Above-the-line employees:
people who are hired for their specific creative talents to make media messages (actors, directors, writers, composers, etc.)
Abstraction:
the skill of creating a brief, clear, and accurate description capturing the essence of a message in a significantly smaller number of words (or images, sounds, etc.) than the message itself
Adaptation:
the fifth and last phase in the life cycle pattern of the development of a mass medium in which the medium redefines itself in the media marketplace and provides different messages or services not provided by other media
Advertising avails:
time slots (typically 15 or 30 seconds in length) in radio and television shows that have no programming content and therefore are left blank so that advertisers can buy access to those time slots to show their commercial messages
Adware:
advertiser-supported software that is a form of spamming; when you access a commercial site, that site sends a program to your computer that automatically plays ads and downloads more ads to your computer
Aggregators:
online platforms that bring together buyers and sellers of all kinds of products and services
Analog coding:
the recording, storage, and retrieval of information that relies on the physical properties of a medium; thus, a sound is recorded, stored, and retrieved in a different manner than is a photographic image
Analysis:
the skill of breaking down a message into meaningful elements
Attention:
exposure to a media message that takes place in the attentional state; conscious awareness of the media message
Attentional exposure state:
the experience of being aware of a media message and actively processing its information while being exposed to the message
Attitudinal-type effect:
the media-influenced effect that is manifested as the acquisition of a new attitude or the triggering, alteration, or reinforcement of existing attitudes
Attraction:
immediate behavioral effect in which a media message attracts our exposure so we access a website, turn on the television, buy a book, and so on
Audience conditioning:
a strategy used by media organizations to make their existing audience members want to continually expose themselves to their subsequent messages
Automatic exposure state:
the experience of being exposed to a media message without being aware of the message
Automatic routines:
sequences of behaviors or thoughts that we learn from experience and then apply again and again with little effort; think of these as computer programs that run in the back of our minds without us consciously paying attention to them
Automaticity:
a mental state in which we put our minds on automatic pilot and filter out almost all message options
Baseline:
a way of thinking about a person’s typical probability of manifesting an effect
Baseline effects:
a form of process effect that alters a person’s baseline by moving it gradually to the manifestation level, moving it away from the manifestation level, or reinforcing its position (thus making it more difficult to move in the future)
Behavioral-type effect:
a type of media-influenced effect that is manifested as the triggering of actions in a person or the altering as well as reinforcing of patterns of action over time
Belief:
faith in the existence or truth of something
Belief-type effect:
a type of media-influenced effect that is manifested as the acquiring of a belief or the long-term alteration as well as reinforcing of an existing belief
Below-the-line employees:
people who work in the media industries and exhibit skills that are not especially unique; that is, the skills required to do their jobs are widespread in the population
Blog:
short for web log; internet sites set up by individuals, businesses, and news organizations that are designed to attract the attention of as many visitors as possible with text, audio, and video
Boomerang effect:
when researchers find that the interventions they have designed to improve media literacy have had the opposite effect; that is, their interventions actually resulted in decreasing media literacy or in increasing the negative effects they were designed to reduce
Bootlegging:
the unauthorized recording of live events and distribution of recordings
Botnet:
a network of infected computers (bots) that is remotely controlled by hackers
Brick-and-mortar stores:
retail stores that people can physically (compared to virtually) visit in order to browse, touch the products (such as books, recordings, and DVDs), talk to live sales people, buy the products, and leave the store with the physical product
Buying funnel:
a way of thinking about interacting with potential customers who are surfing the internet; marketers try to move potential customers step by step from interest to awareness of their product to a positive attitude to product purchase to reinforcement and a buying habit and, eventually, to advocating for the product to their friends
Catfishing:
the practice of using a false identity on a social networking site (SNS)
Cloud:
a network of computers used to store information from individuals and organizations
Cognitive-type effect:
a type of media-influenced effect that is manifested as the acquisition of information (factual or social) as well as the triggering, alteration, or reinforcement of a mental process
