Newspapers and Magazines ch. 8&9

1.       There are multiple limitations to a press that serves only partisan interests. They were shaped largely by social, cultural, and political responses to British rule. Partisan press refers to political papers. They generally pushed the plan of the particular political group that subsidized the paper. They did not write much about the business. The educated and wealthy men controlled most of local politics and commerce, so they were the primary readers of the partisan press.

2.       Penny papers began to replace the average newspaper by relying on daily street sales on the individual copies. The industrial revolution made it possible to replace the expensive handmade paper with cheaper machine made paper, less than the original 6 cents a copy/ 11$ a year. During this time, the rise of the middle class started the growth of literacy. This allowed for more popular and inclusive press. Newspapers were even more permitted by the breakthrough of technology, especially the steam-powered press replacing the mechanical press.

3.       Yellow journalism has two main features. They emphasized profitable papers that carried exciting human-interest stories, crime news, large headlines, and more readable copy. The first major characteristic were the overly dramatic (or sensational) stories about crimes, celebrities, disasters, scandals, and intrigue. Second, are the legacy and roots that the yellow press provided for investigative journalism: news reports that hunt out and expose corruption, particularly in business and government. Reporting increasingly became a crusading force for common people, with the press assuming a watchdog told on their behalf.

4.       We are changing from a society in which the transmission of knowledge depended mainly on books, newspapers, and magazines to a society dominated by a mix of print, visual, and digital information. In 1992, the authority of modern newspapers suffered in the wake of a variety of “new news” forms that combined immediacy, information, entertainment, persuasion, and analysis. Even the most prominent daily papers are being challenged by “news” coming from the talk shows, television sitcoms, popular films and even rap songs. Online journalism is also completely changing the newspaper industry.

5.       Citizen journalism the phenomenon that combines the online news surge and traditional newsroom cutbacks. It refers to people – activist amateurs and concerned citizens, not professional journalists – who use the internet and blogs to disseminate news and information. The current state of citizen journalism is that they operate community-based websites. Even on occasions they may be replacing professionals. These sites provide an outlet for people to voice their stories and opinions, and new sites are emerging daily.

6.       Even new online news sites face challenges. While many of these sites do not yet have the resources to provide the kind of regional news coverage that local newspapers once provided, there is still a lot of hope for community journalism moving forward.

7.       The newspaper does play a role in democracy by sustaining it and championing freedom. Over the years, they have fought heroic battles in places that had little tolerance for differing viewpoints. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, from 1992-2012, 962 reporters from around the world were killed while doing their job. These tragedies ranged from murder, combat assignments, to even performing “dangerous assignments”. Our nation is dependent on journalists who are willing to do this very dangerous reporting in order to keep us informed about what is going on around the world.

8.       Magazine played a large role in the social reform at the turn of the twentieth century. With the rise in magazine circulation coincided with rapid social changes in America. Many newspaper reporters became dissatisfied with the simplistic and conventional style of newspaper journalism and turned to magazines, where they were able to write at greater lengths and in greater depth about broader issues. These issues included corruption in big business and government, urban problems faced by immigrants, labor conflicts, and race relations. The working class was gradually able to purchase these magazine publications due to the price dropping. As jobs and the population began shifting from farms to small towns to urban areas, magazines helped readers imagine themselves as part of a nation rather than as an individual with only local or regional identities. Also, as magazine circulation skyrocketed, advertisement revenue soared.

9.       Like newspapers, more magazines are increasingly moving to digital formats. Being on a website or an application, magazine companies save on the cost of paper, printing and postage. Unlike on paper, a website gives unlimited space, where they now can include blogs, original video and audio podcasts, social network, games, virtual fitting rooms, and other interactive components that could never work in print. Printable coupons are now being added!  

