Media and Power

A Handbook

Why did we call this course “Media & Power,” and not the more common title of “Media Literacy”? The title Media Literacy suggests that students should gain the ability to critically analyze the languages and discourses – textual, visual, audio, and code – that people use to create and interpret media content.

But, we also want students to understand the overarching context: media possess immense power in contemporary societies around the world.

Mediated content helps to shape culture, from fashion trends, to political affiliations, to who people of a nation see as enemies and allies. Media have the power to affect the personal – they can influence your own sense of identity and self worth. Literacy requires being able to critically analyze a message and interpret the motives – both overt and covert – of the message creator and analyze the potential impact of the message not just on voting or consumer habits, but also on the way people see themselves and their place in the world. This Handbook seeks to help you develop the critical media literacy skills to analyze media and power.

Analyzing media power can occur with a number of perspectives. It can involve investigating those who control the creation and distribution – through media systems they typically control – the media messages that help them maintain that power. It also involves those not in power who interpret those media messages, and who sometimes push back at the dominant narratives and find ways to tell alternative stories. So, if this Handbook is about media and power, let us take a moment to define those two terms.

What is Media

The word media is actually a plural term and can refer to a range of media formats (e.g, radio, television, movies, recorded music, internet, print, social media) and economic arrangements (e.g., commercial, nonprofit, social, personal). When people talk about a monolithic “THE media,” they usually don’t mean the folk music show on public radio or your aunt’s Facebook page. Instead, they are more likely referring to commercial media, particularly its most powerful corporations and the stories – both nonfiction (e.g., news) and fiction (e.g., movies, television shows) – that they tell. In that sense, one might consider this collection of media to be an institution, alongside other social institutions like families, education, and religion, which normalize particular patterns of behavior, define the roles people fill, and help people make sense of the world by teaching and informing them about it. People are influenced and constituted by media messages they have experienced and created, and the interpersonal communications they have had with others throughout their lives.

When we refer to media in this textbook, we do so to point out that media play an important role in any message. How a message is mediated affects its reception. Think about choices you have made about which medium to use:

Why text a message instead of leaving a voicemail?

Why publish a letter to the editor rather than protest silently outside of a city council meeting?

Why read a series of social media posts instead of a long format magazine style story?

Why attach a photo to a story (whether news or personal)?

Why listen to a podcast rather than read a book?

The potential for a message to be mediated, and then recirculated across a range of media platforms, matters. In fact, the potential for messages and events to be mediated has altered the way people talk and plan events, from presidential inaugurals to small birthday parties. People structure messages so that they can be captured in sound bites and sight bites.

Sound bites

Media power is why people planning events that seek news media coverage will develop “talking points,” in the hopes that this focused message will be recorded by a reporter and then recirculated in news coverage. (Or, alternately, the event also could be recorded by any attendee and recirculated on social media.) Because messages will be mediated, people plan sound bites, short catchy phrases meant for media uptake and recirculation.

Sound bites appeared in print news media coverage in the form of key quotations, but the influence of media coverage on communication became most clear with the advent of television. Jeffrey Scheuer, in The Sound Bite Society, made the case that the rise and influence of television changed the way politics was reported and encouraged the use of catchy snippets of information that tended to simplify complex issues.^[1] 

Although sound bites have been part of the western tradition since the time of Homer, the length of soundbites has changed. Consider the average length of time a television news story would give to a sound bite when reporting on political speeches:

1968        43 seconds

1972        25 seconds

1976         18 seconds

1980        12 seconds

1984        10 seconds

1988         less than 9 seconds

2012         between 7 to 9 seconds^[2] 

Given the complexity of issues, is it possible to understand a nuanced position after a 7-second quote? This reduction in time is why scholars worry about the effect of media on political communication. The pressure to produce sound bites means complex issues get simplified.

Sight bites

Media power is also why people who plan public events (whether political rallies, protests, fundraisers, or weddings) spend time thinking about how the event will look: What videos or photographs can be captured that can then be posted, circulated, and potentially circulated so much that they go viral? In fact, as media have become more visual (with video and photos, not stories just composed of words), the emphasis on catchy visual images grew. Because messages will be mediated, people plan sight bites: choreographed and orchestrated actions meant for uptake by visual media.

