In 2010, the International Centre for Media and The Public Agenda at the University of Maryland conducted a study entitled 24 Hours Unplugged where students had to go without all social media for a whole day.  Read the main findings at http://withoutmedia.wordpress.com/

Children and New Media Use

• The EU Kids Online Project is focused on the use of new media by children. See   in particular http://www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/EUKidsOnline/Home.aspx. The site contains a vast amount of research on new media use by younger audiences across Europe.

• The Museum of Broadcast Communications http://www.museum.tv
• http://www.newseum.org/
• The Journal of Media History
• Du Gay, P, S. Hall, L. Janes, A. Koed Madsen, H. Mackay & K. Negus (2013) Doing Cultural Studies:  The Story of the Sony Walkman 2nd ed. London: Sage.

Watch:Noam Chomsky speaking about Globalization:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHJPSLgHemM

Watch/Listen: Naomi Klein on Globalization and the Anti-Globalization Movement http://www.naomiklein.org/video-audio

Read: Sparks, C. (2013) ‘Global Media Studies: its development and dilemmas’ Media, Culture and Society Vol. 35 No. 1 121-131.

Read: Waisbord, S (2013) ‘Media Policies and Blindspots of Media Globalization: Insights from Latin America’ Media, Culture and Society Vol. 35 No. 1 132-138.

• Media ownership patterns are intricate and subject to regular change. The Columbia Journalism Review maintains a regularly updated Web site on media ownership patterns. This invaluable resource is available at www.cjr.org/owners/ 

• The web site thenation.com also carries interesting up-to-date research on this theme. See, for example, Mark Crispin Miller’s article ‘What’s wrong with this picture’ (2002) and Maurice Hinchey’s article ‘More Media Owners’ (2006). 

• Other useful websites which keep track of media ownership patterns include www.mediachannel.org and www.freepress.net

• Ben Bagdikian’s homepage has interesting additional information on his work on media conglomeration see http://benbagdikian.net/

• For a fascinating account of the implications for journalism arising from structural changes in media ownership in Central and Eastern Europe see the article by Stetka, V. (2102) ‘From Multinationals to Business Tycoons: Media Ownership and Journalistic Autonomy in Central and Eastern Europe’ The International Journal of Press and Politics Vol. 17 No. 4 433-456.

• See the chapter by Diane Owen ‘Media Consolidation, Fragmentation and Selective Exposure in the US’ in H. Semetko and M. Scammell (2012) The Sage Handbook of Political Communication.

Watch:

• Stuart Hall: Representation and The Media (1997) Media Education Foundation.
• John Akomfrah’s (2012) film The Unfinished Conversation about Stuart Hall.

Read:

• Davis, L. (2000) ‘Public Relations, News Production and Changing Patterns of Source Access in the British National Media’ Media, Culture and Society Vol. 22. pp. 39-59.  Davis examines the increasingly significant role of PR practicioners in the making of news.
• Deacon, D., N. Fenton and A. Bryman (1999) ‘From inception to reception: the natural history of a news item’, Media, Culture and Society 21: 5–31.
• Gravengaard, G. (2012) ‘The metaphors journalists live by: Journalists' conceptualisation of newswork’ Journalism November 13(8) 1064–1082.
• Grossberg, L., E. Wartella, D.C. Whitney and J. Macgregor Wise (2006) Mediamaking: Mass Media in a Popular Culture. (2nd ed). Sage: Thousand Oaks: Calif. An excellent introduction to the forces shaping mass media content. See in particular, Chapters 3 and 8 ‘Media People and Organizations’, ‘Producing Identities’

• Teun van Dijk’s homepage is an invaluable resource for students interested in learning more about ideology and discourse. See www.discourses.org  
• See Noam Chomsky’s homepage for a critical interpretation of current global events www.chomsky.info
• The Glasgow University Media Group’s website contains lots of information about their important research work.  In addition to explaining the group’s emergence and its research concerns, the site contains many articles and reports which are freely available to download. http://www.glasgowmediagroup.org/
• Norman Fairclough’s website also contains downloadable articles on discourse analysis. See www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/norman/norman.htm
• The Sage Journal Discourse Studies may be found at http://dis.sagepub.com/
• The Sage Journal Discourse and Society may be found at http://das.sagepub.com/
• Guobin Yang’s (2003) article ‘The Internet and The Rise of a Transnational Chinese Cultural Sphere’  in Media, Culture and Society Vol. 25 No. 4 pp. 469-490 presents you with some compelling evidence on how some audience members can use new media to overcome state oppression and censorship.  It is an example of how audience agency can resist hegemonic power.
• Tang, L. and H. Sampson (2012) ‘The Interaction Between The Mass Media and The Internet in Non-Democratic States: The Case of China’ in Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 34 no. 4 pp. 457-472.
• Mary Kosut (2012) ed. The Encyclopedia of Gender in Media. Sage: Thousand Oaks is a comprehensive collection of cutting edge essays on the social construction of gender in a media setting.

• A range of studies using a variety of research methods have examined the othering of asylum seekers and refugees. See for example d’Haenens, L. and M. de Lange (2001) ‘Framing of asylum seekers in Dutch regional newspapers’ in Media, Culture and Society Vol. 23 No. 6 pp. 847-860.
• Coole (2002) examines through a content analysis how the print media covered the murder of a Turkish asylum seeker in Scotland in 2001. See Coole, C. (2002) ‘A Warm Welcome? Scottish and UK media reporting of an asylum-seeker murder’ in Media, Culture and Society Vol. 24 No. 6 pp. 839-852.
• Van Gorp uses a framing theory approach towards understanding Belgian print media coverage of asylum and ‘illegal’ immigration. See Van Gorp, B. (2005) ‘Where is the Frame? Victims and Intruders in the Belgian Press Coverage of the Asylum Issue’ European Journal of Communication Vol. 20 no. 4 pp. 484-507.
• Lynn and Lea (2003) apply a discourse analysis approach to letters to the editor written by members of the British public concerning asylum issues. See Lynn, N. and S. Lea (2003) ‘A phantom menace and the new Apartheid: the social construction of asylum-seekers in the United Kingdom’ in Discourse and Society Vol. 14 No. 4 pp. 425-452.

Read: Bennett, A. (2006) ‘Punk’s Not Dead: The Continuing Significance of Punk Rock for an Older Generation of Fans’ Sociology Vol. 40 (2) 219-235.

Read: Abercrombie N. and B. Longhurst (1998) Audiences London. Sage, Chapter 5 ‘Fans and Enthusiasts’.

Read: Schroder, K. C. (2000) ‘Making Sense of Audience Discourses’ European Journal of Cultural Studies Vol. 3 pp. 233-258.

Read: Stevenson, N. (2009) ‘Talking to Bowie Fans: Masculinity, Ambivalence and Cultural Citizenship’ European Journal of Cultural Studies Vol. 12 (1) pp. 79-98.

Watch: Go online and see Eoin Devereux discuss Morrissey’s fandom in more detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugDXflZ_D_g

Go To: http://henryjenkins.org/ for Henry Jenkin’s highly entertaining and engaging blog on fandom and fan cultures.

Go To: www.participations.org  An exciting online journal dedicated to developing audience studies.

A Twitter Feed may be used as a teaching and learning tool for this and the book’s other chapters.   A dedicated Twitter account can be used as a Bulletin Board by you and your fellow students to keep track of progress with shared assignments.  By creating hash tags e.g. #publicsphere #hegemony #citizenjournalists you can use Twitter to share relevant information.  Your lecturer, in turn, may use Twitter to make class announcements or to host a quiz on key chapter themes