10.   A move toward magazine specialization was triggered, coincided with the radio, with a general trend away from mass market publications. Magazines traded their mass audience for smaller, discrete audiences that could be guaranteed to advertisers. Magazines are now divided into advertisement type: consumer magazines, which carry a host of general consumer product ads (ex: Cosmo); business or trade magazines, which included adds for products and services for various occupational groups (ex: Advertising Age);  and  farm magazines, which contain adds for agriculture products and farm lifestyle (ex: Dairy Herd Management). In addition to grouping magazines by advertisement style, we can categorize popular consumer magazine style by the demographic characteristics of their target audience – such as gender, age, or ethic group – or an audience interest area, such as entertainment, sports, literature, or tabloids. Some specific specialized groups include men and women’s magazines, sports, entertainment, and leisure magazines, magazines for all ages, elite magazines, minority-targeted magazines, and supermodel tabloids.   

11.   The editorial department of a magazine produces its content, excluding advertisements. Magazines are heavily reliant on advertisement revenue, the more successful, the more it can charge for advertisement space. The average magazine contains about 50% ad copy and 50% editorial material. Some advertisers and companies have concealed ads when a magazine featured an unflattering or critical article about a company or an industry. This affects what gets published, putting enormous pressure on editors not to offend advertisers. Magazines then began introducing different editions of their magazines to attract advertisers such as regional editions, split-run editions, and demographic editions. They can now more easily compete with each other.  

Ch. 7

1.       Early silent films became so popular because they were the first of its kind of entertainment to emerge. Technology was yet to be invented to be able to play sound so the viewer’s weren’t exposed to what a movie could fully offer! They also act as a way to bring people together, distracting us from our daily struggles. The silent films showed universal themes of human experiences such as childhood and coming of age. This allows a person to sort through their own experiences and alter their values.

2.       A nickelodeon was originally a form of a movie theater. They flourished during the turn of the twentieth century because they showed silent films that transcended sound barriers. This was done by theater operators using sound to mimic gun shots or loud crashes. Nickelodeons filled a need for many newly arrived people struggling to learn English who were also seeking an inexpensive escape from the hard city. The enthusiasm peaked by 1910, when entrepreneurs began to look for more affluent spectators, luring them with larger and more lavish movie theaters.

3.       Triumphing over New York, New Jersey, Cuba and Florida, Hollywood became the film capital of the world. The area it is located in, in Southern California offered cheap labor, diverse scenery for outdoor shooting, and a mild climate for suitable year-round production. Also, independent producers in Hollywood would easily slip across the border into Mexico to escape legal prosecution brought by the Trust for patent violations.

4.       During the wake of the developing Cold War, conservative members of the Congress began investigating Hollywood for alleged subversive and communist ties. Aggressive witch-hunts for political radicals in the film industry led to the notorious Hollywood Ten hearings and subsequent trial.  Many important names in the industry “named names” while the so-called Hollywood Ten refused to identify communist sympathizers. These Ten were sent to prison, violating their freedom of speech rights. In the atmosphere of the Cold War many people worried that “the American way” could be sabotaged via unpatriotic messages embedded in films. The Hollywood Ten’s careers were ruined, and the national fear over communism continued to curse Hollywood well into the 1950s.

5.       Studios can make money on movies from six major sources. First, they get a portion of the theater box office revenue (about 60%). Second, about four months after theatrical release, studios collect from DVD sales/rentals, and digital downloads and streaming (accounts for about 30% of all domestic-film income). Third, are the next “windows” of release for a film: pay-per-view, premium cable (i.e. HBO), network and basic cable, and syndicated TV market. Fourth, distributing their films in foreign markets. Fifth, distributing the work of independent producers and filmmakers, who hire the studios to gain wider circulation. Lastly, revenue can be made by merchandising licensing and product placements in movies.

6.       The Big Six is considered to be Warner Brothers, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Columbia Pictures, and Disney. These major studios account for man than 90% of the revenue generated by commercial films, and actually control more than half of the movie market in Europe and Asia. Independent studios cannot sustain  the high costs and are usually bought by major studios, leading to the Big Six controlling the majority of the industry.

7.       The movie industry has had multiple attempts to adapt to the internet. Apple sells and rents movies through iTunes and Netflix acts as an online DVD rental service where a person can stream movies and television shows to their computer, mobile phones, and tablets. Netflix’s popularity lead to Hulu, Google’s YouTube,  Xfinity, and Amazon.  The internet is also an essential took for movie marketing, where studios are finding less expensive than traditional methods like televisions adds or billboards.  

