Encyclopedia of Media and Communication
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION The first comprehensive encyclopedia for the growing fields of media and communication studies, the Encyclopedia of Media and Communication is an essential resource for beginners and seasoned academics alike. Contributions from over fifty experts and practitioners pro- vide an accessible introduction to these disciplines’ most important concepts, figures, and schools of thought – from Jean Baudrillard to Tim Berners-Lee, and podcasting to Peircean semiotics. Detailed and up to date, the Encyclopedia of Media and Communication synthesizes a wide array of works and perspectives on the making of meaning. The appendix includes time- lines covering the historical record for each medium, from either antiquity or their inception to the present day. Each entry also features a bibliography linking readers to relevant re- sources for further reading. The most coherent treatment yet of these fields, the Encyclopedia of Media and Communication promises to be the standard reference text for the next genera- tion of media and communication students and scholars. marcel danesi is the director of and a professor in the Program in Semiotics and Commu- nication Theory at Victoria College, University of Toronto. Editor Marcel Danesi Advisory Editors Paul Cobley Derrick De Kherckhove Umberto Eco Eddo Rigotti Janet Staiger Encyclopedia of Media and Communication Edited by Marcel Danesi UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London © University of Toronto Press 2013 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-1-4426-4314-7 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4426-1169-6 (paper) Printed on acid-free paper Toronto Studies in Semiotics and Communication Editors: Marcel Danesi, Umberto Eco, Paul Perron, Peter Schultz, and Roland Posner Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Encyclopedia of media and communication / edited by Marcel Danesi. (Toronto studies in semiotics and communication) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-4426-4314-7 (bound) – ISBN 978-1-4426-1169-6 (pbk.) 1. Communication – Encyclopedias. 2. Mass media – Encyclopedias. 3. Semiotics – Encyclopedias. I. Danesi, Marcel, 1946– II. Series: Toronto studies in semiotics and communication. P87.5.E55 2013 302.203 C2012-905452-6 University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing activities. Contents introduction vii Entries 3 timelines 729 list of contributors 737 This page intentionally left blank Introduction In the late 1990s, at the threshold of the age the matrix, as the network of circuits that of the internet in which we now live, two defines computer technology is called. But blockbuster movies provided remarkable the same word also means ‘womb,’ etymo- insight into the state of the contemporary logically speaking. The movie’s transparent world. The first one was the 1997 James subtext is that, with the advent of the digital Bond movie titled Tomorrow Never Dies; the universe, new generations are now being other one was the now cult 1999 movie The born in two kinds of wombs – the biological Matrix. In the former, unlike the villains of and the technological. previous Bond movies, an evil, deranged Many studies published after these two personage, a man called Elliot Carver, movies were released have decried the seri- seeks control over the world through the ous dangers that the media and the new manipulation of mass communications me- mass communications technologies pose dia. Carver has a ‘geek criminal mind’ and to the human race. Some of these studies knows that by controlling what people see criticize the individuals and groups who and hear he will be able to gain dominion control media institutions. But many more over their minds. Elliot Carver personifies see the current state of affairs as an evo- the danger of mind control by media mo- lutionary rather than revolutionary state. guls in an age when the media literally run Since prehistoric times, humans have used the show. Indeed, we live in a world that technology to improve their control over is being increasingly threatened by those the world and the unknown. However, who, like the fictitious Elliot Carver, hold the question that the two movies beg is the levers of ‘mass communications power,’ whether or not the technologies we have that is, by those who control television created are now starting to control us – a networks, movie production studios, and theme that has always been a staple of sci- computer media. ence fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey is a case The ability of mass communications in point). As the late Canadian communica- technologies to shape cognition and cul- tions guru Marshall McLuhan (1911–80) tural evolution defines the dynamic of the observed throughout his career, the media modern world. Never before in the history we make are unconscious extensions of our of human civilization has the study of this physical, sensory, and cognitive forms and dynamic become so critical. The Matrix processes. Thus we evolve through them, illuminates this dynamic. Like the main not independently of them. For example, protagonist of that movie, Neo, we now live with the invention of the telescope and ‘on’ and ‘through’ the computer screen. Our the microscope (at about the same time engagement with reality is largely shaped in history), not only have we gained the by that screen, whose technical name is capacity to see ‘farther out’ and ‘farther in’ viii Introduction respectively, but we have also changed dra- well extended Lippmann’s view in 1927, matically and permanently. These ‘vision- arguing that mass-mediated propaganda enhancing’ devices have made possible the affected people’s behaviours and overall exploration of space and the human body, world view. But these critiques remained leading to the modern sciences of astrono- mere opinions (albeit persuasively argued my, biology, medicine, and forensics, and ones) until 1939. That was the year after these, in turn, have guided (in part at least) the radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’s novel how society has evolved and how human about alien invasion, The War of the Worlds, cognition (understanding of the world) has led to the first true scientific study of the re- changed. lation between media representations and mass psychology. The program was created Studying the Media and Mass by the famous actor and director Orson Communications Welles as a drama in which a typical music radio broadcast was interrupted by a series Separate university courses (and even de- of fake ‘on-the-spot’ news reports describ- partments) for studying the media, and es- ing the landing of Martian spaceships. The pecially the relationship of the mass media radio audience was reminded, from time to all facets of human communication and to time, that the program was fictional. culture, are proliferating at the speed of But thousands nevertheless believed that digital communication itself. The study has Martians were actually invading the Earth. become so widespread that it has generated A number of people called the police and its own technical vocabulary, theoretical the army; others ran onto the streets. A year apparatus, and set of ‘facts on file.’ More later, psychologist Hadley Cantril and a important, it has provided different angles team of researchers at Princeton University from which to view all forms of human decided to study the reasons why a fiction- communication (from vocal language and al radio program would have the power traditional writing to body language and to bring about such hysteria, focusing on new forms of writing) and culture (from why some people believed the fake reports narratives to video games). This implies and others did not. After interviewing 135 that such study now has its own ‘ency- subjects, Cantril and his team concluded clopedia’ structure. The word encyclopedia that the main factor distinguishing the two derives from a phrase signifying ‘coming groups was critical thinking – educated to grips with the contents of knowledge.’ listeners were more capable of recognizing A comprehensive encyclopedia of media the broadcast as a fake than less-educated and communications – that is, a work for a ones. The Cantril report laid the founda- general readership that presents the main tion for a systematic study of the media in aspects of a field of knowledge – is a basic universities, leading eventually to a new tool that virtually everyone should have at field – media studies. Since the 1940s, the his or her disposal, especially since we all size and scope of this field has skyrocketed, live in the world of the matrix. That is the becoming an area of interest, not only on purpose of the present encyclopedia. the part of academics and researchers, but The fear that representations of reality, also on the part of virtually everyone. such as theatrical ones, have significant A decade after the Cantril study, the late effects on people is an ancient one. It was American engineer Claude Shannon laid espoused, for example, by the philosopher the scientific foundations for investigating Plato. In 1922, the American journalist the relation between mass communication Walter Lippmann came forward to make (in all its forms) and technology. Known as the explicit claim that the modern-day the ‘bull’s-eye model,’ Shannon’s approach mass media had a direct effect on people’s aimed to identify the main components of minds. The American scholar Harold Lass- communications systems and describe in Introduction ix precise mathematical terms how they func- book Mythologies, that such products are tioned in the transmission and reception modern-day reflexes of hidden mythic of information. The model consisted of a structures. Mythologies brought out the sender aiming a message at a receiver as if in a significance of studying media products target range – hence the designation bull’s- in terms of how they recycle and embody eye model.