Mass Media & Digital Culture

Mass media — television, film, news, social media, and streaming platforms — function as a social institution that shapes what we know, what we value, and who we consider important. Media scholars distinguish between media's informational function (telling us what happened), its agenda-setting function (telling us what to think about), and its framing function (telling us how to think about it). News outlets may not tell you what to believe about immigration, but by covering it daily they signal that it is a critical issue. The consolidation of media ownership — six corporations control roughly 90% of U.S. media — raises concerns about whose perspectives dominate public discourse.