8.       Inexpensive digital technology has impacted filmmaking, Digital video has shifted allowing filmmakers to replace expensive and bulky film cameras with less expensive, lightweight digital video cameras. This allowed moviemakers to see camera work instantly instead of waiting for film to be developed and being able to capture additional footage without concern for the high cost of film stock and processing.

Television and Cable ch.6

1.       Technical standards for product manufacturers were put in place on order to push TV as a business and elevate it to a mass medium. In 1941 the Federal Communications Commission adopted an analog standard (based off radio waves) for all U.S. TV sets. About 30 countries also adopted this system. In 2009 the US replaced analogs for digital signals. These translate TV images and sounds into binary codes like computers and allowed for increase channel capacity and improved image quality and sound. The people preferred digital because HDTV has a better quality of sound and imaging.

2.       In the 1930’s and 1940’s, early TV programs were often developed, produced, and supported by a single sponsor. Having a single sponsor for a snow meant that the advisors could easily influence the program’s content. In the 1950’s there became growing popularity and cost and the head of CBS saw an opportunity to diminish the sponsor’s role. Programs became increasingly longer from fifteen minutes to thirty. Now producers buy programs from independents.

3.       People are increasingly moving to their computers and mobile devices instead of the TV and cable industries. These are nontelevision delivery systems. We can skip a network broadcast and still watch our favorite shows on DVRs, on laptops, or on mobile devices for free or for a nominal cost. These options mea that we are still watching TV, but at different times, places, and on different kinds of screens.

4.       The government put in regulations to temporarily restrict network control. These regulations were due to concern about the monopolies and wanted to reduce their power. The first, the Prime Time Access Rule reduced the networks’ control of prime-time programming from four to three hours. Second, the FFC created the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules called fin-syn which “constituted the most damaging attack against the network TV monopoly in FFC history.” The Department of Justice instituted a third policy  action reacting to a number of legal claims against monopolistic practices, limiting the network’s production of non-news shows , requiring them to seek most of their programming from independent production companies and film studies.

5.       Congress finally rewrote the nation’s communication laws in the Telecommunication Act of 1996, bringing cable fully under the federal rules that had long governed the telephone, radio, and TV industries. This helped to shape the economy and the future of television and cable industries by allowing regional phone companies, long-distance carriers, and cable companies to enter one another’s markets. This made it possible to offer telephone services, and it permits phone companies to offer internet services and buy or construct cable systems in communities with fewer than 50,000 residents. For the first time, owners could operate TV or radio stations in the same market where they owned a cable system. Cable and phone companies have merged operations in many markets, keeping prices at a premium and competition to a minimum.  

6.       Originally, television reached the same programs to all segments of society. Now, services have fragmented television’s audience by appealing to viewer’s individual and special needs.  This potentially de-emphasized the idea that we are all citizens who are part of a larger nation and world. To be able to retain some of their influences, programmers are recycling old television shows and movies. Although cable is creating more original quality programming,  it hasn’t fully become an alternative to traditional broadcasting!

Ch. 4 & 5

1.      Illegal downloading and file sharing (in the form of MP3) became a big problem for the music industry because it was decreasing record sales. In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the music industry and against Napster, declaring free music file-swapping illegal and in violation of music copyrights held by recording labels and artists. Even after this, the music industry’s elimination of illegal file-sharing was not complete, as decentralized peer-to-peer­ (P2P) systems still enabled online free music file-sharing. The record industry continued to fight back with thousands of lawsuits, many of them successful. Many P2P services were shut down, and other business opened modeling after iTunes.

2.      The cultural storm called rock and roll hit in the mid-1950s. Early rock and roll was considered the first “internationalist music,” merging the black sounds of rhythm and blues, gospel, and Robert Johnson’s screeching blues guitar with the white influences of country, folk, and pop vocals. If influenced both media industries by social, cultural, economic, and political factors.

3.      Still, to this day pop music remains powerful. By 2012, iTunes offered more than twenty-eight million songs, and the top artists were leading pop acts! Shows like American Idol and Glee have introduced some genuine stars and brought back older hits. With iTunes as the biggest single seller of recorded music and the single being the dominant unit of music, songs were sold ten times as much as albums. The dominance of singles reemerged pop.

