Introduction to Mass Communication 8e by Baran
Introduction to Mass Communication 8e by Baran is the 8th edition of the Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture textbook authored by Stanley Baran, Bryant University, and published by by McGraw-Hill, a business unit of Th e McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., New York, NY in 2014.
- Absolutist position. Regarding the First Amendment, the idea that no law means no law.
- Access journalism. Reporters acting deferentially toward news sources in order to ensure continued access.
- Accountability metrics. Agreement between ad agency and client on how the eff ectiveness of a specific ad or campaign will be judged.
- Acta Diurna. Written on a tablet, account of the deliberations of the Roman senate; an early "newspaper".
- Actual malice. The standard for libel in coverage of public figures consisting of "knowledge of its falsity" or "reckless disregard" for whether or not it is true.
- Addressable technology. Technology permitting the transmission of very specific content to equally specific audience members.
- Ad hoc balancing of interests. In individual First Amendment cases, several factors should be weighed in determining how much freedom the press is granted.
- Ad-pull policy. Demand by an advertiser for an advance review of a magazine's content, with the threat of pulled advertising if dissatisfied with that content.
- Administrative research. Studies of the immediate, practical influence of mass communication.
- Advergames. Video games produced expressly to serve as brand commercials.
- Advertorials. Ads in magazines and newspapers that take on the appearance of genuine editorial content.
- Advocacy games. Primarily online games supporting an idea rather than a product.
- Affiliate. A broadcasting station that aligns itself with a network.
- Agenda setting. The theory that media may not tell us what to think but do tell us what to think about.
- Aggressive cues model. Of media violence; media portrayals can indicate that certain classes of people are acceptable targets for real-world aggression.
- AIDA approach. The idea that to persuade consumers advertising must attract attention, create interest, stimulate desire, and promote action.
- à la carte pricing. Charging cable subscribers by the channel, not for tiers.
- Alien and Sedition Acts. Series of four laws passed by 1798 U.S. Congress making illegal the writing, publishing, or printing of "any false scandalous and malicious writing" about the president, the Congress, or the U.S. government.
- Aliteracy. Possessing the ability to read but being unwilling to do so.
- All-channel legislation. 1962 law requiring all television sets imported into or manufactured in the United States to be equipped with both VHF and UHF receivers.
- Alternative press. Typically weekly, free papers emphasizing events listings, local arts advertising, and "eccentric" personal classified ads.
- Ambient advertising. Advertising content appearing in nontraditional venues.
- App. Abbreviation for application, a piece of software typically on a cell phone or other electronic device.
- Applied ethics. The application of metaethics and normative ethics to very specific situations.
- Appointment consumption. Audiences consume content at a time predetermined by the producer and distributor.
- Ascertainment. Requires broadcasters to ascertain or actively and affirmatively determine the nature of their audiences' interest, convenience, and necessity; no longer enforced.
- Astroturf. Fake grassroots organization.
- Attitude change theory. Theory that explains how people's attitudes are formed, shaped, and changed and how those attitudes influence behavior.
- Audience fragmentation. Audiences for specific media content becoming smaller and increasingly homogeneous.
- Audion tube. Vacuum tube developed by DeForest that became the basic invention for all radio and television.
- Augmented reality (AR). Permits users to point phones at things in the real world and be instantly linked to websites containing information about those things superimposed over the screen image.
- Authoritarian/communism system. A national media system characterized by authoritarian control.
- Awareness tests. Ad research technique that measures the cumulative eff ect of a campaign in terms of a product's "consumer consciousness".
- Bandwidth. A communication channel's information-carrying capacity.
- Banners. Online advertising messages akin to billboards.
- Basic cable. Television channels provided automatically by virtue of subscription to a cable provider.
- Billings. Total sale of broadcast airtime.
- Bill of Rights. The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
- Binary code. Information transformed into a series of digits 1 and 0 for storage and manipulation in computers.
- Bitcasters. "Radio stations" that can be accessed only over the World Wide Web.
- BitTorrent. File-sharing software that allows users to create "swarms" of data as they simultaneously download and upload "bits" of a given piece of content.
- Blinks. One-second radio commercials.
- Block booking. The practice of requiring exhibitors to rent groups of movies (often inferior) to secure a better one.
- Blockbuster mentality. Filmmaking characterized by reduced risk taking and more formulaic movies; business concerns are said to dominate artistic considerations.
- Blogs. Regularly updated online journals.
- B-movie. The second, typically less expensive, movie in a double feature.
- Bounded cultures (co-cultures). Groups with specific but not dominant cultures.
- Brand entertainment. When commercials are part of and essential to a piece of media content.
- Branding films. Sponsor financing of movies to advance a manufacturer's product.
- Brand magazine. A consumer magazine published by a retail business for readers having demographic characteristics similar to those consumers with whom it typically does business.
- British cultural theory. Theory of elites' domination over culture and its influence on bounded cultures.
- Broadband. A channel with broad information-carrying capacity.
