SOCY1050 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Conflict Theories, Commodification, Newsprint
Week 7 Lecture – Media and the Environment
Mass Media:
• The edia etee
• Between the viewer and the current world events
• Teporal truths – taken to be true
• Print, radio, tv, phone, social media
• Growth of the internet – massive divide between nations and subcultures
• Double-edged sword – used to effect social change
The Environment:
• Climate change – weather – parks and greenery – animals – landscapes – ocean and
waterways – Earth
• Environment seen separate from people – seen as the ones with power
• Should have a social consciousness
• Cultural difference
Theory:
• Social constructivism
• Ideas about relationship between humans and nature
• Media plays a role in the social construction of the media
• Progress through lais-akig
• Discourse and world views
• Conflict theory
• Two-step model
• Commodification theory
Summary:
• Media – broadcast (mass media) and post-broadcast
• Post-broadcast media (e.g. social media, internet) is increasingly influential: Future of
newsprint?
• The media contributes to the social construction of the environment: – Gives voice to
environmental issues, like climate change, through media-selected experts
o – Generates considerations of who to trust: scientists, media, experts, authority
o – Interprets scientific and other knowledge (in particular ways)
o – Outlier perspeties gai partiular tratio, espeially related to liate hage
• Result: a heterogeneous public perception – Many distinct issues and challenges are
conflated and confused, thereby skewing public understanding, governance, and policy
action
o Bias and concentration of media ownership further influences this
• Conflict theory, commodification theory and the two-step model best encapsulate these
processes
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