When you ask whether something is “Instagram worthy,” that is an example of media power and sight bites in your own life. Forbes magazine pointed out how many people have adopted a media-friendly sight bite-style for their own lives, in a story titled “Instagram Worthy: How Social Media Has Reshaped Our Ideas On Attractive Design.”^[3] According to the article, what people think of as attractive or pretty has been changed by how it will appear on social media:

Whether we want to admit it or not, the decisions we make are influenced by our desire to curate a certain look and persona on social media. That impacts the way we design our spaces and the clothing we wear. This combined with the open source nature of social platforms has seriously changed what we find to be attractive in fashion, home decor, even art.^[4]

Media, in both form and content, influence what people like and what they value.

The power of a sight bite is demonstrated by the fact that political figures often employ people whose job it is to find the perfect backdrop for the media. Micheal Deaver was that person for U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan in the early 1980s. A longtime aide to Reagan, Deaver came to be known as Reagan’s “image maestro” because he staged “media events in ways that allowed the White House to set the networks’ agenda.”^[5] The power of media influenced Deaver’s event staging choices for Reagan; in turn, Deaver’s choices for visual settings influenced media coverage of the president and public perception of Reagan. Why did Deaver pay so much attention to photo opportunities as a way to build Reagan’s presidential image? Because Deaver believed that a “public brought up on television was more impressed with how things looked than how things sound.”^[6] As media technologies shifted, advisors to presidents changed the way they presented the president to the public, focusing on images more than words.

Media: Making sense of the world

Media content constructs reality. Media producers (those people who create media content, including your posts on social media) make sense of the world from their particular point of view and history. One of the biggest certainties of the media system – which is mostly commercial – is that it exists in a capitalist economy. So, media content needs to make money and serve power. One can see the monied media machine in the kinds of media stories that become mainstream. Why is there so much sports coverage on TV? And why does this sports coverage feature mostly men’s sports? 

Why was it only in 2018 that the first major Hollywood film with an all-Asian cast was produced (Crazy Rich Asians)? Why was it only in 2021 that a television series was produced by indigenous writers and directors, with an almost entirely First Nations cast (Hulu’s Reservation Dogs).

Why are some kinds of media stories, like coverage of missing and murdered indigenous women or stories of working class people from rural areas so rare or nonexistent? The determining factor is which stories (or content) generate money, and who are the people (advertisers and investors) in charge of financing this media content. The answer brings us to power.

What is Power

Power, at its most basic, means “the ability to get things done.”^[7] It is not an innately bad thing, hence people’s search for empowerment. Here, though, you might begin to sense a distinction between “power to” and “power over.”^[8] Power over occurs when one person or entity has more power than another, and uses that power over others to coerce or force them to act, hence depriving those others of power and agency. Power refers to when a person possesses agency, an ability to do things that does not rely on the use or abuse of others. When people refer to those in power, they usually are referring to people who have power over others. When people refer to empowerment, they usually are referring to the power to be a change agent in the world.

Not everyone has the same amount of power, or even the same type of power. Your personal power to influence which TikTok a friend watches is not the same as the power of a friend group to influence what movie you attend that night. And friend group influence is not the same as commercial media’s power to influence popular culture, which is not the same as the power of a state government to dictate what books can be read in a school. Sociology professors Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge identified four “distinctive yet interconnected domains of power” – meaning power over:  interpersonal, disciplinary, cultural, and structural.^[9] 

Interpersonal power refers to the power people have over others in personal or professional relationships. Collins and Bilge recognized “power relations are about people’s lives, how people relate to one another, and who is advantaged or disadvantaged within social interactions.”^[10] Reality shows like Love Island or The Bachelor allow you to witness interpersonal power as the show’s chosen cast members attempt to deploy power over each other.

