Bridging Media Psychology and History: An Interview with Charisse L’Pree Corsbie-Massay (Part Three)
/You distinguish here between broadcast and cable television. Are they distinctive media? How do their effects differ?
Similar to magnetic tape, we often don't think about network and cable as different, but this evolution of the technology was essential to our relationship with television content. When the difference between network and cable television is discussed in media studies, it is largely about differences in industry and policy – targeting different groups, bypassing fin-syn laws, pay content, and so on – but they are absolutely different technologies. When I refer to network television, we are talking about audiovisual content delivered through radio waves. Alternatively, cable television is a hardwired cable into your home, eliminating the problems of radio waves, including the need for an antenna, the potential for signal disruption because of weather or other obstructions. So suddenly we had guaranteedaudiovisual content. The increased spectrum also allowed service providers greater control to limit access to paying customers, as well as more channels for targeted programming. These changes are made possible by sending messages over a literal wired cable.
To tie back to magnetic tape, I don't think that magnetic tape receives the same attention as other technologies because magnetic tape didn't necessarily beget its own content and its own unique messaging; instead, it was a new way for users to engage with pre-existing messages. There is some work on direct-to-video content and exercise tapes because that is the new content that magnetic tape made possible, but this lack of attention demonstrates our obsession with content over the technology. In the case of over-the-air broadcast – what I call network television for lack of a better term – we think of cable as simply a new way to access media content with which we were already familiar, so we don’t think of it as a new technology. If the technology does not manifest new content, even if it gives us an opportunity to engage differently with old content or pre-existing content, then it doesn't get the same level of attention.
By setting the boundaries of your account within the 20th century, you largely dodge the challenges of writing about social media, focusing your account of digital technology around computer games and Dialup ISP. How would Twitter or Facebook fit within the framework you offer here?
The choice to end the book before our current manifestation of social media serves several purposes. Most importantly it focuses the book on technologies to which no longer pay research attention. We stopped researching the psychological effects of radio when television came along, and research into the effects of television became passe with the rise of video games and social media. Considering this, one of my major arguments is that our relationships with 20th century media inform our relationships with 21st century media, including social media. So instead of talking about social media like Facebook and Twitter as its own chapter, I talk about our relationship with these platforms as the outcome of our relationships with prior platforms. The things that we attribute to the affordances of social media – the expectation of finding something that is personally relevant regardless of your personal preferences, the expectation of one’s voice being heard, the ability to connect with communities independent of space and time – I argue were somewhat available with earlier technology and therefore those uses were seeded before social media came along.
However, if we think about social media as its own unique technology, not as simply the accelerated opportunity to satisfy psychosocial needs that were triggered by earlier media, the specific affordances of social media must be clear. Three communication opportunities that are very unique to social media are…
1. Mass distribution of user-generated content:In my opinion, this is the ultimate affordance of social media. Whereas other media like magnetic tape and eventually CDs allowed people to create content and distribute it, this content had to be copied and distributed through real space, limiting its reach. With social media, anyone can create anything, post it, and make it widely available. This affordance triggered a rise in influencer culture, where people can become popular overnight for just being themselves. A student once said that the new dream is to have your content “blow up;” the right person sees it, shares it, and suddenly you can make a living doing you.
2. Talking back to power and the invisible gatekeeper: Social media as a technology allows anyone to post anything on content by anyone else – barring changes in settings obviously. By eliminating the gatekeeper, we see how users will push back on institutions and individuals in power. I adore reading the replies on posts from people like Donald Trump, Taylor Swift, or Pope Francis just to see how random people use this space to stan, shade, and troll. It feels like every letter to the editor is published, but we also know that the algorithm is the new gatekeeper, and we are more likely to see the comments that the platform thinks will keep us engaged.
