Michael Gurevitch

Culture, society and the media

Книга посвящена обсуждению двух связанных между собой тем – роли и процессов массовой коммуникации в обществе. Рассмотрение первой темы включает вопросы определения роли, значения и могущества медиа, особенностей их функционирования, подчиненности тем или иным интересам, проверки адекватности существующих подходов к их изучению. Вторая тема развивается вокруг различий между либеральным плюрализмом и марксизмом и соответствующими подходами к анализу природы медиа. Основу книги составляют материалы курса Открытого университета «Массовая коммуникация и общество», а названия ее глав соответствуют названиям разделов данного курса, хотя содержание подверглось существенной переработке, а одна из глав книги была написана специально для настоящего издания.

Political Communication —Old and New Media Relationships

This article reflects upon the ways television changed the political landscape and considers how far new media, such as the Internet, are displacing television or reconfiguring the political communications ecology. The analysis explores opportunities and challenges facing media producers, politicians, and citizens. The authors conclude by suggesting that the television-politics relationship that emerged in the 1960s still prevails to some extent in the digital era but faces new pressures that weaken the primacy of the broadcast-centered model of political communication. The authors identify five new features of political communication that present formidable challenges for media policy makers. They suggest that these are best addressed through an imaginative, democratic approach to nurturing the emancipatory potential of the new media ecology by carving out within it a trusted online space where the dispersed energies, self-articulations, and aspirations of citizens can be rehearsed, in public, within a process of ongoing feedback to the various levels and centers of governance.

Out of Work and On the Air: Television News of Unemployment.

Issues concerning the ideological role of television are examined through a study of television news coverage of unemployment during the first six months of 1983. The study focuses on the explanations of unemployment contained in the coverage and the thematic structure of the news stories. The stories were found to contain few explicit explanations, but a diversity of thematic structures revealed the societal frameworks within which television journalists construct stories about this issue. The diversity of thematic structures raises questions as to whether television acts as disseminator of a “dominant ideology” or as a “cultural forum.”

Presentation of Self in Appeals to Bureaucracy: An Empirical Study of Role Specificity

This paper presents a general formulation of the process of bureaucratic locialization with special emphasis on three factors which lead men to internalize bureaucratic norms and values: (1) formal education; (2) exposure tobureaucratic norms at work; and (3) experience as a client of bureaucracy. Data for an empirical test of several propositions were drawn from a content analysisof letters written by clients of the Israeli customs authorities. Indices of role specificity are developed, based on analysis of the persuasive appeals clients offered in support of their requests. Lacking direct information on the three factors mentioned above, we used five personal and social characteristics of clients to predict whether they would maintain role specificity vis-a-vis customs officials. The clients occupation proved to be the best predictor of role specificity, probably because it best reflects the three factors promoting bureaucratic socialization.

Media and Society

Media and Society examines the role of the media in contemporary society and analyses representations of the world found in advertisements, film, television, photographs and language. It clearly presents theoretical approaches and includes many examples, definitions, issues questions and explanations to aid students’ understanding.

The Image of the Police in Israel

of the relationship between the police and the public in Israel, in the context of a wider series of studies on patterns of contact between bureaucratic organizations and their clients. There may be factors in this relationship which are not evident in other countries; for example, Israeli police are organized on a national basis with centralized control rather than by local departments as in the American system, and the Israeli police are integrated with the national security effort. These very differences, however, may clarify some fundamental elements of the police-public encounter in general.

Mass communication and society

Course Objectives By the time you complete this course, you should have: 1. learned multiple perspectives for evaluating competing claims regarding the interaction between media, culture and society; 2. acquired the ability to critically analyze and evaluate the content of media products; 3. completed a scholarly research paper that critically examines a media institution, product, audience or trend in mass communication.