Материал: 1989

Dependency is said to increase as one’s needs increase. For example, during large-scale social crises such as war, fantasy-escape needs increase dramatically, thus increasing dependency on media-systems as a source of entertainment.

Later research suggests that media-system dependency involves more than just meeting the needs of an audience. DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach (1989) suggest that there are actually three factors that influence dependency:

information needs;

individual personalities (i.e. values);

stage of development (i.e. age).

These factors cause media to have a “selective influence” on any particular member of an audience. For instances, the lyrics of an explicit song may not register to a young child, but may be the epitome of popularity to a teenager or college student, while maybe being socially unacceptable to parents and grandparents.

In modern society, media-system dependency is utilized most significantly by political and economic systems. Ball-Rokeach suggests that there is even interdependence between them, with each helping the other attain fundamental goals.

In 1976, Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur stated that as technology increases the way in which media can be delivered, its influence becomes even more powerful. Today, with podcasts, smartphones, and ever expanding ways to stay connected, this assertion could not be more true. Business transactions can be made electronically in real-time anywhere in the world. News is known internationally almost as quickly as it is known locally. Businesses and individuals depend so heavily on media systems that even small outages seem catastrophic. Media-system dependency has, in a sense, become a global pandemic.

MODERN MASS MEDIA AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE

AUDIENCE

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media

The media has a strong social and cultural impact upon society. This is predicated upon its ability to reach a wide audience which often sends a strong and influential message. The communications audience has been viewed by some commentators as forming a mass society with special characteristics, notably atomization or lack of social connections, which

render it especially susceptible to the influence of modern mass-media techniques such as advertising and propaganda.

Journalism ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by professional journalists. While various existing codes have some differences, most share common elements including the principles of – truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability – as these apply to the acquisition of newsworthy information and its subsequent dissemination to the public. Still media bias is one of the most important problems.

Practical limitations to media neutrality include the inability of journalists to report all available stories and facts, and the requirement that selected facts be linked into a coherent narrative. Since it is impossible to report everything, some selectivity is inevitable. Government influence, including overt and covert censorship, biases the media. Political affiliations arise from ideological positions of media owners and journalists. The space or air time available for reports, as well as deadlines needing to be met, can lead to incomplete and apparently biased stories.

A great role is also played by such a factor as market forces that can result in a biased presentation include the ownership of the news source, the selection of staff, the preferences of an intended audience, pressure from advertisers, or reduced funding due to lower ratings or governmental funding cuts. Josh Silver from “Free Press” (an organization working to reform the media) mentioned that the modern “media system gives moguls like Rupert Murdoch the omnipotent power to decide what’s news and what isn’t; which lives are important and which aren’t” and “the corporate media is not a watchdog protecting us from the powerful, it is a lapdog begging for scraps.”

So the manipulation of large groups of people through media outlets, for the benefit of a particular political party and/or group of people, bias, political or otherwise, towards favoring a certain individual, outcome or resolution of an event can be considered as the main characteristics of modern mass media.

But the consequences and ramifications of the mass media relate not merely to the way newsworthy events are perceived (and which are reported at all), but also to a multitude of cultural influences that operate through the media.

Marshall McLuhan, one of the biggest critics in media’s history, brought up the idea that “the medium is the message.” He describes the

“content” of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. This means that people tend to focus on the obvious, which is the content, to provide us valuable information, but in the process, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time. As the society’s values, norms and ways of doing things change because of the technology, it is then we realize the social implications of the medium.

We sometimes call these effects “unintended consequences”, although “unanticipated consequences” is more accurate. The “unanticipated consequences” work silently to influence the way in which we interact with one another, and with our society at large.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE. ITS SIGNIFICANCE AND

DISTRIBUTION

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_(language)

Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca, is the dominant international language in communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy. Its spread beyond the British Isles began with the growth of the British Empire, and by the late nineteenth century its reach was truly global. It is the dominant language in the United States, whose growing economic and cultural influence and status as a global superpower since World War II have significantly accelerated the language’s adoption across the planet.