- Broadsides (sometimes broadsheets). Early colonial newspapers imported from England, single-sheet announcements or accounts of events.
- Browsers. Software programs loaded on personal computers and used to download and view Web files.
- Bundling. Delivering television, VOD, audio, high-speed Internet access, long-distance and local phone service, multiple phone lines, and fax via cable.
- C3 rating. Measure of viewing of commercials that appear in a specific program within 3 days of its premiere telecast.
- Calotype. Early system of photography using translucent paper from which multiple prints could be made.
- Casual games. Classic games most often played in spurts and accommodated by small-screen devices.
- Catalogue albums. In record retailing, albums more than three years old.
- Catharsis. Theory that watching mediated violence reduces people's inclination to behave aggressively.
- Cause marketing. PR in support of social issues and causes.
- Cease-and-desist order. Demand made by a regulatory agency that a given illegal practice be stopped.
- Cinématographe. Lumière brothers' device that both photographed and projected action.
- Circulation. The number of issues of a magazine or newspaper that are sold.
- Clandestine stations. Illegal or unlicensed broadcast operations frequently operated by revolutionary groups or intelligence agencies for political purposes.
- Clear time. When local affiliates carry a network's program.
- Click stream. The series of choices made by a user on the Web.
- Cloud computing. Storage of all computer data, including personal information and system-operating software, on distant computers.
- Cloud-music services. Sites allowing users to store all their digital music online and stream it to any computer or digital device anywhere.
- Coaxial cable. Copper-clad aluminum wire encased in plastic foam insulation, covered by an aluminum outer conductor, and then sheathed in plastic.
- Collateral materials. Printing, research, and photographs that PR firms handle for clients, charging as much as 17.65% for this service.
- Commissions. In advertising, placement of advertising in media is compensated, at typically 15% of the cost of the time or space, through commissions.
- Common carrier. A telecommunications company required to carry others' messages with no power to restrict them -- for example, a phone company.
- Communication. The process of creating shared meaning.
- Community antenna television (CATV). Outmoded name for early cable television.
- Commuter papers. Free dailies designed for younger commuters.
- Comparative analysis. The study of diff erent countries' mass media systems.
- Comparative studies. See comparative analysis.
- Complementary copy. Newspaper and magazine content that reinforces the advertiser's message, or at least does not negate it.
- Concentration of ownership. Ownership of diff erent and numerous media companies concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
- Concept films. Movies that can be described in one line.
- Confidentiality. The ability of media professionals to keep secret the names of people who provide them with information.
- Conglomeration. The increase in the ownership of media outlets by nonmedia companies.
- Consumer culture. A culture in which personal worth and identity reside not in the people themselves but in the products with which they surround themselves.
- Consumer juries. Ad research technique in which people considered representative of a target market review a number of approaches or variations of a campaign or ad.
- Consumption-on-demand. The ability to access any content, anytime, anywhere.
- Controlled circulation. A magazine provided at no cost to readers who meet some specific set of advertiser-attractive criteria.
- Conventions. In media content, certain distinctive, standardized style elements of individual genres.
- Convergence. The erosion of traditional distinctions among media.
- Cookie. An identifying code added to a computer's hard drive by a visited website.
- Copyright. Identifying and granting ownership of a given piece of expression to protect the creators' financial interest in it.
- Copy testing. Measuring the eff ectiveness of advertising messages by showing them to consumers; used for all forms of advertising.
- Corantos. One-page news sheets on specific events, printed in English but published in Holland and imported into England by British booksellers; an early "newspaper".
- Cord-cutting. Viewers leaving cable and DBS altogether and relying on Internet-only television.
- Corporate independent studio. Specialty or niche division of a major studio designed to produce more sophisticated -- but less costly -- movies.
- Corrective advertising. A new set of ads required by a regulatory body and produced by the off ender that correct the original misleading eff ort.
- Cost of entry. Amount of money necessary to begin media content production.
- Cost per thousand (CPM). In advertising, the cost of reaching 1,000 audience members, computed by the cost of an ad's placement divided by the number of thousands of consumers it reaches.
- Cottage industry. An industry characterized by small operations closely identified with their personnel.
- Cover. Rerecording of one artist's music by another.
- Critical cultural theory. Idea that media operate primarily to justify and support the status quo at the expense of ordinary people.
- Critical research. Studies of media's contribution to the larger issues of what kind of nation we are building, what kind of people we are becoming.
- Crowdfunded journalism. Journalists pitch stories to readers who can contribute small amounts of money to those they want to see completed.
- Crowdsource. Outsourcing tasks to an online network of people, the crowd, for cooperative problem-solving and production.
- Cultivation analysis. Idea that television "cultivates" or constructs a reality of the world that, although possibly inaccurate, becomes the accepted reality simply because we as a culture believe it to be the reality.
- Cultural definition of communication. Communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed; from James Carey.
- Cultural imperialism. The invasion of an indigenous people's culture, through mass media, by outside, powerful countries.