4.      From the 1950s through the 1980s, the music industry consisted of a large number of competing and independent labels. Over time, the major labels began swallowing up the independents and then buying one another. Now, only three major corporations will remain: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group. Together these companies make up nearly 90% of the recording industry market in the United States. The other percent is independent corporations.

5.      I think the internet as a technology absolutely helps musical artists. That is how many artists get discovered! Given the fact that less people listen to the actual radio now a days than before, they need another way to get themselves and their songs to be known. Many contemporary musicians differ in their opinions about the internet because while some may thrive off it, others may be brought down by it, financially and socially.

6.      The development of the telegraph was very important in media history by being the precursor of radio technology. It works as a system that sends electrical impulses from a transmitter through a cable to a reception point. Lines ran up coast to coast, capable of transmitting about six words per minute! The telegraph made it possible for the radio to evolve.

7.      Unlike print media, broadcasting came to be federally regulated. One of the reasons of this was due to addressing the problem of amateur radio operators increasingly cramming the airwaves. Because radio waves crossed state and national borders, legislators determined they were “natural resources”, and could not be owned, but were collective property of all Americans. This lead to transmitting on radio waves would require licensing in the same way that driving a car requires a license.

8.      The current ownership rules governing American radio were put in place to bring order to chaos with the Radio Act of 1927. This stated an extremely important principle – licenses did not own their channels but could only license them as long as they operated to serve the “public interest, convince, or necessity.” To oversee licenses and negotiate channel problems, the 1927 act created the federal radio commission (FCC) whose members were appointed by the president.

9.      Unlike usual, the government encouraged monopoly or ownership of radio broadcasting, throughout the history of radio. The radio may have actually modernized America by de-emphasizing the local and the regional in favor of national programs broadcast to nearly everyone.

Chapters 2&3

1.      The internet originated with a goal to build a new media network, initially described as an information superhighway with the main purpose being to share information. The government’s role started in the 1960’s. The US Defense Department researchers developed the forerunner of today’s Internet as a way for military and academic researchers as various locations to share access to computers. Soon after that, the researchers developed e-mail. It was originally as primary tool for universities, government research labs, and corporations involved in computer software and other high-tech products to exchange email and to post information.

2.      Search engines such a google offer a more automated route to finding content by allowing users to enter key words or queries to locate related Web pages. Google became a major success because it introduced a new algorithm that mathematically ranked a pages “popularity” on the bases on how many other pages linked to it. Google made Voice Search and mobile apps to allow a person to use it on their smartphone.

3.       Social media has been proven to be an effective tool for democracy, and for undermining repressive regimes that thrive on serving up propaganda and hiding their atrocities from view. People have used social media to aid political repression by protestors. People can make hundreds of twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, and Facebook posts to persuade people. A current example are the “Anonymous” hackers of the internet., who are known for their politically and socially motivated internet vigilantism.

4.       It seems to me that Google has the greatest tendency for evil, despite their motto. I think this because of the amount of branching and buying of other companies. The description in the book gives me the impression that they are not just competing, but actually trying to take over all whole digital corporations. The least evil seems to be Amazon. This is because beside from Zappos, the company seems to be working somewhat independently and only trying to compete against the other companies with technology such as the Kindle.

5.       Moving from the print-oriented industrial age, the digitally based information age have affected individuals, communities, and nations positively and negatively. The individual and communities benefits from the Sematic Web by making our lives easier by having meaningful categories in one place, such as family, friends, and calendar. The nation benefits by being able to broadcast and get information to its people in a quick and easy manner, which is what people want.  All three groups are negatively impacted in the area of security, making it more of a challenge to keep personal information private. Examples of this are government surveillance and online fraud. A large reason this is negative because cross the line of what is appropriate, and post things that should not be online.