Competencies:
the ability to accomplish a task successfully, such as matching the meaning of a media message element; in contrast to skills, competencies are categorical: either you can perform the task successfully or you cannot
Complex interdependence:
the relationship among the four players in the economic game as they negotiate exchanges of resources
Conceptual differentiation:
the ability to classify objects into a large number of mutually exclusive categories
Conglomerate merger:
one company buys other companies that can be in the same industry (same type of business or a company’s suppliers and distributors) as well as being in other industries
Conglomerates:
very large companies that own and operate many businesses across different industries
Content analysis:
a social scientific research method that focuses on certain characteristics of media messages (such as the demographics of characters or the portrayals of violence) and counts how frequently those characteristics occur
Convergence:
the gradual moving together over time of things that used to be separated; this is a powerful force on the mass media that has three manifestations: technological, marketing, and psychological
Cookies:
tiny computer files that are planted on a computer’s hard drive when its user accesses websites; these files store information about the user’s browsing history and preferences and are activated each time the user accesses the website that created the cookie
Copy platform:
a planning document that specifies how particular advertisements are to be designed with regard to how the product is to be presented, the tone of the ad, and whether a product spokesperson is to appear in the ad
Copyleft:
the removing of restrictions so that media messages are free and all users have the right to distribute copies as well as modify versions of a work; based on the values of openness and common ownership
Copyright:
the legal establishment of ownership of a media message; based on the idea that the creative products of artists should be protected so that these artists can be adequately rewarded for their creations and continue to be willing to create more products
Counterfeiting:
a form of media message piracy that refers to the duplication of a copyrighted message (along with its packaging) and selling it as the real product
Creative commons:
the sharing of resources for the common good such that everyone is allowed open access to the work of others so that they can build on that work for the common good
Cross-media promotion:
advertisers place messages in different media in order to reach a wider variety of potential customers
Cross-vehicle promotion:
advertisers place messages in different vehicles in order to reach a wider variety of potential customers
Crowdsourcing:
the use of internet platforms to solicit resources (particularly information, goods, and services) from the general public
Crystalline intelligence:
the ability to memorize facts as well as the facility to absorb the images, definitions, opinions, and agendas of others
Cyberbullying:
the action of posting messages (on blogs, social networking sites, etc.) designed to cause harm to others by embarrassing, belittling, and/or harassing them
Decline:
the fourth phase in the life cycle pattern of the development of a mass medium in which the medium loses audience members and revenue due to competition from a newer medium that provides better messages or the same messages in a better way
Deduction:
the skill of using general principles to explain particulars, typically with the use of syllogistic reasoning
Default strategy:
when audience members do not think about their media exposures and do not make active decisions as they negotiate their resources of time and money; instead, audiences continue with the automatic habits that follow a goal of maintaining a minimal level of uninterrupted satisfaction
Demographic segmentation:
identifying a niche audience by their enduring characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, and so on
Denial-of-service attack:
when hackers flood a website or email service provider with so much information that the site crashes; typically done by spammers who retaliate against anti-spamming sites that are filtering out the messages of spammers
Denoted meanings:
standard meanings for symbols that are shared by all people; these are the dictionary meanings we memorize for words and symbols when we are in elementary school
Dependence effect:
occurs when people, over time, come to rely on particular media messages and experiences to such an extent that they require the continuation of these exposures
Desensitization:
a long-term emotional effect in which the continual exposure to a certain kind of media message erodes the intensity of our emotional reaction; for example, repeated exposures to acts of aggression lead us to reduce our sympathy for victims of aggression
Digital coding:
the recording, storage, and retrieval of information that uses a common digital code that is not dependent on the physical characteristics of any one medium
Digital games:
platforms offering competitive experiences using electronic devices (video, computer, smartphone, etc.)