- Cultural theory. The idea that meaning and therefore effects are negotiated by media and audiences as they interact in the culture.
- Culture. The world made meaningful; socially constructed and maintained through communication, it limits as well as liberates us, differentiates as well as unites us, defines our realities and thereby shapes the ways we think, feel, and act.
- Custom publishing. Publications specifically designed for an individual company seeking to reach a narrowly defined audience.
- Daguerreotype. Process of recording images on polished metal plates, usually copper, covered with a thin layer of silver iodide emulsion.
- Dataveillance. The massive electronic collection and distillation of consumer data.
- Day-and-date release. Simultaneously releasing a movie to the public in some combination of theater, cable, DVD, and download.
- Decoding. Interpreting sign/symbol systems.
- Democracy. Government by the people.
- Demographic segmentation. Advertisers' appeal to audiences composed of varying personal and social characteristics such as race, gender, and economic level.
- Dependency theory. Idea that media's power is a function of audience members' dependency on the media and their content.
- Deregulation. Relaxation of ownership and other rules for radio and television.
- Desensitization. The idea that viewers become more accepting of real-world violence because of its constant presence in television fare.
- Development concept. Of media systems; government and media work in partnership to ensure that media assist in the planned, beneficial development of the country.
- Digital audio radio service (DARS). Direct home or automobile delivery of audio by satellite.
- Digital cable television. Delivery of digital video images and other information to subscribers' homes.
- Digital computer. A computer that processes data reduced to a binary code.
- Digital divide. The lack of technological access among people of color, people who are poor or disabled, and those in rural communities.
- Digital natives. People who have never known a world without the Internet.
- Digital recording. Recording based on conversion of sound into 1s and 0s logged in millisecond intervals in a computerized translation process.
- Digital rights management (DRM). Protection of digitally distributed intellectual property.
- Digital video disc (DVD). Digital recording and playback player and disc, fastest-growing consumer electronic product in history.
- Digital video recorder (DVR). Video recording device attached to a television, which gives viewers significant control over content.
- Dime novels. Inexpensive late 19th- and early 20th-century books that concentrated on frontier and adventure stories; sometimes called pulp novels.
- Disinhibitory effects. In social cognitive theory, seeing a model rewarded for prohibited or threatening behavior increases the likelihood that the observer will perform that behavior.
- Dissonance theory. Argues that people, when confronted by new information, experience a kind of mental discomfort, a dissonance; as a result, they consciously and subconsciously work to limit or reduce that discomfort through the selective processes.
- Diurnals. Daily accounts of local news printed in 1620s England; forerunners of our daily newspaper.
- DMX (Digital Music Express). Home delivery of audio by cable.
- D-notice. In Great Britain, an officially issued notice of prior restraint.
- Domain name. On the World Wide Web, an identifying name, rather than a site's formal URL, that gives some indication of the nature of a site's content or owner.
- Dominant culture (mainstream culture). The culture that seems to hold sway with the large majority of people; that which is normative.
- Double feature. Two films on the same bill.
- Duopoly. Single ownership and management of multiple radio stations in one market.
- Early window. The idea that media give children a window on the world before they have the critical and intellectual ability to judge what they see.
- E-book. A book that is downloaded in electronic form from the Internet to a computer or handheld device.
- E-commerce. Buying products and services online.
- Economies of scale. Concept that relative cost declines as the size of the endeavor grows.
- Editorial policy. Newspapers' and magazines' positions on certain specific issues.
- E-mail (electronic mail). Function of Internet allowing communication via computer with anyone else online, anyplace in the world, with no long-distance fees.
- Embedding. War correspondents exchanging control of their output for access to the front.
- Encoding. Transforming ideas into an understandable sign/symbol system.
- Encryption. Electronic coding or masking of information on the Web that can be deciphered only by a recipient with the decrypting key.
- Engagement. Psychological and behavioral measure of ad effectiveness designed to replace CPM.
- Environmental incentives. In social learning theory, the notion that real-world incentives can lead observers to ignore negative vicarious reinforcement.
- E-publishing. The publication and distribution of books initially or exclusively online.
- E-reader. Digital book having the appearance of a traditional book but with content that is digitally stored and accessed.
- Ethics. Rules of behavior or moral principles that guide actions in given situations.
- Ethnic press. Papers, often in a foreign language, aimed at minority, immigrant, and non-English readers.
- Exergame. Video game designed to encourage beneficial physical activity.
- Exogenous stations. Clandestine broadcast operations functioning from outside the regions to which they transmit.
- Expanded basic cable. In cable television, a second, somewhat more expensive level of subscription.
- External service. In international broadcasting, a service designed by one country to counter enemy propaganda and disseminate information about itself.
- Factory studios. The first film production companies.
- Fairness Doctrine. Requires broadcasters to cover issues of public importance and to be fair in that coverage; abolished in 1987.
- Fair use. In copyright law, instances in which material may be used without permission or payment.
