COM275FinalExamNotes - Mass Communication 275 UNIT 3 FINAL...

Mass Communication 275 11/04/2007 14:11:00
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← UNIT 3 FINAL LECTURE
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March 28, 2007
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RESPONSE PAPER
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What is the recent news story about:
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British Sailors
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Alberto Gonzales
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Virg Benero (major of Lansing)
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Making up for budget deficit
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Anna Nicole Smith
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Walter Reed
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funding is cut
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George Bush’s recent trip
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What four teams are in the NCAA Final Four?
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Ireland
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TYPES OF NEWS
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Hard News – the serious, important news
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Personalized
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Controversial
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Actual or concrete

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Novel or deviant
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Linked to ongoing news concerns
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Also- inoffensive, credible, packageable, local
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Examples- Gonzales, Walter Reed, Ireland
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Crisis News
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Generally part of hard news
• Natural or man-made event that poses and immediate and serious threat
• News media functions
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Keeps people aware of event
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Galvanizes social attitudes
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Examples: British Sailors, Virg Benero
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Soft News
• Focus on human interest, personalities
• Fastest growing facet of news
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Examples: Anna Nicole Smith, NCAA tournament, TomKat, etc.
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KNOWLEDGE GAP THEORY
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News media is a conduit between major societal structures
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MEDIA
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     
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GOVERNMENT INDUSTRY EDUCATION
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MEDIA
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The communication between the major structures
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Think: Big Tobacco
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manipulate the public
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• News media perform two functions
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Feedback control
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Watchdog role of the press
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Fourth Estate
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Distribution control
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Gate keeping
 Agenda Setting
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April 2, 2007
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AGENDA SETTING THEORY

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“Media may not be successful in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly
successful in telling readers what to think about.”
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Hypothesis: People’s agenda of news importance will match media agenda of news
importance.
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Issues & Events
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Issue is an ongoing, long-term area of interest.
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Events are discrete happenings in time.
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← AGENDA BUILDING
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PR Function
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High percentage of ‘news’
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Compete to focus attention on particular issues
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News Values
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Timeless
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Proximity – did it happen in our area? (Don’t care about local news in CA)
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Prominence – news is more likely to be covered (President Bush)
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Consequence – does what happened affect you personally?
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Human interest – popular culture.
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← DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS
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DIFFUSION
• Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain
channels over time among the members of a social system
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Innovation : “an idea, practice, or object perceived as new by an individual or other
unit of adoption”
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Communication : is used to reduce uncertainty about innovations
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← EVERETT ROGERS
• Diffusion of Innovations (1962; 1995)
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All the studies involved:
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An innovation- corn, agriculture, health information
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Communication between two people – opinion leaders (They carry respect)
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Society or community setting (Iowa, Africa, Asia)
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The element of time
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