The concept of framing consistently offers a way to describe the power of a communicating text” (Entman, RM. 1993).

Robert M Entman stated in his Journal of Communication that “to frame is to select some aspects of aperceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text.” To put this in more simple terms, framing gives the audience a type of experience when looking at a product or advertisement, rather than just selling the product itself. In the marketing and consumption process, we learn it is not as straightforward as it seems.

For example, when you see an advertisement for a hair product and depicted is a beautiful woman with luscious hair frolicking in a flower garden, you are not only being sold nice hair – you are also being sold the idea that you will feel a certain way when owning this product.

Jordan Greenhall’s concept of ‘thinking vs simulated thinking’ goes deep into the idea that we now communicate with “a vast and often nuanced script of pre-defined signals and ‘appropriate’ responses” that “even resembles thinking” (Greenhall, J. 2018)  This is important to the framing concept as we spend so much time having a strict perceived point of view defined by society that we barely think for ourselves and what we want, hence why that hair product looks so appealing.  

Remediation:

Sources:

Jordan Hall. 2019. On Thinking and Simulated Thinking – Deep Code – Medium. [ONLINE] Available at: https://medium.com/deep-code/on-thinking-and-simulated-thinking-5e434e92cf86. [Accessed 13 May 2019].

Entman, R., 1993. Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communzcatzon, 1, 51.

The public sphere is ‘the place’ where each of us finds out what is happening, and what social, cultural and political issues are facing us, and where we engage with those issues.

My public sphere would have the be social media outlets. These would include Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. It is where I find out what is happening in both my world (friends, family etc.) and the world around me (politics, celebrities, world-wide news).

Social media is an online network. You do not need to be in a physical space to see it, and you can be engaged and involved in certain topics and debates on social media in the comfort of your own home. It is a place where we source our news and debate our ideas on the world.

Because these social media platforms are so large, many issues can arise from them. For example, there could be a twitter comment debating a topic on gender. This then sparks thousands and thousands of comments underneath not only criticising the individual’s opinion, but also the individual themselves. Twitter “trolls” could ultimately destroy this persons self esteem, their reputation and in extreme cases, can have an affect on their career (if their boss happens to see it). Because you must have an account to post, you reveal a lot of personal information about yourself, which can be dangerous and consequential. Social media can also be exclusive. You can create private group conversations in which others on social media cannot see what you discuss.

The media itself, such as the people who own and control these outlets, also have a large voice, and can choose to remove a post or an individuals account. This has a large impact. For example, You-tuber Logan Paul uploaded a video of a man who committed suicide in a Japanese forest, and Youtube did have the power to take it down. However, it was up for 24 hours before Logan himself took the video town, sparking some debate against Youtube and its moderator laws.

More information on Youtube and Logan Paul here:

BBC. 2018. YouTube punishes Logan Paul over Japan suicide video. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42644321. [Accessed 10 April 2019].

Social media is a public-sphere that is ever expanding. It is a place I come to and find out what is happening in the world around me. I can choose to have a say and I voice in certain debates, however I choose to keep quiet and be a passive listener most of the time.

“Our personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology” – Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media (1964), P1.

Anyone can post anything daily. No matter who you are in the world, your voice can be heard and shared. In simple terms, there is no filtering on the internet (though it is more complicated than this), and your voice can influence many (many to many). You can post something on Youtube that will ultimately be taken down for its content. However, it has already reached an audience on such a large scale and distributed across platforms, and so its impact has already happened, despite it possibly being taken down in 10 minutes. You can broadcast to the entire network, and then it can be distributed through multiple channels by the audiences participating. These are the personal and social consequences of the media.

(remediation^)

Don’t dismiss a meme. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist described a meme by stating; “memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.”
As humans, it is our basic instinct to learn information and to repeat and produce. In this sense, digital production is the same as any other production such as industrial. We are merely reproducing work that was already there and distorting it to suit the message. It is like the saying “life imitates art,” but in this case it is more like “art imitating art.”

It has become to vast that individual we have all become digital producers. The digital network economy has also brought the world together, being able to discuss different interests in places such as digital forums. For example, if we all follow a specific page on Instagram who is producing certain work and posting it on social media; we, the followers have become a community within that, commenting and engaging in on the work and the responses that were made. We are now both the audience and the creators.

Remediation: Focusing on a meme (left) and transforming that into something else (right)

Sources:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-defines-a-meme-1904778/?all