A

Agenda-setting function. Purports that mass media establishes what issues are and are not important to individuals and to the culture.

Alternative media. Offers special-interest programming not found in traditional, mainstream, or conventional media. Includes noncommercial ventures, international media systems, and corporate telecommunications. Internet sites of special interest may also act and be received as alternative media.

C

Cablecasting. The delivery of media content through underground or overhead cables. Refers only to the technology of cable, but content production and design resembles narrowcasting.

Classic four functions of the media. Surveillance, correlation, transmission of the social heritage, and entertainment.

Cone effect. A conceptual model for understanding mediated reality in which Constructed mediated reality (CMR) is produced from the stuff of real life in a heightened or exaggerated fashion.

Consonance. Similarity of the messages (content) disseminated by the mainstream mass media.

Constructed mediated reality (CMR). Creation of mediated reality from the elements of real life.

D

Direct effects assumption. The media, in and of themselves, can produce direct effects.

Disinformation. False information spread about the opposition to discredit it.

E

Escapist gratification. Fullfilment of the need to be distracted from the realities of life through experiences such as the happy ending, romantic love, and the good old days.

Ethnocentrism. The tendency to be nationally or culturally self-centered.

F

Face-to-face communication. The sender and receiver of information are in contact. The receiver may disagree, ask a question, or repeat information. The sender and receiver can engage in a dialogue about the message. There is an opportunity for feedback.

False analogy. An advertiser is suggesting a misleading similarity.

Feedback. The process of communication whereby a person can disagree, ask a question, repeat information for understanding, or otherwise talk back in the communication process.

G

Gatekeepers. Those in control of the flow of information. The gatekeeper can choose to accept or reject a piece of information for public consumption. Newspaper publishers, editors and reporters, television producers, radio station owners and broadcasting executives have all been cited as examples of media gatekeepers.

Genre. Specific kinds of media content, e.g., entertainment, information, news, advertising, etc. Each category is defined with traditional conventions, but categories may overlap.

Global village. McLuhan's conception of a new form of social organization emerging as instantaneous, electronic media tie the entire world into one great social, political, and cultural system.

Greatest-happiness principle. Advanced by British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), urges doing whatever will result in the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

H

High culture. Set of cultural artifacts that humanists judged to have the highest value.

Homogenous audience. An audience composed of individuals who are more alike than different.

I

Identification. An aspect of "modeling theory", in which individuals may observe, identify with, and than imitate one or more media characters.

J

Jingle. Music and lyrics written essentially to sell products.

K

Knowledge gap. Systematic differences in knowledge between better informed and less informed segments of a population.

L

Lasswell`s model. Verbal model, devised by Harold Lasswell, identifying the key elements in any instance of human communication: who, says what, to whom, in which channel, with what effect?

Least objectionable programming (LOP) theory. Assumes that viewers select whatever is "least objectionable" from whatever happens to be on TV, assumes that viewing patterns are the result of habit, convenience, and socialization.

Limited effects theory. The theory that media have minimal or limited effects because those effects are mittigated by a variety of mediating or intervening variables.

M

Mainstreaming. The process present especially for heavier viewers of television by which television's symbols monopolize and dominate other sources of information and ideas about the world.

N

Narrative video. A music video that tells a story, logically and sequentially (more-or-less), just as narrative films do.

Narrowcasting. Producing and designing media content in order to target a highly specific segment of the audience. Opposite of broadcasting.

O

Objective. The ideal that the media producer is representing a balanced viewpoint on issues. The ideal that media producers are fair, accurate and conduits for information. Opposite of subjective.

Oligopoly. The concentration of increasing numbers of media businesses in the hands of a few large companies.

P

Parasocial interaction. Responses to radio and television characters or celebrities that resemble the interactions found in real life social relationships.

Parasocial relationship. Special relationships that evolve between real-life individuals and individuals or programs existing only in the realm of mediated reality.

Perceived mediated reality (PMR). Mediated reality as it is made sense of by the individual or social group/society.

Prime time. In television program scheduling, the four hours between 19:00 and 23:00 when most viewers are watching television.

Priming. The idea that media draw attention to some aspects of life at the expense of others.

Priming effects. The idea that presentations in the media heighten the likehood that people will develop similar thoughts about those things in the real world.

Q

R

Rating. The percentage of all persons who live in a market tuned or potentially tuned to a station at a given time.

Reflection (mediated). The notion that radio and television programs mirror the behaviors, thoughts, and emotions of the audience and are based on society.

Refraction (mediated). The notion that radio and television programs shape the behaviors, thoughts, and emotions of the audience and are interactive with society.

Representation. The relationship between actual places, people, events and ideas and media content. Stereotypes are a common form of media representation.

S

Sensationalism. Highly subjective, journalistic style is characterized by an emphasis on form (style) over content (substance), stories lean heavily towards sex, violence, gore and gossip.

Share. The percantage of the audience tuned to a particular station at a given time.

Short-term payoff (gratification). Found in the mini-climaxes of soap opera subplots, requiring that a viewer watch at least from the beginning of a specific story line to its completion.

Social gratification. Fulfillment of the basic needs and desires of sharing own experiences with others as related to television.

Socialization. The process by which developing individuals internalize the beliefs, attitudes, and customs of a culture and learn the norms of society.

Spiral of silence. The descriptive term for a theory of public opinion, developed by German researcher Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, in which certain individuals who perceive their opinions as inconsistent with the status quo as defined by the mass media are not likely to express "deviant" opinions.
Dr. Noelle-Neumann argues: "If you think your ideas, lifestyle, values, and customs are very unpopular, you shut up. You fall silent, fearing rejection and isolation. ...The media do this by portraying an idea or activity as objectionable, or simply by ignoring it altogether. Because people use the media to get a sense of the climate of opinion, those persons whose views are mispresented or ignored can fall into a downward Spiral of Silence."
Various forms of alternative telecommunications (such as Internet) can break these spirals of silence.

Spiritual/moral gratification. Caters to needs/desires to see evil punished and virtue restored, to believe in good (or god), to experience spiritual cleansing, to safely explore taboo subjects, and to see order imposed upon the world.

Split screen. Two or more contents are displayed simultaneously on the screen of televesion, computer etc. Typically in two windows containing programs (contents) and commercials (or program trailors).

T

Target audience. The specific psychographic and demographic groups that an advertiser wants to reach with a commercial message.

Targeting. Identifying specific audience segments and reaching them through the most efficient available channel.

Technological determinist. A person who believes that all social, political, economic, and cultural change is inevitably based on the development and diffusion of technology.

Technology. Hardware used to create and communicate with media, e.g., radio, computers, telephones, satellites, printing presses, pencils, etc.

Techno-stress. A range of stress-related symptoms associated with working long hours with modern technology (especially computers).

Third person effect. The idea that "media affect others, but not me".

U

V

Vicarious gratification. Satisfies needs/desires to participate in exciting, dangerous and fantastic situations under controlled, guilt-free conditions indirectly through another medium.

W

Weisenbacher, Peter. Content originator and webmaster of this site, stundent of Information and library science on the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University Bratislava.

X

Y

Z

Zapping. Changing a TV channel, usually with a remote control, to avoid watching commercials.

Zipping. Using the VCR`s fast-forward function to skip past the commercials.