A working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of fields, occupations and professions such as medicine and computing; as a consequence over a billion people speak English to at least a basic level.

English is, by international treaty, the official language for aerial and maritime communications. It is also one of six official languages of the United Nations and an official language of many other international organizations, including the International Olympic Committee. English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European Union (by 89% of schoolchildren), followed by French (32%), German (18%), and Spanish (8%).

Books, magazines, and newspapers written in English are available in many countries around the world. English is also the most commonly used language in the sciences. In 1997, the Science Citation Index reported that 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries.

Linguists such as David Crystal recognize that one impact of this massive growth of English, in common with other global languages, has been to reduce native linguistic diversity in many parts of the world, most particularly in Australasia and North America, and its huge influence continues to play an important role in language attrition. Similarly, historical linguists, aware of the complex and fluid dynamics of language change, are always aware of the potential English contains through the vast size and spread of the communities that use it and its natural internal variety to produce a new family of distinct languages over time.

Two educated native dialects of English have wide acceptance as standards in much of the world – one based on educated southern British and the other based on educated Midwestern American. The former is sometimes called BBC (or the Queen’s) English, and it may be noticeable by its preference for “Received Pronunciation”; it typifies the Cambridge model, which is the standard for the teaching of English to speakers of other languages in Europe, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and other areas influenced either by the British Commonwealth or by a desire not to be identified with the United States.

The latter dialect, General American which is spread over most of the United States and much of Canada, is more typically the model for the American continents and areas (such as the Philippines) which have had either close association with the United States or desire to be so identified.

Aside from those two major dialects are numerous other varieties of English, which include, in most cases, several subvarieties, such as Cockney, Scouse and Geordie within British English; Newfoundland English within Canadian English; and African American Vernacular English and Southern American English within American English.

English is a pluricentric language, without a central language authority like France’s Académie française; and therefore no one variety is considered “correct” or “incorrect” except in terms of the expectations of the particular audience to which the language is directed.

Just as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its history, English loanwords now appear in many languages around the world, indicative of the technological and cultural influence of its speakers. Several pidgins and creole languages have been formed on an English base, such as Jamaican Patois, Nigerian Pidgin, and Tok Pisin. There are many words in English coined to describe forms of particular non-English languages that contain a very high proportion of English words.

PART II

CARTOONISTS AND THEIR WORK. EDITORIAL CARTOONS

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. Traditionally much of this work was, and still is, humorous, and is intended primarily for entertainment purposes. Many traditional print cartoons are of the single-panel variety, and are published in print media of various kinds, for example, in magazines such as The New Yorker and Punch. The term “cartoonist” is also applied to those who create more serious editorial or political cartoons, as well as those who create comic strips, comic books and graphic novels. Sometimes the term “graphic novelist” is used for cartoonists who produce long works.

Some cartoonists publish serial type cartoons that provide a snap-shot of the cartoon characters lives over a period of time, whereas other cartoonists provide commentary on current events or items in the news. Regardless of the type of cartoon that is produced all cartoonists must have excellent communication skills, good drawing ability as well as a way to interpret various events in a unique and creative way.

The average cartoonist works from home and uses the news, day to day life, and special events in their community and around the world as a source of inspiration. Many cartoonists now use drawing software on computers to complete their final products. This allows the easy exchange of final cartoons using e-mail rather than having to send hard copies of cartoons back and forth. Some cartoonists work for newspapers, magazines or other printed media and others work directly for customers looking for specific cartoon figures for advertising or promotions.

So cartoonists may work in many different formats: single panel gag cartoons, editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, or animation. But it is an editorial cartoon that is the most socially important.

Since the mid-1700s, editorial cartoons, using simple text and a single image, have been vehicles for public criticism and political commentary. Their combination of visual imagery, journalism, and satire is intellectually accessible to the public, and at their best, the cartoons respond powerfully and vividly to current events.

Nowadays editorial cartoons can usually be found on the editorial page of most newspapers, although a few, like Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury are sometimes found on the regular comics page. A good collection of modern editorial cartoons can be found in each issue of magazines like the Humor Times and Funny Times. Recently, many