- Feature syndicates. Clearinghouses for the work of columnists, cartoonists, and other creative individuals, providing their work to newspapers and other media outlets.
- Feedback. The response to a given communication.
- Fiber optics. Signals carried by light beams over glass fibers.
- First Amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
- First-person perspective game. Video game in which all action is through the eyes of the player.
- First-run syndication. Original programming produced specifically for the syndicated television market.
- Fixed-fee arrangement. The arrangement whereby a PR firm performs a specific set of services for a client for a specific and prearranged fee.
- Flack. A derogatory name sometimes applied to public relations professionals.
- Flash mobs (sometimes smart mobs). Large, geographically dispersed groups connected only by communications technology, quickly drawn together to perform collective action.
- Flog. Fake blog; typically sponsored by a company to anonymously boost itself or attack a competitor.
- Focus groups. Small groups of people who are interviewed, typically to provide advertising or public relations professionals with detailed information.
- Forced exposure. Ad research technique used primarily for television commercials, requiring advertisers to bring consumers to a theater or other facility where they see a television program, complete with the new ads.
- Format. A radio station's particular sound or programming content.
- Fraction of selection. Graphic description of how individuals make media and content choices based on expectation of reward and effort required.
- Franchise films. Movies produced with full intention of producing several sequels.
- Frankfurt School. Media theory, centered in neo-Marxism, that valued serious art, viewing its consumption as a means to elevate all people toward a better life; typical media fare was seen as pacifying ordinary people while repressing them.
- Freemium games. Video games in which advertising serves as in-game virtual currency.
- Gamification. Use of video game skills and conventions to solve real-world problems.
- Genre. A form of media content with a standardized, distinctive style and conventions.
- Global village. A McLuhan concept; new communication technologies permit people to become increasingly involved in one another's lives.
- Globalization. Ownership of media companies by multinational corporations.
- Grand theory. A theory designed to describe and explain all aspects of a given phenomenon.
- Green light process. The process of deciding to make a movie.
- Greenwashing. Public relations practice of countering the public relations efforts aimed at clients by environmentalists.
- Hard news. News stories that help readers make intelligent decisions and keep up with important issues.
- Home page. Entryway into a website, containing information and hyperlinks to other material.
- Hosts. Computers linking individual personal computer users to the Internet.
- Hypercommercialism. Increasing the amount of advertising and mixing commercial and noncommercial media content.
- Hyperlink. Connection, embedded in Internet or website, allowing instant access to other material in that site as well as to material in other sites.
- Hypodermic needle theory. Idea that media are a dangerous drug that can directly enter a person's system.
- Iconoscope tube. First practical television camera tube, developed in 1923.
- Identification. In social cognitive theory, a special form of imitation by which observers do not exactly copy what they have seen but make a more generalized but related response.
- Imitation. In social cognitive theory, the direct replication of an observed behavior.
- Importation of distant signals. Delivery of distant television signals by cable television for the purpose of improving reception.
- In-band-on-channel (IBOC). Digital radio technology that uses digital compression to "shrink" digital and analog signals, allowing both to occupy the same frequency.
- Indecency. In broadcasting, language or material that depicts sexual or excretory activities in a way offensive to contemporary community standards.
- Indigenous stations. Clandestine broadcast operations functioning from inside the regions to which they transmit.
- Inferential feedback. In the mass communication process, feedback is typically indirect rather than direct; that is, it is inferential.
- Information gap. The widening disparity in amounts and types of information available to information haves and have-nots.
- Information service. Legal designation allowing a telecommunication service provider to maintain control over what passes over its lines.
- Inhibitory effects. In social cognitive theory, seeing a model punished for a behavior reduces the likelihood that the observer will perform that behavior.
- Instant books. Books published very soon after some wellpublicized public event.
- Instant messaging (IM). Real-time e-mail, allowing two or more people to communicate instantaneously and in immediate response to one another.
- Integrated audience reach. Total numbers of the print edition of a newspaper plus unduplicated Web readers.
- Integrated marketing communications (IMC). Combining public relations, marketing, advertising, and promotion into a seamless communication campaign.
- Internet. A global network of interconnected computers that communicate freely and share and exchange information.
- Internet service provider. See ISP.
- Interpersonal communication. Communication between two or a few people.
- Interruptive ads. Magazine ad copy that weaves through or around editorial copy.
- Island. In children's television commercials, the product is shown simply, in actual size against a neutral background.
- ISP (Internet service provider). Company that offers Internet connections at monthly rates depending on the kind and amount of access needed.
- Joint operating agreement (JOA). Permits a failing paper to merge most aspects of its business with a successful local competitor, as long as editorial and reporting operations remain separate.
- Kinescope. Improved picture tube developed by Zworykin for RCA.
- Kinetograph. William Dickson's early motion picture camera.
- Kinetoscope. Peep show devices for the exhibition of kinetographs.
