SELECT AN EDITION:
9th EDITION   10th EDITION   11th EDITION
A First Look at Communication Theory Reveal main menu
 

The screen on this device is not wide enough to display Theory Resources. Try rotating the device to landscape orientation to see if more options become available.

Resources available to all users:

  • Text Comparison—theories covered in A First Look and ten other textbooks
  • Theory Overview—abstract of each chapter
  • Self-Help Quizzes—for student preparation
  • Chapter Outlines
  • Key Names—important names and terms in each chapter
  • Conversation Videos—interviews with theorists
  • Application Logs—student application of theories
  • Essay Questions—for student prepatation
  • Suggested Movie Clips—tie-in movie scenese to theories
  • Links—web resources related to each chapter
  • Primary Sources—for each theory with full chapter coverage
  • Further Resources—bibliographic and other suggestions
  • Changes—for each theory, since the previous edition
  • Theory Archive—PDF copies from the last edition in which a theory appeared

Resources available only to registered instructors who are logged in:

  • Discussion Suggestions
  • Exercises & Activities
  • PowerPoint® presentations you can use
  • Short Answer Quizzes—suggested questions and answers

Information for Instructors. Read more


CHANGE TO: View by Type

Resources
by Theory

 VIEW BY THEORY HOME
For the full list of resources
see View by Type

Instructors can get additional
resources. Read more





CONVERSATION VIDEOS








TEXT COMPARISON

Archived chapters (PDF)
from previous editions are
available in Resources by
Type. See list

New to Theory Resources?
Find out more in this
short video overview (3:01).


Cultural Studies
Stuart Hall

MASS COMMUNICATION: MEDIA AND CULTURE

Chapter 27
 Semiotics
Media Effects 
Chapter 27
 Semiotics
Media Effects 

Chapter Outline 9th Edition

  1. Introduction - Critical theorists such as Stuart Hall question the scientific focus of mainstream communication research on media influence.
  2. Cultural studies versus media studies: An ideological difference.
    1. Hall believes that the media function to maintain the dominance of the powerful and to exploit the poor and powerless.
    2. Ideology is defined as “the mental frameworks – the languages, the concepts, categories, imagery of thought, and the representation – which different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of, define, figure out and render intelligible the way society works.”
    3. Mainstream U.S. mass communication research serves the myth of democratic pluralism and ignores the power struggle that the media mask.
    4. To avoid academic compartmentalization, Hall prefers cultural studies over media studies.
    5. Articulate means both speaking out against oppression and linking that subjugation with the communication media.
    6. Cultural studies is closely related to critical theory, but places more emphasis on resistance than rationality.
    7. Hall believes the purpose of theory and research is to empower people who are marginalized in order to change the world.
  3. Hegemony: Marxism without guarantees.
    1. Hall is strongly influenced by Marxist thought, though he sees the hard line of economic determinism as an oversimplification.
    2. Hall uses the term hegemony to refer to already accepted interpretations of reality that keep society’s haves in power over its have-nots.
  4. Making meaning through discourse.
    1. Hall contends that the primary function of discourse is to make meaning.
      1. Words and signs have no intrinsic meaning.
      2. We learn what signs mean through discourse—through communication and culture.
    2. Hall believes we must examine the sources of discourse.
      1. People with power create “discursive formations” that become naturalized.
      2. Those ways of interpreting the world are perpetuated through further discourse and keep the dominant in power.
  5. Corporate control of mass communication.
    1. Hall believes the focus of the study of communication should be on how human culture influences the media and on power relations and social structures.
    2. Hall and other advocates of cultural studies believe that media representations of culture reproduce social inequalities and keep the average person powerless.
    3. At least in the U.S., corporations produce and distribute the vast majority of information we receive.
    4. Corporate control of information prevents many stories from being told.
    5. The ultimate issue for cultural studies is not what information is presented, but whose information it is.
  6. Cultural factors that affect the selection of news
    1. Hall sees corporate clout as only one reason broadcast and print journalism support the status quo.
    2. Over an eight year period, Herbert Gans of Northwestern University’s McDill School of Journalism conducted a content analysis of newscasts at CBS and NBC  along with the coverage of two news magazines—Newsweek and Time.
    3. He discovered multiple values, procedures, and publishing realities that ensure their stories favor people who already have power, fame, and fortune. Those factors include ethnocentrism, source of news, objectivity, individualism, and the democratic process.
  7. Extreme makeover: The ideological work of reality TV.
    1.  Luke Winsolw claims that ordinary people are offered more explicit guidelines for living in reality TV than other genres or formats.
    2. On Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, episodes chronicle the transformation of a deserving family’s desperate living quarters.
    3. Each episode is a mini morality play.
  8. An obstinate audience.
    1. Audiences may not accept the source’s ideology.
    2. There are three ways to decode a message.
      1. Operate inside the dominant code.
      2. Apply a negotiable code.
      3. Substitute an oppositional code.
    3. Although Hall has trouble believing the powerless can change the system, he respects the ability of people to resist the dominant code.
    4. He is unable to predict, though, when and where resistance will spring up.
    5. James Anderson (Urbana-Champaign campus) and Amie Kincaid (Springfield campus) point out the paradox of satire that is used by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on their television shows.
    6. Their very exposure and reiteration of the dominant ideology may make it more acceptable.
  9.  Ethical reflection: West’s prophetic pragmatism
    1. Cornel West wants to overcome institutional oppression of the disadvantaged, degraded and dejected people who struggle on the margins of society.
    2. Evils exist not just because of ignorance or apathy, but are the result of pervasive human sin.
    3. As a prophetic pragmatist, West applauds an action-oriented approach to empower, rather than exploit, those excluded from the decision-making processes.
  10. Critique: Your judgment will depend on your ideology.
    1. The strong ideological component inherent in cultural studies limits its credibility.
    2. Hall’s work is relatively silent in regards to women as equal victims of hegemony with ethnic minorities and the poor.
    3. Hall doesn’t offer specific remedies for the problems he identifies.
    4. Hall’s great contribution is his insistence that one cannot talk about meaning without considering power.
    5. Samuel Becker notes that although Hall knocks the dominant ideology of communication studies, he has become the most dominant figure in the field.