Direct support:
consumers make payments directly to media companies in exchange for access to their messages
Displacement effect:
a long-term behavioral effect in which the media gradually change how we spend our time by shifting our behaviors into media usage and away from other activities
Dunbar’s number:
the estimation that 150 is the maximum number of friendships that a human can adequately maintain over time
Echo chamber:
the nature of the media to repeat the same ideas so that people tend to hear the same thing over and over
Economies of scale:
the high costs of making the first copy of a media message are spread out over many copies; as additional copies are produced, the high cost of making the initial copy is averaged over a greater number of copies and the cost per copy is reduced
Economies of scope:
the high costs of making a media message are spread out over different messages; when an original message is translated into similar messages and distributed through different media
Electromagnetic spectrum (EMS):
a range of frequencies that are used for broadcasting messages without wires; in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is in charge of assigning frequencies to individuals and businesses for transmission of radio, television, and cell phone signals
Electronic word of mouth (eWOM):
statements made about products through email, websites, and other forms of electronic communication
Emojis:
small icons and graphics
Emoticons:
the use of text characters to depict pictures of emotional states such as smiles, frowns, and winks
Emotional development:
the maturation of one’s abilities to recognize and understand the emotions in oneself and in others as well as the ability to control one’s own emotional reactions
Emotional intelligence:
the ability to understand and control one’s emotions
Emotional-type effect:
the type of media-influenced effect that is manifested as the triggering of an emotional reaction or the altering of emotional patterns over time
Evaluation:
the skill of judging the value of an element; the judgment is made by comparing a message element to a standard
Evolution pattern:
the use of five stages (innovation, penetration, peak, decline, and adaptation) to explain how each of the mass media channels has evolved over time
Exposure states:
four qualitatively distinct psychological states people can be in when experiencing a media message; these four states are automatic, attentional, transported, and self-reflexive
Exposure:
the condition of being in proximity (place and time) to a message, having the message occur within our perceptual abilities, and leave some impression (however slight) in our minds; thus, there are three hurdles for exposure: physical, perceptual, and psychological
Fact:
a discrete bit of information that (a) is a characteristic about a person, event, place, or time; (b) is presented as being true; and (c) can be verified. It is contrasted with the terms belief and opinion, which refer to personal interpretations that cannot be verified using a truth standard. While beliefs and opinions can be based on facts (or not), they are not themselves facts.
Fake news:
information that is presented as news while being faulty in some way, such as being inaccurate or presenting only a partial explanation that misleads audiences
Fakesters:
users of social networking sites (SNSs) who create fictional profiles for themselves by presenting themselves as a celebrity, pet animal, superhero, or a fantasy character
Federal Communications Commission (FCC):
an agency established by the United States congress in the 1920s to regulate the new broadcasting industry and the developing telecommunication industry; focuses primarily on establishing national standards for developing information technologies as well as regulating ownership of broadcasting and telecommunication businesses
Field independency:
a natural ability to distinguish between the signal and the noise in any message where the noise is the chaos of symbols and images while the signal is the information that emerges from the chaos
Filtering:
the information-processing task in which people continually make decisions about filtering out media messages (ignoring them) or filtering them in (paying attention to them)
Firewall:
a security program that people can install on their computers to monitor incoming and outgoing traffic and thereby filter out messages that are deemed to be potentially harmful
Flow:
when playing video games, the experience of being so focused on playing the game and achieving one’s goals that the player loses track of time and place
Fluctuation effects:
a form of process effect in which there is a temporary deviation from a person’s baseline
Fluid intelligence:
the ability to be creative, make leaps of insight, and perceive things in a fresh and novel manner
Follow-on users:
users of a copyleft message who take an original message, add something to it, and pass it on to other users who can also add something to it
FOMO (fear of missing out) factor:
a negative effect of using social networking sites (SNSs) in which users develop a fear of missing out and this fear makes them feel bad unless they are constantly checking SNSs
Frame:
a set of experiences we use to interpret media messages; frames are composed of our beliefs, preferences, emotions, and so on
Friending:
when two users of a social networking site (SNS) agree to add each other to their friends list, which typically grants them permission to access more information on each other’s site
Game engines:
the basic programming needed to support an electronic game; users work off this basic programming to customize a game by designing various characters, settings, and rules of their own choosing
General story formula:
the generic structure of all entertainment-type stories; begins with a conflict or a problem, the conflict is heightened throughout the story as the main characters try to solve the problem, and the story is resolved in a climactic scene
Generalizations:
a long-term cognitive effect that involves a process of observing a few occurrences of something in media messages, perceiving a pattern that ties together those occurrences, and then inferring that the pattern reflects something more general than those specific occurrences
Genre:
refers to kinds of messages and suggests that there are categories within which media messages can be organized; the most general genres of media messages are entertainment, news/information, and persuasive messages (such as commercial messages and public service announcements [PSAs])
Geodemographic segmentation:
identifying a niche audience by a combination of where people live and their demographic characteristics
Geographic segmentation:
identifying a niche audience by where its members live and shop
Goldilocks syndrome:
the tendency of users of social networking sites (SNSs) to make friends who are neither too close nor too far in terms of psychological distance
Grouping:
the skill of determining which elements are alike in some way; determining how a group of elements are different from other groups of elements
Hackers:
people who use computer programming to break through firewalls designed to protect databases; their motive is to steal information, cause havoc with that information, or simply enjoy the challenge of defeating security systems
Hacktivism:
the using of hackers’ techniques to break into organizations’ secure databases for the purposes of either damaging those databases or using the information to publicly embarrass the organization
Hijacking:
when hackers use your computer without your permission and often without your knowledge
Horizontal merger:
one company buys another company of the same type so as to increase the number of outlets for the same products/services
Human interest:
a news selection criterion that refers to the degree to which something would appeal to the emotions of audiences; events that are likely to trigger emotions of admiration, appreciation, amusement, fear, and anger are more likely to be considered newsworthy
Hyper-local:
the specialization of news vehicles in response to a fragmenting niche audience
Identity theft:
thieves use technology and media to access your personal information and then use that information to get credit cards and other forms of your identity sent to them
Inbound marketing:
a new perspective on marketing made possible by digitization and the internet; marketers design a website for their product and then wait for people to declare their interest in the product by visiting their website; once these “inbound” potential consumers get on the marketer’s website, advertisers take them through a procedure (sales funnel) to get them to use, buy, and endorse the product
Indirect support:
consumers pay extra for advertised goods and services and this extra revenue flows from the advertisers to the media companies
Induction:
the skill of inferring a pattern across a small set of elements and then generalizing the pattern to all elements in a larger set
Information-processing tasks:
a sequence of tasks that include filtering media messages, meaning matching, and meaning construction
Innovation:
the first phase in the life cycle pattern of development of a mass medium; it is characterized by technological and marketing innovations
Intentionality:
refers to the motives of both the senders of media messages as well as the audiences of those messages
Internet:
a global network of computers that uses standardized communication protocols in order to share information
Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3):
this is a division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that investigates complaints from citizens who have been victimized by a crime using the internet. These crimes are typically identity theft, hacking into secure databases, and the planting of malware on computers.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
media companies that offer users a way to connect to the internet through wires or Wi-Fi
Knowledge structures:
sets of organized information stored in a person’s memory
Lateral thinking:
a problem-solving method (in contrast to vertical thinking) that uses intuition and creative insights more than logic
Life cycle pattern:
a sequence of five stages of development typically followed by all mass media; the five stages are innovation, penetration, peak, decline, and adaptation
Lifelogging:
continually recording the details of one’s life and sharing those observations and thoughts on social networking sites (SNSs)
Localism:
the belief that power in the government and the economy should be spread out over as many people as possible so that everyone has a voice as well as an influence on every decision
Long tail marketing:
a strategy of identifying smaller niche audiences that have been ignored by other media companies; the long tail refers to the extreme ends on the bell curve, ignoring the fat middle where the majority is represented
Lowest common denominator (LCD):
a programming principle in which a media company (especially television) tries to attract the largest audience possible by creating messages that will not offend anyone and thus appeal to the widest range of people possible
Macro-type effect:
a type of media-influenced effect that is manifested as the gradual altering or reinforcing of processes in aggregates of individuals such as organizations, institutions, and society
Malware:
any software intentionally designed to cause damage to a computer, server, or computer network. As an umbrella term, it includes computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, spyware, adware, keyloggers, clipboard sniffers, and scareware, among other terms.