Disciplinary power refers to the power people collectively have over each other and how people internalize social norms and enforce them on themselves. Collins and Bilge identified the “informal social rewards and punishments” that “get distributed in everyday interactions” as an example of disciplinary power.^[11] As an example, think about how your media viewing practices are rewarded (e.g., you might be praised or made to feel popular because you can talk about the most recent football game). Think also of how other media viewing practices are guilty pleasures, that  you might not reveal because you fear being punished (e.g., people might make fun of you because you still like watching Bluey). That is disciplinary power at work. It is disciplinary power working when you decide to watch some things, and not others, because of the rewards and punishments you expect to receive.

Cultural power refers to the way socially accepted ideas and messages transmitted across media have power over people. As you might expect, cultural power is the focus of this Handbook. Media have immense power over people because mediated messages construct and maintain socially accepted cultural beliefs about things like sex, gender, race, class, politics, the environment, etc. The cultural power of media is illustrated by the examples of sound bites and sight bites noted earlier. Media influence message form (visual or verbal, length, etc.) and content (what is covered and how it is covered).

Structural power refers to how groups, institutions, and laws exert power over people.^[12] Laws have the power to dictate what can, and cannot, be done. Media are governed by structural power (e.g., the First Amendment, the Communication Decency Act, the Federal Communications Commission, and licensing and regulation of television and radio).

Examining the four domains of power: an example

Let’s take one example of media representation and how the four domains of power might help you understand how power is at play in the example: honorifics. Honorifics are just what they sound like: a title meant to bestow honor on another person. Although U.S. culture is becoming more informal, and the use of honorifics is lessening, globally honorifics are still an important part of introductions to clearly establish people’s interpersonal relationship (for more on this, see Babbel’s guide to honorifics across the globe).

First, think about introductions in a formal setting: How would you like to be referred to? Here are a few the possible options:

Miss

Mrs.

Mr.

Ms.

Mx.

Rev.

Dr. (which can refer to MD, PhD, EdD, DMD, etc.)

Professor

Captain, General, Colonel (or any military rank)

Sir

Madame

You might think which honorific is applied is no big deal, but the range of honorifics available and who gets to use them does matter. A recent controversy illustrates this.

Dr. Jill Biden, who earned a doctor of education (EdD) in 2007, became the First Lady of the United States when Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. won the presidency in 2020.  If it was odd to see President Biden’s full name, instead of Joe, that is an indication of Biden’s quest for informality, to appear to be a “regular Joe.” Now, back to honorifics.

If you were to write a story, how might you address the person Jill Biden? An editorial published in the Wall Street Journal addressed Dr. Biden this way: “Madame First Lady — Mrs. Biden — Jill — kiddo."^[13] The editorialist, who did not have a doctorate in anything, then ridiculed Dr. Biden’s degree and demanded the First Lady should “drop the honorific” Dr. because “Dr.” should be reserved for those with MDs.

The editorialist’s position does reflect a journalistic tendency. The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook guidelines dictate that Dr. should be used “in first reference as a formal title before the name of an individual who holds a doctor of dental surgery, doctor of medicine, doctor of optometry, doctor of osteopathic medicine, doctor of podiatric medicine, or doctor of veterinary medicine.”^[14] In other words, medical doctors. However, Dr. as an honorific often is used to refer to people who have earned advanced educational degrees – for example, many of your professors might go by Dr. ____________.  To be clear, PhD refers to a Doctorate in Philosophy, EdD refers to a Doctorate in Education, JD refers to a Doctorate of Jurisprudence, and MD refers to a Doctorate in Medicine.

So, was the editorialist’s call for Dr. Biden to drop the Dr. just an appeal to journalistic rules? Or was a different level of power at play. There are a couple clues. First, historically other non-medical doctors who had served in the White House were addressed using Dr. (e.g., Dr. Henry Kissinger who served as secretary of state and national security advisor during the Nixon and Ford administrations or Dr. Sebastian Gorka who was an aide but left the White House after failing to pass a security clearance during the Trump administration). Second, one of the addresses was “kiddo,” anything but a recognition of Dr. Biden’s social status as a professional and adult human being.