- Knowledge gap. Growing differences in knowledge, civic activity, and literacy between better-informed and less-informed Americans.
- LAN (local area network). Network connecting two or more computers, usually within the same building.
- LCD (liquid crystal display). Display surface in which electric currents of varying voltage are passed through liquid crystal, altering the passage of light through that crystal.
- Lead generation. Using Internet-created databases to collect names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and other information about likely clients or customers.
- LED (light-emitting diode). Light-emitting semiconductor manipulated under a display screen.
- Libel. The false and malicious publication of material that damages a person's reputation (typically applied to print media).
- Libertarianism. Philosophy of the press that asserts that good and rational people can tell right from wrong if presented with full and free access to information; therefore, censorship is unnecessary.
- Limited effects theory. Media's influence is limited by people's individual differences, social categories, and personal relationships.
- Linotype. Technology that allowed the mechanical rather than manual setting of print type.
- Liquid barretter. First audio device permitting the reception of wireless voices; developed by Fessenden.
- Literacy. The ability to effectively and efficiently comprehend and utilize a given form of communication.
- Lobbying. In public relations, directly interacting with elected officials or government regulators and agents.
- Low Power FM (LPFM). 10- to 100-watt nonprofit community radio stations with a reach of only a few miles.
- Macro-level effects. Media's widescale social and cultural impact.
- Magalogue. A designer catalogue produced to look like a consumer magazine.
- Magic bullet theory. The idea from mass society theory that media are a powerful "killing force" that directly penetrates a person's system.
- Mainframe computer. A large central computer to which users are connected by terminals.
- Mainstreaming. In cultivation analysis, television's ability to move people toward a common understanding of how things are.
- Mass communication. The process of creating shared meaning between the mass media and their audiences.
- Mass communication theories. Explanations and predictions of social phenomena relating mass communication to various aspects of our personal and cultural lives or social systems.
- Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMO). Interactive online game where characters and actions are controlled by other players, not the computer; also called virtual worlds games.
- Mass medium (pl. mass media). A medium that carries messages to a large number of people.
- Mass society theory. The idea that media are corrupting influences; they undermine the social order, and "average" people are defenseless against their influence.
- Master antenna television (MATV). Connecting multiple sets in a single location or building to a single, master antenna.
- Meaning-making perspective. Idea that active audience members use media content to create meaning, and meaningful experiences, for themselves.
- Media councils. Panels of people from both the media and the public who investigate complaints against the media and publish their findings.
- Media literacy. The ability to effectively and efficiently comprehend and utilize mass communication.
- Media multitasking. Simultaneously consuming many different kinds of media.
- Medium (pl. media). Vehicle by which messages are conveyed.
- Metaethics. Examination of a culture's understanding of its fundamental values.
- Metering. Internet use charged "by the byte"; heavier users pay more, more-modest users pay less.
- Microcomputer. A very small computer that uses a microprocessor to handle information (also called a personal computer or PC).
- Microcinema. filmmaking using digital video cameras and desktop digital editing machines.
- Micro-level effects. Effects of media on individuals.
- Microwave relay. Audio and video transmitting system in which super-high-frequency signals are sent from land-based point to land-based point.
- Middle-range theories. Ideas that explain or predict only limited aspects of the mass communication process.
- Minicomputer. A relatively large central computer to which users are connected by terminals; not as large as a mainframe computer.
- Modeling. In social cognitive theory, learning through imitation and identification.
- Modem. A device that translates digital computer information into an analog form so it can be transmitted through telephone lines.
- Montage. Tying together two separate but related shots in such a way that they take on a new, unified meaning.
- Moral agent. In an ethical dilemma, the person making the decision.
- MP3. File compression software that permits streaming of digital audio and video data.
- Muckraking. A form of crusading journalism that primarily used magazines to agitate for change.
- MUD (multiuser dimension). Online text-based interactive game.
- Multimedia. Advanced sound and image capabilities for microcomputers.
- Multiple points of access. Ability of a media-literate consumer to access or approach media content from a variety of personally satisfying directions.
- Multiple system operator (MSO). A company owning several different cable television operations.
- Murketing. Making advertising so pervasive consumers are ignorant of its presence.
- Music licensing company. An organization that collects fees based on recorded music users' gross receipts and distributes the money to songwriters and artists.
- Narrowcasting. Aiming broadcast programming at smaller, more demographically homogeneous audiences.
- Neo-Marxist theory. The theory that people are oppressed by those who control the culture, the superstructure, as opposed to the base.
- Network. Centralized production, distribution, decision-making organization that links affiliates for the purpose of delivering their viewers to advertisers.
- Network neutrality. Granting equal carriage over phone and cable lines to all websites.
- Neuromarketing research. Biometric measures (brain waves, facial expressions, eye-tracking, sweating, and heart rate monitoring) used in advertising research.
- Newsbook. Early weekly British publication that carried ads.
- Newspaper chains. Businesses that own two or more newspapers.
- News production research. The study of how economic and other influences on the way news is produced distort and bias news coverage toward those in power.