3. Infinite scrolling:In the end, infinite scrolling isn’t even an inherent part of social media, but it is a seemingly inseparable feature. What social media have offered from a technological perspective is literally endless content. TV shows and movies eventually run credits. Songs end. Mario saves the Princess. Content via dialup ISPs was close to infinite, but they weren’t designed to push you into more content, barring web rings. But Facebook and Twitter are designed to never end, to create a space where the next satisfying piece of content is just on the next page. This is the ultimate manifestation of the negative promise of channel surfing. But now, we don’t even have to change the channel, we just keep scrolling and the next channel is pushed to us.
I started a private Instagram page for my son where I share one picture of him a day with friends and family. The experience of starting a new profile has been enlightening; I do not consider what I should and should not post with respect to my preexisting online persona, and instead simply share joyous pictures of a toddler. In addition, because he only follows about 100 people, we regularly get to the end of the feed. Instagram notifies you when you have gotten to the end of your new posts and proceeds to provide suggested posts, which is usually animal posts and zoo profiles in his case, so that’s cool.
As we think about what we expect from social media, its potential, promise, and practice. The potential is to engage with people around the world, the promise has been one of increased human connections, but the practice has been of never turning it off and literally feeding you posts that continue to draw you in. So, to come to the end of the internet, so to speak, is an epiphany. It shows you what the limits of the technology are when you're actively told that you shouldn't see the limits as well.
You describe yourself as a “fierce advocate for media literacy.” How are you defining “media literacy” here? As a mother, what kinds of educational experiences do you hope your children will receive to help guide their relationship to media?
When I talk about media literacy, in this case, as it relates to technology, is literally to look at the process by which messages get to us.
In 2017 for NAMLE’s Media Literacy Week, I conducted a series of interviewswith my colleagues at Newhouse to ask them how they define media literacy and how that operates in their classroom. And then created a series of images. I still use my own quote from that series for my definition of media literacy. Media literacy is the ability to see things that you are actively encouraged not to see.
This is the driving force of my teaching philosophy, to help students see what they're not supposed to see. And with respect to communication technologies, we are not supposed to see the medium itself. With any good media content, the medium should fall away – we get lost in books, we forget that we are in the theater, we return to memories through music – in short, the suspension of disbelief is to be able to ignore the medium and focus on the message. This is the sense of presence.
From a technological perspective, media industry does not make money by encouraging people to think deeply about the technology; money comes from making the technology invisible. When we talk about media literacy as it relates to technology, we're talking about being able to see howwe engage with something, and distinguish the potential of the technology (i.e., what canthe technology do) from the promises (i.e., how are we encouraged to use the technology by designers and stakeholders) and the practice (i.e., how do we actually come to use the technology). It is essential to understand that how we use a technology does not depend only on the technology’s capabilities; that there are a lot of people with a lot of interests – economic and social – in how technology is used and seeing this distinction is a form of media literacy.
When we talk about media literacy, we often talk about media industry and content framing. I think we really need to ask ourselves about the technology and this is where this whole book emerged from as it pertains to the class that I was teaching, both at USC and at Syracuse, the psychology of interactive media, where I ask students to think differently about the technology that they're accustomed to. We start with the printed word. Why do you read? How do you read? What is your relationship with the written word? What is your relationship with a book? How is an audiobook different from the tangible book? Why do you read magazines? Newspapers? Even though these are the same format – printed words and images – they are different technologies, and we expect different things and engage with them differently. But why? And to what effect?
I think that this is particularly relevant to another question you asked: Over the past year, few of us have had a chance to watch theatrical films in public exhibition. This allows us to think through what is gained or lost from our encounters with the big screen. Did we learn anything important about cinema as a medium as a consequence of this social experiment?