Manifested effects:
media effects that can be observed and can be easily attributed to media influence
Marketing concept:
a practice among marketers that begins with research to identify audience needs and then creates the types of messages that can satisfy those particular needs
Marketing convergence:
using the advantages of technological convergence across channels of media to attract niche audiences for a particular message with as many platforms as possible
Marketing innovation:
an essential characteristic of the innovation stage in the development of a mass medium in which marketers attract new users to its medium and convince them that the new medium is a superior way for those users to access media messages
Marketing perspective:
a belief among managers of media companies that it is their job to identify existing needs in various niche audiences and then develop media messages to satisfy those needs
Mass audience:
the outdated conceptualization of the media audience as being a very large mass with no social organization or interaction among audience members, who are heterogeneous, anonymous, and interchangeable
Mass communication:
the outdated conceptualization that the media send messages to a mass audience in a one-way flow with no feedback
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs):
internet-based platforms that attract thousands of game players from all over the world who want to create a persona in a fantasy world and compete for virtual rewards in those worlds
Meaning construction:
the information-processing task in which we engage in a process of creating our own meaning for a media message; this process is usually engaged when we have no denoted meaning already residing in our memory or when the denoted meaning does not satisfy our current needs
Meaning matching:
the information-processing task in which we engage in a process of recognizing elements (referents) in a media message and automatically access our memory to find the meanings we have memorized for those elements
Media literacy:
a set of perspectives that we actively use to expose ourselves to the mass media to process and interpret the meaning of the messages we encounter; media literacy is multidimensional, consisting of cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, and moral dimensions; media literacy is a continuum, not a category
Mental codes:
rules for decision making that we have learned through exposure to media messages; these codes are stored in our memory and are automatically activated when we engage in information-processing tasks of filtering and meaning matching
Messages:
the instruments that deliver information to us from the media
Middle-ware market:
the making available of programming packages, guidelines, and game engines to people who want to design electronic games but lack the programming skill to create them from scratch
Money cycle:
the continual and accelerating flow of money in sports from the public to advertisers to television networks to leagues and owners and then to players
Monopolistic competition:
the economic condition within most media industries in which a few powerful companies control the majority of resources and compete aggressively amongst themselves
Net losers:
people and organizations who complete economic exchanges with resources of less value compared to the resources they gave up in the exchange
Net winners:
people and organizations who complete economic exchanges with resources of greater value compared to the resources they gave up in the exchange
News perspective:
a set of beliefs about what news should be; because people hold different beliefs about what constitutes news, there is a diversity of opinion about which news services present quality news and which present fake news
News radar:
the ability to spot things in news stories that trigger people to analyze the facts and the way the story is told
News-framing influences:
the factors that shape how journalists do their jobs as they construct the news; the major news-framing influences are commercialism, the marketing perspective, organizational structures, ownership, use of sources, branding, values, hyper-localism, and story formulas
Niche audience:
a relatively small audience that is defined by a special shared interest or need
Non-impulsiveness:
the willingness to avoid rushing into decisions for the sake of efficiency and to instead analyze messages carefully to ensure greater accuracy
Open source software:
computer software that is free to anyone who wants to use it and/or alter it
Opt-in policy:
providers of services are not allowed to gather information on their users and sell that information until users grant them permission to do so; this favors consumers because the default promotes privacy
Opt-out policy:
providers of services are allowed to gather information on their users and to sell that information until users tell them to stop; this favors marketers because it places the burden on consumers to learn how their information is being gathered and used and then know how to ask for the marketer to limit these practices
Outbound marketing:
the traditional method advertisers use to engage their targeted consumers by designing ads to attract their attention and then placing those ads in traditional media outlets (television, radio, newspapers, and magazines) where advertisers know there are high concentrations of their targeted consumers in the audience
Paid placement:
advertisers pay a fee to web browsers and online retailers so that when visitors to their sites do a search, the results of those searches are influenced in part by how much advertisers have paid to have their products moved up to the top of those search result listings