So, where might power be at play in this example? First, the editorialist was seeking to exert interpersonal power through the use of ridicule to induce Dr. Biden to change a practice. The editorialist also sought to call on others to exert disciplinary power, seeking to create punishments should Dr. Biden not change their practice. Structural power is at play when you think about the AP Stylebook: it sets rules for journalists, but not everyone writes and talks like a journalist and, in fact, not all journalists think the AP rule is appropriate (for stories on this example, see NPR). Finally, there is the issue of cultural power. When it comes to honorifics, women and men’s options are not the same; a power imbalance exists in heterosexual marriage with men not changing their honorific (Mr.) and women long having honorifics that designate their marital status (Mrs. or Miss). Note, the editorialist did not even offer Ms. as an option to Dr. Biden.

In the United States, the honorific of Mrs. actually was part of a larger practice where women lost their names after marriage, for example Miss Jane Jones upon marriage would become Mrs. John Smith. An alternative does exist: Ms. which emerged as early as the 1600s. In the 1970s, Ms. began to gain popularity because it was a way to use an honorific (like Mr.) that was not dependent on women’s marital status. Cultural power can be traced by noting that some people’s marital status marks their social status (Miss or Mrs.) while others’ social status is not changed with marriage (Mr.).

Another level of cultural power with honorifics is at play, and that relates to biological sex. Mr. and Ms. (as well as Miss and Mrs.) mark the sex of the person referenced. Mr. is used for men and Ms. for women. Why, though, it is necessary to designate someone’s sex in a formal address? In May 2015, the Oxford English Dictionary added Mx. to its lexicon as an alternative that does not designate sex.

And, of course, there is the interesting question as to why Wall Street Journal editors and publishers thought the notion that Dr. Biden should not be called “Dr. Biden” was important enough of an issue to devote space and time to the editorial rather than, say, report on other things happening in December 2020.

Whoever Controls Language, Imagery, Storylines – has Power.

This Handbook is about helping you identify the power others have in controlling language, imagery, and storylines, but also in helping you harness power yourself. It’s about giving you critical insight to make powerful media messages, but also giving you the power to read into and even against the media messages produced by others.

We’ve divided this Handbook into three Modules:

Module 1: Construction of Meaning

You will learn foundational communication concepts related to media, power, and control over a message. You will analyze photo composition and the aesthetic choices made by photographers, graphic designers, and web designers; understand how cultural signs and symbols are an important part of communication; examine how stories (and bigger stories called myths) are constructed and used to define “common sense”; learn how ideological positions are articulated through discourses, and recognize that peoples’ interpretations of all media messages vary depending on their ideologies.

Module 2: Construction of Gender, Race, and Ethnicity

You will apply the theoretical concepts from Module 1 to the representation of sex/gender and race/ethnicity, and the way they intersect.

Module 3: Construction of Truth

You will learn the way journalists construct the news; how others who want to influence and control journalism are spreading fake news; and develop strategies for identifying disinformation.

Whether you are a communication or media major, or in some other area of the humanities, your career path will likely include some sort of media production where you will have to make choices: What picture do you choose from the stock photo company? What color background? What messaging will you choose to go alongside?

If you post on a social media platform, you are already a media producer. You might regularly share messages written by others. You might even write or share messages that ultimately turn out to be untrue or misinformed. This class will help you think about media content: What you choose to post online;  how you present yourself publicly; what sort of choices you are making that reflect larger narratives and ideologies; and how to better control – through composition and messaging – the visual and written content you create.

This class helps you deconstruct media content – photographs, newspaper articles, advertisements, movies, documentaries, public relations materials, websites, social media posts, memes – and helps you develop an understanding of how this media content influences people, and how you might ethically harness some of the power of the media for yourself.

Ultimately, this class is concerned with who has the power to control the narrative, and who has the power to read against it. You'll also discuss the importance of multiple points of view; learn to identify U.S. media's leanings towards commercialism, individualism, and specific ideologies, and develop skill in identifying fake news. This class aims to help you become media literate, and to think more critically and creatively about media and their relationship to citizenship and democracy.