We know why we go to the movies – it is literally promised to us every year during awards season through the Oscars host opening monologue or some other industry self-aggrandizing montage. But the experience of theatrical filmis different from that of simply watching feature-length films (i.e., a story that begins and ends in 90-240m). I talk about theatrical film as a unique medium because we willingly give over our consciousness to the filmmaker…
The venue distinguishes theatrical film from other audiovisual media, because the audience’s attention, experiences, and subsequently emotions are controlled by the medium. Users can certainly engage with moving pictures on television, backyard projections, and cell phones, but these venues do not control the total corporeal experience, and differences in display (e.g., screen size, audio quality) results in different experiences. Theatrical venues, including ornate palace-styled theaters and multiplexes, amplify the sensory experience of film by situating the user in a darkened theater that insulates them from outside noise and other distractions, resulting in consistent experiences across users regardless of time, geographical location, or user differences. (p. 22)
Now that we are watching film in our homes on our televisions, laptops, and even mobile devices, there is no consistency of corporeal experience. The film is consistent, but the venue is infinitely different between users. Films at home are more like books – the content is the same, albeit richer due to audio and visual information, but the experience of the film differs based on the user’s setup. Unfortunately, with a toddler, I haven’t had the chance to watch many movies even in quarantine, so I haven’t been able to really test this theory by talking to others about films that are being released on streaming platforms[1]. But I would assume that the interpretation of the film and one’s overall assessment of its quality may come from a combination of the film itself, the emotions that the user brings to the film, and the format in which the user watches it, the latter of which has generally not been a significant consideration pre-COVID. I hope the Academy offers a new award: Best Small Screen Film…
As for how my child changes how I think about all of these things. It is unbelievably fascinating to know all of these things in theory, to have done this research for decades, to have written this book, and then to watch him live and experience the things. Sometimes its research in action, sometimes it’s something that has never crossed my mind. For example, he generally does not like video. Admittedly, we kept him away from screens for the first 2 years as per the recommendations of the American Psychological Association, but now he is disinterested in non-interactive video. He plays Khan Academy Kids and other educational video games, but he really doesn’t like anything that he can’t control. Interestingly, he loves books and magazines because he can control the progression of the story and he can move backward and forward at his discretion, which is largely counter to what I would have suspected given that those formats are less rich, less immersive, but he doesn’t seem interested in being immersed, especially if he is not in control.
We've been trying to introduce videos into his media diet, but it’s tough and it's really interesting to watch like my other friends with similar aged babies take to videos so easily because they've been watching for so long. Or they have older siblings who watch, and you can't really keep away your younger one when the older sibling is watching content. It’s just really remarkable to see how he's evolving with different media differently. He has a wonderful control over Alexa, getting the speaker to play his favorite songs on repeat. He even improved his pronunciation to better get what he wants.
I am technically an expert on media and psychology, and very knowledgeable about trends in development with respect to both of these disciplines, but every child is different, and I appreciate more every day how every one of us is an outlier. And I think that's probably where I would leave this.
The goal of a media psychography is to think about one's own biography through the media technologies, through the communication environment in which we have been immersed. So, to understand our own psychology, it is essential for each of us to understand the way in which we communicate be that language or culture or technology. I would hope that to foster media literacy in all of my readers, my students, your readers, your students, is to ask them to think differently about the communication environmentin which they live.
[1]Although I have big plans to watch The Matrix 4and Bill and Ted 3later this semester for supplemental episodes of my podcast on Keanu Reeves with Bob Thompson. Shameless Pitch: criticalandcurious.com/s2
Charisse L’Pree Corsbie-Massay is an Associate Professor of Communications at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She holds BS degrees in Brain and Cognitive Science and Comparative Media Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MA degree from the School of Cinematic Arts and a PhD in Social Psychology from University of Southern California. Charisse's work focuses on how media affects the way we think about others and our perceptions of ourselves. At Newhouse, she teaches courses on media theory, media psychology, and diversity. In her most recent book, 20th Century Media and the American Psyche, she investigates changes to the communication environment over the past 150 years and how these rapid yet pervasive shifts have affected our psychology. A committed teacher, L’Pree has spent the past 20 years encouraging others to think differently about their relationship with all forms of media and across disciplines. You can read more of her work at charisselpree.me or follow her @charisselpree.