Parasocial relationships:
developing one-sided relationships with people and characters presented in media stories; people develop what they regard as a strong attachment to a character in their favorite video series or a public figure covered continually in the media
Peak:
the third phase in the life cycle pattern of development of a mass medium in which the medium commands the most attention from the public and generates the most revenue compared to other media
Penetration:
the second phase in the life cycle pattern of development of a mass medium in which it continues to attract larger numbers of audience members of all kinds
Perceptual exposure:
the media message falls within a person’s bandwidth of visual and/or auditory perception
Personal locus:
a person’s plan for building knowledge structures about the media along with the psychic energy needed to execute the plan
Personalization:
a technique that marketers use to collect as much information as they can about each prospective customer and use that information to customize customers’ experiences on their websites
Phishing:
a technique used to acquire sensitive information from unaware users of computers; criminals posing as seemingly trustworthy sources send people messages that direct them to a fake website that looks almost identical to a legitimate one (such as a bank or insurance company); the victim is asked to sign in and divulge private information
Physical exposure:
the message and the person occupy the same physical space for some period of time so that exposure to the media message is possible
Physiological-type effect:
a media effect that can influence some automatic bodily function, such as increasing blood pressure or heart rate
Piracy:
the unauthorized use of copyrighted material; with media messages, it typically takes three forms: bootlegging, counterfeiting, and sharing copyrighted messages without paying for access
Privacy:
the secluding of personal information by individuals about themselves
Process effects:
media-influenced effects that are continually occurring without being easily observed
Profit:
the positive difference between a company’s revenue and expenses; often used mistakenly as a synonym for revenue
Prominence:
a news selection criterion that refers to how well-known people and events are to an audience
Proximity:
a news selection criterion that refers to how close events happen to an audience either geographically or culturally
Psychographic segmentation:
identifying a marketing niche by the audience’s psychological and lifestyle characteristics
Psychological convergence:
the breaking down of barriers between audiences and mass media organizations as well as the barriers separating audience members from one another due to geography or other social constraints
Psychological exposure:
a media message that creates a trace element in a person’s mind
Quality audience strategy:
attempting to attract a particular kind of audience; the word quality refers to a specific kind of audience, not to an elite audience
Quantity audience strategy:
attempting to attract as large an audience as possible
Ransomware:
a type of malware that prevents or limits users from accessing files on their own computer either by locking the computer system’s screen or by locking the users’ files unless a ransom is paid
Return on assets (ROA):
the comparison of a business’s annual profit to the size of its asset base, expressed as a percentage
Return on revenue (ROR):
the comparison of a business’s annual profit to its annual revenues, expressed as a percentage
Revenue streams:
sources of income for a business
Revolution pattern:
the way the digital media have fundamentally changed the mass media environment by offering experiences that the analog media could not and thereby forcing all of the analog media industries into a critical adaptation stage
Rorschach test:
a psychological test to determine what is on the “top of the mind” of test subjects by presenting them with a series of abstract ink blots and asking them to tell the tester what they perceive in those images
Sanitized violence:
media portrayals that typically clean up the way violence is portrayed so as not to offend viewers with graphicness and the suffering of victims
Search engine:
a service provided (usually free) to internet users that allows them to enter keywords to trigger searches for websites that present content relevant to the keywords; the most well-known search engines are Google, Yahoo!, and Bing
Search engine optimization (SEO):
the process of improving the position and visibility of a website on search engines
Selective exposure:
the psychological principle that says that people generally seek out media messages that reinforce their existing beliefs and behavioral patterns rather than messages that challenge those beliefs and behaviors
Self-reflexive exposure state:
the experience of being exposed to a media message with a high degree of awareness of the media message as well as a high awareness of standing apart from the message while analyzing it
Significance:
a news selection criterion that refers to how much impact the story is likely to have on the audience
Situational analysis:
a report that advertisers compile before designing a campaign. It requires a good deal of research that answers questions about who is best to identify as a target market, what advertising techniques have worked (or not worked) in past campaigns, and what competitors have been doing.
