Blog #13

1.The earliest types of media studies were media effects research and cultural studies. Media effects research studies and explains an individual’s effect on media. This research usually focuses on the connection between violence and aggressive behavior in the media of children and teenagers. Cultural studies is the understanding of how people apprehend, articulate, and how they make meaning of culture. This type of study normally focuses on the way groups in our society, such as political and corporate leaders, use the media to publicize their message to the community and to sustain the public’s interest.

2. The major influence that led to scientific media research was the journalist Walter Lippmann. He told journalists to work like they were scientists when they were gathering information. Lippmann was the first to apply journalism with psychology which led to a better understanding the effects of media by focusing more on the collection of data and numerical measurement. Propaganda, public opinion research, social psychology studies, and marketing research has also influenced with the increase of media research.

3. Content analysis is a study of experiments and surveys that focus particularly on the relationship between violence and the media.  This study uses surveys and experiments to see if the surveys and experiments correlate with the media.

4. The difference between the hypodermic-needle model and the minimal-effect model is the amount of people a story effects an audience.  The hypodermic- needle model is when the media gives stories to a huge population and they are affected by it.  The minimal-needle theory is when the media alone can’t change people’s attitudes and behaviors. Instead, people expose themselves to media messages that they are more familiar with and hold onto those messages that already support their values and attitudes. The minimal-effect model doesn’t effect a large population like the hypodermic-needle model. Instead, it mostly affects uneducated people and children.

  

5. The social learning theory basically explains that people don’t display certain actions due to the media. Rather, an individual learns these behaviors through other people. Agenda setting is when the media pays more attention to a certain event and they make an agenda for when society should see the event. It says that the more stories the news does on a certain subject, the audience will become more and more attached to the subject. The cultivation effect says that the more people watch T.V., the more people will view the world that is consistent with television portrayals. The cultivation effect focuses more on how the audience views the media. The spiral of silence theory is when people who have their own beliefs keep their views to themselves if the rest of society has a different view on the subject. The third-person effect is when people get concerned with the media because events that happen in the media could possibly happen to them.

6. The strengths of modern media research is that is has the freedom to interpret the impact of mass media. The limitations of modern media is that they focused more on the meaning or the text of media programs and neglect the effect it has on their audiences.

7. Cultural studies developed to oppose media effect research because media organizations only looked at an individual’s behavior rather than questioning where is the media taking us. Cultural studies were more interested in learning how people understand reality, and how media shapes history, politics, and economics.

8. Cultural studies were created from the writings of political philosophers. Cultural studies are more focused on the daily experience, especially the problems of hierarchy, gender, sexuality, race and inequality of power. Cultural studies research use audience studies, political economy studies, and textual analysis.

9. Specialization in academic research started to become isolated at universities. The reason for this isolation is because people were concerned that the public couldn't understand what these academic researchers were saying and couldn't relate. These academic studies don’t focus on the everyday problems and they aren't practical.

10. Public intellectuals contributed to societies debates about the mass media because they encouraged the discussion about the media production in today’s digital world. For example, Lawrence Lessig started rewriting the copyright laws to allow noncommercial to spread throughout the internet. Pat Aufderheide worked with independent film-workers so that they can have access to copyright material for their films. Public intellectuals helped keep the conversations about society and culture alive, spreading new important ideas of today’s world and being a model for how to engage in public life. 

Blog #12

1. There are a few drawbacks of the informational mode of journalism. The first one is producing too much information. The information will get piled up and people won’t pay attention to it they will think it’s junk and the pile up of information can add to the problems and anxiety of today’s world. This can result in too much unchecked data and not enough of discussions come from the many divisions of communication. The other problem is that the increased data has made a questionable impact on improving political and public life. People think they are not a part of the major institutions so they are trying to become involved in public conversations and debates.

2. News is accumulating information and creating narrative reports which are edited by other individuals who are a part of a news organization. News helps people be informed with important events, cultural trends, important people, unusual events that may be happening, and political issues.

3. Journalism has shifted from a more neutral model to a partisan model because of the rise in cable and internet. Neutral journalism publicized fact- gathering, documents and expertise. While the partisan model increased cable news and online news. This transition was caused by the rise in cable experts on news stations.