- News staging. Re-creation on television news of some event that is believed to have happened or which could have happened.
- NFC (near-field communication). Chip tag embedded in a magazine page that connects readers to advertisers' digital content.
- Niche marketing. Aiming media content or consumer products at smaller, more demographically homogeneous audiences.
- Nickelodeons. The first movie houses; admission was one nickel.
- Nipkow disc. First workable device for generating electrical signals suitable for the transmission of a scene.
- Noise. Anything that interferes with successful communication.
- Nonlinear TV. Watching television on our own schedules, not the programmer's.
- Normative ethics. Generalized theories, rules, and principles of ethical or moral behavior.
- Normative theory. An idea that explains how media should ideally operate in a given system of social values.
- Obscenity. Unprotected expression determined by (1) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
- Observational learning. In social cognitive theory, observers can acquire (learn) new behaviors simply by seeing those behaviors performed.
- Off-network. Broadcast industry term for syndicated content that originally aired on a network.
- Offset lithography. Late 19th-century advance making possible printing from photographic plates rather than from metal casts.
- Oligopoly. A media system whose operation is dominated by a few large companies.
- Ombudsman. Internal arbiter of performance for media organizations.
- O&O. A broadcasting station that is owned and operated by a network.
- Open source software. Freely downloaded software.
- Operating policy. Spells out standards for everyday operations for newspapers and magazines.
- Operating system. The software that tells the computer how to work.
- Opinion followers. People who receive opinion leaders' interpretations of media content; from two-step flow theory.
- Opinion leaders. People who initially consume media content, interpret it in light of their own values and beliefs, and then pass it on to opinion followers; from two-step flow theory.
- Opt-in/opt-out. Consumers giving permission to companies to sell personal data, or consumers requesting that companies do not sell personal data.
- Parity products. Products generally perceived as alike by consumers no matter who makes them.
- Pass-along readership. Measurement of publication readers who neither subscribe nor buy single copies but who borrow a copy or read one in a doctor's office or library.
- Payola. Payment made by recording companies to DJs to air their records.
- Paywall. Making online content available only to those visitors willing to pay.
- Penny press. Newspapers in the 1830s selling for one penny.
- Performance-based advertising. Web advertising where the site is paid only when the consumer takes some specific action.
- Permission marketing. Advertising that the consumer actively accepts.
- Persistence of vision. Images our eyes gather are retained by our brains for about 1/24 of a second, producing the appearance of constant motion.
- Personal computer (PC). See microcomputer.
- Personal peoplemeter. Ratings technology; a special remote control with personalized buttons for each viewer in the household.
- Pilot. A sample episode of a proposed television program.
- Piracy. The illegal recording and sale of copyrighted material.
- Pirate broadcasters. Unlicensed or otherwise illegally operated broadcast stations.
- Pixel. The smallest picture element in an electronic imaging system such as a television or computer screen.
- Platform. The means of delivering a specific piece of media content.
- Platform agnostic. Having no preference in where media content is accessed.
- Platform agnostic publishing. Digital and hardcopy books available for any and all reading devices.
- Platform rollout. Opening a movie on only a few screens in the hope that favorable reviews and word-of-mouth publicity will boost interest.
- Playlist. Predetermined sequence of selected records to be played by a disc jockey.
- Podcasting. Recording and downloading of audio files stored on servers.
- Policy book. Delineates standards of operation for local broadcasters.
- Pornography. Expression calculated solely to supply sexual excitement.
- Premium cable. Cable television channels offered to viewers for a fee above the cost of their basic subscription.
- Print on demand (POD). Publishing method whereby publishers store books digitally for instant printing, binding, and delivery once ordered.
- Prior restraint. Power of the government to prevent publication or broadcast of expression.
- Production values. Media content's internal language and grammar; its style and quality.
- Product placement. The integration, for a fee, of specific branded products into media content.
- Product positioning. The practice in advertising of assigning meaning to a product based on who buys the product rather than on the product itself.
- Prosumer. A proactive consumer.
- Protocols. Common communication rules and languages for computers linked to the Internet.
- Pseudo-event. Event that has no real informational or issue meaning; it exists merely to attract media attention.
- Psychographic segmentation. Advertisers' appeal to consumer groups of varying lifestyles, attitudes, values, and behavior patterns.
- P2P. Peer-to-peer software that permits direct Internet-based communication or collaboration between two or more personal computers while bypassing centralized servers.
- Public. In PR, any group of people with a stake in an organization, issue, or idea.
- Public domain. In copyright law, the use of material without permission once the copyright expires.
- Public service remit. Limits on advertising and other public service requirements imposed on Britain's commercial broadcasters in exchange for the right to broadcast.
- Puffery. The little lie or exaggeration that makes advertising more entertaining than it might otherwise be.
- Pulp novels. See dime novels.
- Put. Agreement between a television producer and network that guarantees that the network will order at least a pilot or pay a penalty.