6.       I grew up with two older brothers, so of course video games were nothing strange to me. The only two types of games I played a lot were racing and shooting games, which we played a lot in our house. I don’t actually think they defined my childhood at all! I think the strongest memory I have was my dad telling me that guns were just for games, and that they should not be used to hurt anyone/anything. To this day I still enjoy shooting games with friends and my brothers, but I can honestly say I have never, nor will I ever use a gun for evil.

7.       In chapter 3, I was surprised to learn that video game making started way back in the 1880’s, starting with the penny arcade. But modern gaming didn’t actually emerge online until 1999. Also, the three leading genres played are action, shooter, and sports games. I had the assumption that most games people played nowadays were racing games. Also, children/family entertainment was a close fourth, which I found interesting because I thought parents didn’t want their kids playing video games.

8.    Video games have affected society by becoming a permanent place in culture, being a subject of social concern.  Three main reasons video games play such a large role in society is because they are intertwined with media culture, are strong in advertisement, and may cause addictions and other concerns. For the individual, they can be good, but for society video games tend to be bad. Children and teens in masses are exposed to violence and misogyny at an early age. Also, people tend to become so obsessive with their games, becoming so bad that it can jeopardize many areas of their life such as school, social and family relations, and even psychological well- being. An example of game companies being aware of this are Halo and Call of Duty. They make money from long term engagement like selling expansion packs that people ‘must’ b

Mass Communication, A Critical Approach ch.1

There were many key technological breakthroughs that accompanied the transition to the print and electronic era. The first big invention was the moveable metallic type and the printing press, which helped to lead into the modern print era. This was significant because for the first time, starting in Europe, publications were able to spread rapidly and inexpensive to everyone, not just the wealthy. Because of this, books became the first mass-produced product allowing culture to spread, changed political outreaches, nationalism, and individualism. With the invention of the telegraph, the electronic era developed. The telegraph helped by making media messages instantaneous, making news a valuable product, making it easier to coordinate commercial and military operations, and lastly it led to future technological developments like the radio, fax machine, and cell phone. The arrival of the television changed daily life and changing the relationship to media and culture.

Today, the newer and emerging forms of media seem to threaten status quo values, as opposed to looking at history. Audiences actively affirm, interpret, refashion, or reject messages and stories that flow through various media channels. This can be somewhat based off diverse factors such as gender, age, education level, ethnicity, as well as occupation. Recently new shows such as Keeping up with the Kardashians and Jersey Shore are giving people the ideas of what the new status quo is and how they ‘should’ be acting. When television was first emerging, reality shows didn’t exist. People were shown the ‘normal’ status quos, and not threatening the

The five steps in the critical process are description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and engagement. Description is paying close attention, taking notes, and researching the subject under study. Analysis is discovering and focusing on significant patterns that emerge from the description stage. Interpretation is asking and answering “What does that mean?” and “So what?” questions about ones findings. Evaluation means arriving at a judgment about weather something is good, bad, or mediocre, which involves subordinating one’s personal taste to the critical “bigger picture” resulting from the first three stages. Lastly, engagement is taking some action that connects our critical perspective with our role as citizens to question or media institutions, adding our own voice to the process of shaping the cultural environment. Interpretation is the most difficult because it demands an answer to the “so what?” question.

The critical process is so important because to be able to become literate about media involves striking a balance between developing knowledgeable interpretations and judgments and being able to appreciate the distinctive variety of cultural products and processes. It also gives us a way to develop an informed critical perspective. Becoming media literate allow us to participate in a debate as media culture as a force for both democracy and consumerism. 

About me!

Hi!

My name is Alissa Watts, and I am from a small town on the East coast of Massachusetts called Duxbury. My major is biology, but I have not quite decided what I want to do with my degree yet. There are too many options! On a regular basis I visit Pinterest, forever 21, google, MTV, and of course, the black board website. My favorite social media platforms are Pinterest and twitter! Modern Family is one of my favorite shows because it never fails to make me laugh and I like all the actors. I am interested in media culture because it is all around us and used for many different reasons and often influences use, in good and bad ways. I like to watch Boston Bruins games, work out, read, hang out with friends, and sail in the summer. Over Winter break I discovered a restaurant in Boston called Max Brenner and it has become my favorite because it specializes in chocolate desserts, and it is the best chocolate I have had!