Skills:
tools we use to build strong knowledge structures; the seven fundamental skills necessary with media literacy are analysis, evaluation, grouping, induction, deduction, synthesis, and abstraction
Social class segmentation:
identifying a niche audience by the level of their social class, such as lower class, middle class, and upper class
Social cocooning:
a long-term behavioral effect in which people form technological bubbles around themselves to separate them from their real-world surroundings
Social information:
a type of information that is characterized by rules and patterns about how individuals behave around other people; this information, which cannot be verified by authorities in the same way factual information can be, is typically inferred when people observe how others behave in social interactions and the consequences of those behaviors
Social media influencers:
celebrities as well as ordinary people that marketers use to persuade users of social media to use their products
Social networking sites (SNSs):
platforms for individuals and businesses to create an identity on the internet and provide information to friends and the public about themselves (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)
Social networking:
a behavior exhibited by humans as they make contact with other humans by forming both formal and informal groups
Socialization:
a long-term effect in which people use media messages to form their beliefs about how society works in the real world
Spam:
unsolicited and unwanted email messages sent to hundreds of millions of people daily by marketers
Spam filters:
screening programs that email providers use to filter out messages that have been identified as being sent by spammers
Spamming:
using the media, especially email, to invade your privacy with unsolicited and unwanted messages
Spyware:
a program that is inadvertently downloaded by computer users when they access certain websites; the program installs itself on users’ computers and collects information about those users without their knowledge
Story formulas:
the guidelines that producers of media messages use to attract audiences, hold their attention throughout the message, and condition them for repeat exposures; audiences also use these guidelines to follow messages and make sense of them
Synthesis:
the skill of assembling information elements into a new structure to reveal new relationships among the elements
Talent:
an economic resource of above-the-line media employees that refers to their ability to attract and condition audiences for repeat exposures
Technological convergence:
the way the digitization of information has broken down the old barriers that used to separate the analog media into distinction channels of communication (such as print media, broadcast television, film, computers, etc.)
Technological innovations:
a characteristic of the innovation stage in the development of a mass medium in which inventors develop a new form of transmitting information
Telescoping:
the way electronic game players keep the big picture of the game in mind while focusing on the immediate objectives that they face at any one point in the game
Third parties:
people and organizations outside of an interaction between two people or organizations
Third-person effect:
the widespread belief in the public that exposure to media can harm other people (the third person) but not themselves personally (first person)
Timeliness:
a news selection criterion that refers to how recently an event has occurred; the more recent the event, the more likely it meets the criterion of newsworthiness
Timing of effects:
when a media-influenced effect is manifested; it has two values of immediate (the manifestation occurs during the media exposure or shortly after) and long term (the manifestation does not occur until the person has experienced many exposures to media messages)
Tolerance for ambiguity:
the willingness to follow situations into unfamiliar territory that go beyond our preconceptions and take us out of our comfort zone
Transported exposure state:
the experience of being exposed to a media message and being swept away by it into a different place and time so that you lose sense of your current physical surroundings and current point in time
Type of effect:
the form of the manifestation of a media effect on individuals (cognitive, belief, attitudinal, emotional, physiological, or behavioral)
Valence of effects:
refers to whether an effect is positive or negative
Variable reward schedule:
a pattern of randomly rewarding an organism for performing a certain behavior
Vehicles:
the means by which a media company sends its messages to audiences; for example, with television, the vehicles are the programs
Vertical merger:
one company buys suppliers and/or distributors to create integration in the production and distribution of products/services
Vertical thinking:
a problem-solving method (in contrast to lateral thinking) that is based on a standard step-by-step logical progression
Virus:
computer code that is inadvertently downloaded into a person’s computer and attaches itself to existing computer programs; it begins infecting those programs by erasing or rearranging data