- QR code (quick response code). Small, black-and-white squares that appear on many media surfaces that direct mobile device users to a specific website.
- Radio frequency identification chip (RFID chip). Grain-of-sand–sized microchip and antenna embedded in consumer products that transmit a radio signal.
- Rating. Percentage of a market's total population that is reached by a piece of broadcast programming.
- Recall testing. Ad research technique in which consumers are asked to identify which ads are most easily remembered.
- Recent catalogue albums. In record retailing, albums out for 15 months to three years.
- Recognition tests. Ad research technique in which people who have seen a given publication are asked whether they remember seeing a given ad.
- Reinforcement theory. Joseph Klapper's idea that if media have any impact at all, it is in the direction of reinforcement.
- Remainders. Unsold copies of books returned to the publisher by bookstores to be sold at great discount.
- Retainer. In advertising, an agreed-upon amount of money a client pays an ad agency for a specific series of services.
- Retransmission fee. Money a local cable operation pays to a broadcast station to carry its signal.
- Return on investment (ROI). An accountability-based measure of advertising success.
- Reverse compensation. Fee paid by a local broadcast station for the right to be a network's affiliate.
- Revolutionary concept. Normative theory describing a system where media are used in the service of revolution.
- Rich media. Sophisticated, interactive Web advertising, usually employing sound and video.
- Ritual perspective. The view of media as central to the representation of shared beliefs and culture.
- RSS (really simple syndication). Aggregators allowing Web users to create their own content assembled from the Internet's limitless supply of material.
- Satellite-delivered media tour. Spokespeople can be simultaneously interviewed by a worldwide audience hooked to the interviewee by telephone.
- Search engines. Web- or Net-search software providing onscreen menus.
- Search marketing. Advertising sold next to or in search results produced by users' keyword searches.
- Secondary service. A radio station's second, or nonprimary, format.
- Selective attention. See selective exposure.
- Selective exposure. The idea that people expose themselves to or attend to those messages that are consistent with their preexisting attitudes and beliefs.
- Selective perception. The idea that people interpret messages in a manner consistent with their preexisting attitudes and beliefs.
- Selective processes. People expose themselves to, remember best and longest, and reinterpret messages that are consistent with their preexisting attitudes and beliefs.
- Selective retention. Assumes that people remember best and longest those messages that are consistent with their existing attitudes and beliefs.
- Self-righting principle. John Milton's articulation of libertarianism.
- Share. The percentage of people listening to radio or of homes using television tuned in to a given piece of programming.
- Shield laws. Legislation that expressly protects reporters' rights to maintain sources' confidentiality in courts of law.
- Shopbills. Attractive, artful business cards used by early British tradespeople to promote themselves.
- Shortwave radio. Radio signals transmitted at high frequencies that can travel great distances by skipping off the ionosphere.
- Signs. In social construction of reality, things that have subjective meaning.
- Siquis. Pinup want ads common in Europe before and in early days of newspapers.
- Skip. Ability of radio waves to reflect off the ionosphere.
- Sky waves. Radio waves that are skipped off the ionosphere.
- Slander. Oral or spoken defamation of a person's character (typically applied to broadcasting).
- Smart mobs. see flash mobs.
- Smartphone. A cell phone containing an advanced operating system such as Apple's iOS or Android..
- Social cognitive theory. Idea that people learn through observation.
- Social construction of reality. Theory for explaining how cultures construct and maintain their realities using signs and symbols; argues that people learn to behave in their social world through interaction with it.
- Social networking sites. Websites that function as online communities of users.
- Social responsibility theory (or model). Normative theory or model asserting that media must remain free of government control but, in exchange, must serve the public.
- Soft news. Sensational stories that do not serve the democratic function of journalism.
- Spam. Unsolicited commercial e-mail.
- Spectrum scarcity. Broadcast spectrum space is limited, so not everyone who wants to broadcast can; those who are granted licenses must accept regulation.
- Spin. In PR, outright lying to hide what really happened.
- Split runs. Special versions of a given issue of a magazine in which editorial content and ads vary according to some specific demographic or regional grouping.
- Sponsorships. In Web advertising, pages "brought to you by," typically including ad placements, advertorials, and other cobranded sections.
- Spot commercial sales. In broadcasting, selling individual advertising spots on a given program to a wide variety of advertisers.
- Spyware. Identifying code placed on a computer by a website without permission or notification.
- Standards and Practices Department. The internal content review operation of a television network.
- Stereotyping. Application of a standardized image or conception applied to members of certain groups, usually based on limited information.
- Sticky. An attribute of a website; indicates its ability to hold the attention of a user.
- Stimulation model. Of media violence; viewing mediated violence can increase the likelihood of subsequent aggressive behavior.
- Streaming. The simultaneous downloading and accessing (playing) of digital audio or video data.
- Stripping. Broadcasting a syndicated television show at the same time five nights a week.
- Subscription TV. Early experiments with over-the-air pay television.
