Global Mass Media

a.     First, define, compare and contrast “physical reality”, “symbolic reality” and” mediated reality”.  Then, explain the role that mediated reality occupies in human communication in general and global mass media in particular.  b.     Read both of the following articles: “Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality,” Ernest Bormann Quarterly Journal of Speech, 58 (1972), 396-407.   “Homo Narrans The Narrative Paradigm: In the Beginning” Walter R Fisher Journal of Communication (pre-1986); Fall 1985; 35, 4;   Summarize each of the two articles and then identify two main points in each article which you find relevant for the study of global mass media in general.    Next discuss the impact of “fantasy” and “narrative” in the construction of a “transactional approach to imagining the global.”  Finally, thoughtfully relate what you’ve learned from the two articles to the following passage:   “So much of the way that people… operate, whatever culture they’re from, is through stories. It’s the way that people imagine their world and how they see things. Stories are always the backdrop. The kind of assumed things that are unspoken, find their way in the stories. And so when you see a story that comes from a different place, you . . . you run up against different assumptions. And that’s always kind of exciting.” (Darling-Wolf, p. 124).