Modality
attempts to show how the various elements of
a situation being studied relate to each other.
Models are not statements of reality; only
after much further research and testing would
the model be considered viable. It could then
develop into a theory.
Th e term can also refer to a familiar process or
object that is used as a point of reference when
an attempt to explain the unknown is being
made. An analogy is made showing the similari-
ties between the phenomenon to be explained
and one that is well known, i.e. the model.
Additionally, a model can be a person whose
behaviour others wish to imitate; on whom they
wish to model themselves – a role model.
Th e desire to model oneself on other people is
particularly strong in one’s teenage years, and
the mass media play a signifi cant part in present-
ing teenagers with a variety of such models. See
hypothesis; identification. See also topic
guide under communication models.
Modem Device for converting analogue signals
to digital signals and from digital to analogue.
Modem is short for modulator/demodulator.
Modes of media analysis See functionalist
(mode of media analysis); marxist (mode
of media analysis); social action (mode of
media analysis). See also topic guide under
research methods.
Monofunctional In a media sense, the term
ascribing to a work – of literature, radio, fi lm,
TV – a single function; for example, to entertain.
Research fi ndings over the years have seriously
challenged assumptions that particular forms
of content are monofunctional. Adults declare
a considerable interest in news programmes,
yet functional studies have shown that for
many viewers, the primary function of news
is not informational. The news broadcast is,
apparently, more closely related to habit; it also
aff ords to the individual, feelings of security and
of social contact. See effects of the mass
media; surveillance.
Monopoly, four scandals of According to the
beveridge committee report on broad-
casting (uk), 1950, these were ‘bureacracy,
complacency, favouritism and inefficiency’- indicators that the Committee saw in the
performance of the BBC as monopoly-holder
of British airwaves. Nevertheless, Beveridge
recommended that the Corporation’s licence
be renewed, because the alternative – US-style
commercial TV – promised a system that was
considered to be much worse.
Monotype printing Invented in 1889 by Ameri-
can Tolbert Lanston. Th e machine is in two parts.
‘Th e invitation to the blogger Slim Amamou to
join the interim government in Tunisia was one
of the most remarkable acknowledgments of
the role of digital activists in civil society, not to
mention the symbolism of his appointment in a
country that has stifl ed free speech for decades.’
Less sanguine about the ‘tweeting power’ that
brings about revolution is Evgeny Morozov.
In Th e Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the
World (Allan Lane, 2011) Morozov offers a
counterview to that of the ‘cyber utopians’ as he
terms them, believing that online mobilization
has ‘often strengthened rather than undermined
authoritarian rule’. Dissident voices become
‘outed’ and thus open to surveillance, playing
into the hands of authority. Morozov believes
that ‘many analysts fall into the trap of equating
liberalization with democratization’. See global
scrutiny; journalism: citizen journalism;
online campaigning; open source.
▶Gerard Goggins and Larissa Hjorth, eds, Mobile
Technology: From Telecommunications to Media
(Routledge, 2009).
Modality Th e use of the words ‘may’ or ‘might’ are
referred to by linguists as modal auxiliaries, part
of the modal system of language. Modality serves
to insert ‘yes but’ into defi nitions, for example of
truth or reality. Modality can be confi rming or
disconfi rming by means of its degree of affi nity
with that which is described, within the system
or contexts in which it is described. Th us affi nity
between a speaker and a listener will condition
the degree of modality: they may agree, ‘Th is is
true’ or ‘Th is is real’ and agreement gives both a
sense of security and status.
Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress in Social
Semiotics (Polity Press, 1988) write that ‘a high
degree of affinity indicates the expression of
solidarity between participants’. The authors
defi ne affi nity as ‘an indicator of relations of soli-
darity or of power: that is, relations orientated
towards the expression of solidarity or of power
(diff erence)’. Th us ‘modality points to the social
construction or contestation of knowledge-
systems’. Agreement confi rms the status of ‘truth’
and ‘reality’, disagreement disconfi rms or under-
mines that status. ‘Modality is consequently one
of the crucial indicators of political struggle. It
is a central means of contestations, and the site
of the working out, whether by negotiation or
imposition, of ideological systems.’
Model In social science research, a model is a
tentative description of what a social process
- say, the communication process – or system
might be like. It is a tool of explanation and
analysis, very often in diagrammatic form, that