Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies This page intentionally left blank Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies 8th edition James Watson and Anne Hill Eighth edition published in 2012 by: Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP, UK and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Copyright © James Watson and Anne Hill 2012 First edition published in Great Britain in 1984 Second edition 1989 Th ird edition 1993 Fourth edition 1997 Fifth edition 2000 Sixth edition 2003 Seventh edition published by Hodder Education in 2006. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 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Cover images: Shutterstock www.bloomsburyacademic.com Preface to the 8th edition If there is one word which defi nes the evolution of media since the 7th edition of this Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies in 2006 it is participation: the audience is king; and this has largely come about as a result of the opportunities for feedback and interactivity made possible by new and improved technology. Once upon a time there were TV sets. Th e whole family sat in front of them and the choice was either, or. Today young people see less of their parents. Th ey retire to their rooms, click a button and a universe of information, entertainment, games opens up to them. Th ey can contact their hundreds if not thousands of ‘friends’ on Facebook, watch a score of fi ve-minute videos a night on YouTube – and may appear to have less need to interact with real people in the real world. Ironically, for this same generation many educational experiences will be shared with others, in the traditional manner, in seminars and lectures. True cyberspace will be available on electronic whiteboards, but what happens on a daily basis is little diff erent from the educational experiences of their parents and or indeed their grandparents. We ask, has the bounty of the Internet, the access our smartphones have made possible, changed culture that much? Are people meeting each other less frequently, reading less, watching conventional TV less; is the newspaper on the verge of extinction? Also, taking into account the fashionable political mantra, the ‘big society’, in which we all rise up and take command of the heights of decision-making, opening our own schools, choosing where we’ll have our babies or our heart surgery, are we experiencing the beginning of a world turned upside down, of power rising from the depths to assert itself over former privilege, of the power of smart mobs? Whether the answer is a qualifi ed yes or no, what is important is who is asking and attempting to answer the question. For example, has power of a sort shifted to social networks (see networking: social networking), where petitions and protests can be organized swiftly and on a large scale? Faced with public opinion expressed online, do the power elites (see elite) adjust their position, promise more public consultation in future, reverse their decisions – or do they wait till online interactivity returns to the more normal, ‘I hate Monday mornings’/ ‘So do I’ discourse? Interactive culture Technological innovation is not the only source of change confronting the twenty-fi rst-century citizen. To use Eric M. Eisenberg’s phrase, the sociocultural ‘surround’ in which much everyday social interaction takes place has also changed for many of us. Most Western societies have seen a growth in cultural diversity. Th e challenges this presents for successful interaction has been the focus of much contemporary research within the fi eld of interpersonal communication and the entries for this fi eld of study have been revised to refl ect such developments. Arguably the forces of globalization usher-in social fragmentation and uncertainties – not least uncertainties about self-identity. So, research focused on the contemporary odyssey of the search for self-identity, which Anthony Giddens terms the project of self, is considered. Th e potential of everyday communication to contribute to the forging of a sense of self-identity informs numerous entries, such as those for dress, gender, the johari window, performativity, role model and self-disclosure. v Preface to the 8th edition Much of modern life is mediated and thus the interplay between interpersonal and mass communication also needs to be considered. advertising and other aspects of media culture contain many messages that may impact on the development of a sense of identity; the entry on self-identity thus embraces discussion of second-life identities. Th e arrival of facebook and other social networking sites also opens up the debate about what it is to have a ‘sense of self’. Th e Internet has not so much taken over and transformed traditional media as appropriated the way we think about the broad spectrum of communication. Change has been in the air, but how fundamentally has hegemony been shaken, how seriously has it been stirred? A key issue concerning claims to ‘democratization’ and popular involvement in the exercise of power is whether the ‘usual suspects’ – the corporations, the fi nancial organisations, the mass media – have at any time of late lost or surrendered their powers. It could be that we are so busy talking among ourselves, networking, vanishing into the magic whirlpools of our iPods, iPlayers and iPads that we fail to notice something: the power elites have not gone away; nor have they undergone any Pauline conversion except to embrace the opportunities, for commerce and control, that the Network Society off ers the alert entrepreneur. Paging Mr Murdoch Th is is not to say that predictability rules. Until the summer of 2011 the global media empire ruled by Rupert Murdoch was widely seen as an unstoppable force, a threat to the plurality of media and a malign infl uence on governments, obtaining from them concessions in return for a generally supportive press: ‘Touch Your Forelocks to Mr Murdoch’ was embossed on the dance-card of every politician ambitious to achieve power or hold on to it (see british sky broadcasting, bskyb). Th e phone-hacking scandal (see journalism: phone-hacking) involving News International’s News of the World, and the dramatic closure of the 168-year-old paper in July 2011, may well have brought about a sea-change, not only for the murdoch effect specifi cally but for the media generally in its relation to politics and policing. Some would say it is ‘not before time’ that politicians and public in the UK paid attention to the systemic practice of prying electronically (and illegally) into the lives of citizens high and low. Public outrage and a united parliament forced Murdoch to retreat, at least temporarily, from his ambition to own the whole of BSkyB; something Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt had, until revelations turned from a trickle to a tsunami, been ‘mindful’ of accepting. It is fi tting to celebrate the true purpose of journalism in action, holding power – that of govern- ment, corporations, institutions, the police and the media themselves – to account. Varyingly called ‘the best political thriller of our times’ and likened to the ‘crumbling of the Berlin Wall’, the hacking scandal – fearlessly revealed by the Guardian, initially alone in the UK and battling against denial and indiff erence – raised wider issues concerning media ownership and its connection with politicans and police. Not least among public concerns was the way the Murdoch empire did everything in its power to hush up the scandal. Th e Daily Mirror editorial of 15 July declared that ‘News International has mishandled the crisis engulfi ng it with the fi nesse of an elephant trying to tap-dance on an oil- smeared fl oor’. History was truly made when Rupert Murdoch, his son James, Chairman of News International, and (just resigned) Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks were summoned to appear before House of Commons special committees for questioning; this in the same week as the Commis- sioner of the London Metropolitan police, Sir Paul Stephenson, and his Assistant Commissioner, John Yates, resigned following evidence of their connections with the under-scrutiny organization. For the present, we leave it to media watchers to monitor the after-shock of such seismic events; to track how far remonstration, indignant headlines, mass petitions, committees of inquiry actually impact, in the long run, on the status quo; and whether a new dawn will produce a less exploitative, more balanced media more answerable to public interest, to the law and to media ethics. vi Preface to the 8th edition Meanwhile, back on the ground Less sensational than the hacking saga, but of equal interest and sometimes of concern in