Language and Media Dictionary of Key Terms (April 2016) Martin Montgomery

communication science media n. adopts empirical methods, most often associated with quantitative social science, to study the effects of the mass media on large populations. It has tended to focus on public opinion research, political communication, and advertising. It is more popular in the US than in Europe, where the latter has traditionally emphasized the contextualized study of communicative form and has been more concerned with questions of signification, representation, meaning and ideology. mmo

congruence theory media n. proposes that forms of government achieve stability as long as the patterns of authority inherent in them are widely dispersed through other institutions in society such as those of family, school and work. A stable democracy, for instance, is likely to be accompanied in civil society by patterns of authority in which permissiveness, lack of hierarchy and the importance of written codes are thematized. mmo

consensus media n. the solidarity of belief or sentiment or a general agreement that involves the consent of all participants. A decision reached through consensus may not be the most favored of all participants but it functions as the most acceptable decision or resolution of an issue. SJ

consent media n. an important concept in the thinking of the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), where it is counter-posed to coercion. For Gramsci, dominance and subordination in a class society is achieved as much through consent as coercion; and consent is manufactured through the widespread circulation of key ideas that are compatible with everyday, commonsensical ways of thinking. Dominant groups or classes maintain their control (or hegemony) over subordinate groups to the degree that they can recruit generally dispersed elements of popular culture to their cause. mmo