CHANGE TO: View by Type

Resources
by Theory

 THEORY HOME
For the full list of resources
see View by Type

Instructors can get additional
resources. Read more





VIDEOS








TEXT COMPARE

Archived chapters (PDF)
from previous editions
are available in
Resources by Type.
See list

New to Theory
Resources?
Find out more in this short
video overview (3:01).


Cultural Studies
Stuart Hall

MASS COMMUNICATION: MEDIA AND CULTURE

Chapter 27
 Semiotics
Media Effects 
Chapter 27
 Semiotics
Media Effects 

Chapter Outline 9th Edition

  1. Introduction - Critical theorists such as Stuart Hall question the scientific focus of mainstream communication research on media influence.
  2. Cultural studies versus media studies: An ideological difference.
    1. Hall believes that the media function to maintain the dominance of the powerful and to exploit the poor and powerless.
    2. Ideology is defined as “the mental frameworks – the languages, the concepts, categories, imagery of thought, and the representation – which different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of, define, figure out and render intelligible the way society works.”
    3. Mainstream U.S. mass communication research serves the myth of democratic pluralism and ignores the power struggle that the media mask.
    4. To avoid academic compartmentalization, Hall prefers cultural studies over media studies.
    5. Articulate means both speaking out against oppression and linking that subjugation with the communication media.
    6. Cultural studies is closely related to critical theory, but places more emphasis on resistance than rationality.
    7. Hall believes the purpose of theory and research is to empower people who are marginalized in order to change the world.
  3. Hegemony: Marxism without guarantees.
    1. Hall is strongly influenced by Marxist thought, though he sees the hard line of economic determinism as an oversimplification.
    2. Hall uses the term hegemony to refer to already accepted interpretations of reality that keep society’s haves in power over its have-nots.
  4. Making meaning through discourse.
    1. Hall contends that the primary function of discourse is to make meaning.
      1. Words and signs have no intrinsic meaning.
      2. We learn what signs mean through discourse—through communication and culture.
    2. Hall believes we must examine the sources of discourse.
      1. People with power create “discursive formations” that become naturalized.
      2. Those ways of interpreting the world are perpetuated through further discourse and keep the dominant in power.
  5. Corporate control of mass communication.
    1. Hall believes the focus of the study of communication should be on how human culture influences the media and on power relations and social structures.
    2. Hall and other advocates of cultural studies believe that media representations of culture reproduce social inequalities and keep the average person powerless.
    3. At least in the U.S., corporations produce and distribute the vast majority of information we receive.
    4. Corporate control of information prevents many stories from being told.
    5. The ultimate issue for cultural studies is not what information is presented, but whose information it is.
  6. Cultural factors that affect the selection of news
    1. Hall sees corporate clout as only one reason broadcast and print journalism support the status quo.
    2. Over an eight year period, Herbert Gans of Northwestern University’s McDill School of Journalism conducted a content analysis of newscasts at CBS and NBC  along with the coverage of two news magazines—Newsweek and Time.
    3. He discovered multiple values, procedures, and publishing realities that ensure their stories favor people who already have power, fame, and fortune. Those factors include ethnocentrism, source of news, objectivity, individualism, and the democratic process.
  7. Extreme makeover: The ideological work of reality TV.
    1.  Luke Winsolw claims that ordinary people are offered more explicit guidelines for living in reality TV than other genres or formats.
    2. On Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, episodes chronicle the transformation of a deserving family’s desperate living quarters.
    3. Each episode is a mini morality play.
  8. An obstinate audience.
    1. Audiences may not accept the source’s ideology.
    2. There are three ways to decode a message.
      1. Operate inside the dominant code.
      2. Apply a negotiable code.
      3. Substitute an oppositional code.
    3. Although Hall has trouble believing the powerless can change the system, he respects the ability of people to resist the dominant code.
    4. He is unable to predict, though, when and where resistance will spring up.
    5. James Anderson (Urbana-Champaign campus) and Amie Kincaid (Springfield campus) point out the paradox of satire that is used by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on their television shows.
    6. Their very exposure and reiteration of the dominant ideology may make it more acceptable.
  9.  Ethical reflection: West’s prophetic pragmatism
    1. Cornel West wants to overcome institutional oppression of the disadvantaged, degraded and dejected people who struggle on the margins of society.
    2. Evils exist not just because of ignorance or apathy, but are the result of pervasive human sin.
    3. As a prophetic pragmatist, West applauds an action-oriented approach to empower, rather than exploit, those excluded from the decision-making processes.
  10. Critique: Your judgment will depend on your ideology.
    1. The strong ideological component inherent in cultural studies limits its credibility.
    2. Hall’s work is relatively silent in regards to women as equal victims of hegemony with ethnic minorities and the poor.
    3. Hall doesn’t offer specific remedies for the problems he identifies.
    4. Hall’s great contribution is his insistence that one cannot talk about meaning without considering power.
    5. Samuel Becker notes that although Hall knocks the dominant ideology of communication studies, he has become the most dominant figure in the field.

 
 
 
Home  McGraw-Hill—How to get copies of A First Look  Information for Instructors  Meet the Authors
Compare Comm Theory Texts  Viewing Hints & Troubleshooting 
Contact Us  Instructor Login 
 
 

Copyright © Em Griffin 2025 | Web design by Graphic Impact