- Subsidiary rights. The sale of a book, its contents, even its characters to outside interests, such as filmmakers.
- Surrogate service. In international broadcasting, an operation established by one country to substitute for another's own domestic service.
- Sweeps periods. Special television ratings times in February, May, July, and November in which diaries are distributed to thousands of sample households in selected markets.
- Symbolic interaction. The idea that people give meaning to symbols and then those symbols control people's behavior in their presence.
- Symbols. In social construction of reality, things that have objective meaning.
- Syndication. Sale of radio or television content to stations on a market-by-market basis.
- Synergy. The use by media conglomerates of as many channels of delivery as possible for similar content.
- Targeting. Aiming media content or consumer products at smaller, more specific audiences.
- Taste publics. Groups of people or audiences bound by little more than their interest in a given form of media content.
- Technological determinism. The idea that machines and their development drive economic and cultural change.
- Technology gap. The widening disparity between communication technology haves and have-nots.
- Telecommunications service. Legal designation rendering a telecommunication service provider a common carrier, required to carry the messages of others and with no power to restrict them.
- Tentpole. An expensive blockbuster around which a studio plans its other releases.
- Terminals. User workstations that are connected to larger centralized computers.
- Terrestrial digital radio. Land-based digital radio relying on digital compression technology to simultaneously transmit analog and one or more digital signals using existing spectrum space.
- Theatrical films. Movies produced primarily for initial exhibition on theater screens.
- Third-party publishers. Companies that create video games for existing systems.
- Third-person effect. The common attitude that others are influenced by media messages, but we are not.
- 360 marketing. see ambient advertising.
- Tiers. Groupings of channels made available by a cable or satellite provider to subscribers at varying prices.
- Time-shifting. Taping a show on a VCR for later viewing.
- Total Audience Measurement Index (TAMi). Measure of viewing of a single television episode across all platforms.
- Trade books. Hard- or softcover books including fiction and most nonfiction and cookbooks, biographies, art books, coffeetable books, and how-to books.
- Traffic cop analogy. In broadcast regulation, the idea that the FCC, as a traffic cop, has the right to control not only the flow of broadcast traffic but its composition as well.
- Transmissional perspective. The view of media as senders of information for the purpose of control.
- Transparentists. PR Professionals calling for full disclosure of their practices -- transparency.
- Trustee model. In broadcast regulation, the idea that broadcasters serve as the public's trustees or fiduciaries.
- Two-step flow theory. The idea that media's influence on people's behavior is limited by opinion leaders -- people who initially consume media content, interpret it in light of their own values and beliefs, and then pass it on to opinion followers, who have less frequent contact with media.
- Typification schemes. In social construction of reality, collections of meanings people have assigned to some phenomenon or situation.
- Unique selling proposition (USP). The aspect of an advertised product that sets it apart from other brands in the same product category.
- URL (uniform resource locator). The designation of each file or directory on the host computer connected to the Internet .
- Uses and gratifications approach. The idea that media don't do things to people; people do things with media.
- VALS. Advertisers' psychographic segmentation strategy that classifies consumers according to values and lifestyles.
- Value-compensation program. Ad agency/brand agreement that payment of the agency's fees is predicated on meeting preestablished goals.
- Vast wasteland. Expression coined by FCC chair Newton Minow in 1961 to describe television content.
- Vertical integration. A system in which studios produced their own films, distributed them through their own outlets, and exhibited them in their own theaters.
- Vicarious reinforcement. In social cognitive theory, the observation of reinforcement operates in the same manner as actual reinforcement.
- Video game. A game involving action taking place interactively on-screen.
- Video news release (VNR). Preproduced report about a client or its product that is distributed free of charge to television stations.
- Video-on-demand (VOD). Service allowing television viewers to access pay-per-view movies and other content that can be watched whenever they want.
- Viral marketing. PR strategy that relies on targeting specific Internet users with a given communication and relying on them to spread the word.
- Virtual worlds games. See massively multiplayer online roleplaying games.
- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Phone calls transferred in digital packets over the Internet rather than on circuit-switched telephone wires.
- WAN (wide area network). Network that connects several LANs in different locations.
- Web radio. The delivery of "radio" over the Internet directly to individual listeners.
- Webisode. Web-only television show.
- Western concept. Of media systems; normative theory that combines libertarianism's freedom with social responsibility's demand for public service and, where necessary, regulation.
- Wi-Fi. Wireless Internet.
- Willing suspension of disbelief. Audience practice of willingly accepting the content before them as real.
- Wire services. News-gathering organizations that provide content to members.
- World Wide Web. A tool that serves as a means of accessing files on computers connected via the Internet.
- Yellow journalism. Early 20th-century journalism emphasizing sensational sex, crime, and disaster news.
- Zipping. Fast-forwarding through taped commercials on a VCR.
- Zoned editions. Suburban or regional versions of metropolitan newspapers.
- Zoopraxiscope. Early machine for projecting slides onto a distant surface.