4. Deception and privacy present many ethical problems for journalists. First, deception is when a journalist goes undercover by masking their true identity to get information on a story. Witnesses who were at the scene not willing to talk to journalists, especially when it could get someone fired or ruin someone’s reputation. Journalists also invade people’s privacy a little too much. Journalists can hack into an individual’s voicemail, email, Facebook and Twitter accounts to gather more information. Journalists have also hacked into private voicemails of celebrities, the British royal family, and government officials. Due to this phone hacking incident, many senior executives were arrested or resigned.  

5. Getting a story first is very important to reporters because once the story to them, they have won a race because they presented the story before their competitors. has been out in the media, editors would back off.  Once a news company shows the story, other news media will back off and not broadcast the story because it was already covered.

6. Neutral journalism is when reporters take certain events and turn them into a news report and they leave out many other events. News reporters would judge other countries and cultures because they try to “live up to or imitate American practices and values” by ethnocentrism.

7. Reporters have become so dependent on experts because they can’t give their own opinion, they have to remain neutral. They have to look for experts who seem to be neutral about an issue. Reporters use experts so they can create a strong argument by putting quotes from that expert to support a particular position.

 8. Journalists and citizens firmly believe in the idea that there are two sides to every story because people have different views on particular topics. Journalists try not to pick sides instead, they stay neutral. They stay in this neutral position because they want their readers to say their opinion. If they did pick a side, readers would get mad and wouldn’t want to read the article.

9. TV news establishes its credibility from live reporting, believable imagery, and the trustworthiness viewers have towards anchors and reporters. TV broadcast relies on technology and time management because they need to time their stories in order for the story to fit between commercials. A poll was taken annually since the 1970’s and their results showed that majority of the viewer’s think that TV news is more credible than the news in print. Print news gets their information on a story when it is actually happening. Instead of managing their time around commercials like TV, print news needs to physically cut their stories down to make them fit around ads that are in the paper.

10. Today, the news is being presented to the public on a 24/7 basis. This allows people to see the news any time of the day. The news is now covering stories internationally but it can get expensive when they send reporters to go film stories on international issues so they use the “talking head” pundit. This is a strategy that doesn’t require a lot of resources outside of the studio and a few guests. Today, people would rather use the “talking heads” partisan over traditional reporting. However, this partisan method is not always good because the reporters might be giving false information.

11. The internet has influenced the traditional forms of journalism by posting their stories online. This means that viewers don’t have to wait until the next day to read the newspaper or important stories the news puts on.  Reporters tend to put up their online versions of their stories first before they do the morning paper or the morning news. The internet also allows readers to look at the entire article or story in the newspaper instead of part of the story because there is a limited space for writers to tell their story.

12. News programs like “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” play a role in the world of journalism. These types of shows use humor to criticize news media and the political system. They help viewers change their views on certain topics. An example of this would be during the 2008 election when SNL sketches on Sarah Palin. These shows presents the news in a funny way but also to stay informed with what is going on in the world. 

Blog # 11

1.The basic structures of mass media organizations: monopoly, oligopoly, and limited competition is different from one another in many ways. Monopoly is when a single firm dominates production and distribution in a particular industry, either nationally or locally. Oligopoly is when a few firms dominate an industry. Limited competition is a media market with many producers and sellers but only a few products within a particular category.

2. Some of society’s key expectations of media organizations involve placing new technologies into the marketplace, allowing products and services to be available to all economic classes, have a positive aspect in education, manage the conditions of culture, oversee society when crisis is present, acting as public watchdogs over wrongdoing, facilitating free expression and robust political discussion.

3.  The reason why federal government emphasized deregulation at a time when many media companies were growing very big is to decrease monopoly. It also led to an easier union and joined diversities together. It also regulated how many stations radio and TV stations could own.

4. Global and specialized markets factor into the new media economy by moving work to countries who are struggling with their economy and that need jobs but have poor health and safety regulations for workers. Regular workers are affected because now they can afford to buy things they couldn’t before.

5. Synergy is a promotion and sale of different versions of a media product across various subsidiaries of an assortment of media’s.  Disney represented synergistic possibilities of media. They allowed to show their movies though DVD and at theaters. They also promoted Disney movies on TV programs when they bought the ABC network.

6. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have emerged as the leading corporations of the digital era for many reasons. Amazon changed their ways from delivering physical books to customers to distributing digital products on their digital devices like the Kindle. Apple created an invention where they can bring media content to users’ fingertips for example, the iPod and iPhone. Facebook  became the main social media communication. They also allow users to access Facebook though their phones. Google draws in their users through their search engine and by allowing them to access Google on their phones as well. Microsoft became big with their Bing search engine and other devices like the Xbox game console and its new Surface tablet.

7. Cultural imperialism is the dominance of the global market. The U.S. is related to cultural imperialism because America has more power over in many areas of mass media such as TV and goods like soap. Other countries would try to make similar products as the US. For example, the US makes Dove soap and in India they make “Fair & Lovely” products for poor women.

8. Critics and activists mostly fear political fallout in that ads and products would raise the hopes of poor people but not keep pace with their actual living conditions. What they do to respond to these fears is that they would keep raising the prices on goods.

Blog 10

1.P.T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill Body helped develop modern public relations because they used a type of PR communication which means they used all different types of media to spread their information to help their businesses. Some of P.T. Barnum’s strategies include inserting his ad in newspapers and handbills. Buffalo Bill used all kinds of media to develop publicity such as promotional newspaper stories, theater marquees, poster art magazine articles and early films.

2. Railroads and utility companies gave early forms of corporate public relations a bad name using similar strategies. Railroad companies would bribe newspaper companies to create favorable news stories about transporting by train. Another bribing method they used was by deadheading which is, giving reporters who took the train, free train passes if they wrote excellent reports about using the rail. Utility companies like Chicago Edison and AT&T used “ghostwritten articles” where they would take important leaders names and place them on an article that a reporter has wrote. They also employed third-party editorial services, in which the people would send articles about utilities to newspaper companies.

3. There are two approaches to organizing a PR firm. The first approach to organizing a PR form is that there are self-sufficient PR companies whose only job is to give clients PR services. The second approach is that companies keep their own in-house PR staffs to be in charge of routine tasks. These tasks include regulating media requests, producing special events, writing press releases and interacting with the internal and external public.

4. Press releases are announcements that look like news reports that write about new information about a certain person, organization or company and give their story idea to the news media. These are important to reporters because the reporters are allowed to control the amount of information coming in. They can also pick where the information can go and what order it can go in.

5. VNR’s and PSA’s are very different from one another and they have different goals. VNR’s are video news releases which are thirty to ninety seconds long and are designed to copy the design of a regular broadcast report. PSA’s however are public service announcements are shorter than VNR’s because they are fifteen to sixty seconds long. PSA’s are video or audio reports which advertise about educational projects, volunteer companies and government programs. PSA’s are usually scheduled to air between midnight and six in the morning because they are a less expensive commercial time slot.

6. PR firms usually want to sponsor events that have a positive value between the public. For example, companies like Adidas, Gatorade, and PowerBar would sponsor a road race so their product can be advertised.

7.  Lobbying and research has become very important to PR because they want to maintain a good relationship with the public. They also don’t want the government to take control and reduce their control over their own businesses so they try to keep a good relationship with the government too. Lobbying is a way of altering lawmakers to support a business’s organization.

8.  The internet changed the way public relations communicates with an organizations public by adding press releases, images, executive bios online so that their audience can have access to that information at any time. PR are interacting with the public on a more personal level by making Facebook and Twitter pages. This allows the public to keep up with recent information about a company or organization.

9. There have been a few issues between journalism and public relations in the past. One of the issues was journalists have called themselves as being a part of the public relation profession. A term called “flack” developed to refer to PR agents. This word is a military term which refers to a protective military jacket. This allows PR to be separate from journalists.

10. I believe that social platforms present more problems for public relations because it seems that a lot of people are getting in trouble whenever they speak their mind on the web. For example, in the 2012 London Olympics, athletes were sent home due to tweeting their thoughts which included an athlete who made a racist joke. At the same time, I think people should watch what they say because they could get in trouble. Social platforms are a good thing for PR’s because they attract more customers but people need to think before they post online.

11. After reading the Exxon Valdez, BP, and Tylenol cases, I believe the Tylenol company did a good job in responding to their crisis. Exxon and BP on the other hand, didn’t seem to go above and beyond to help with their crises. They didn’t take action right away which was wrong to do. What Exxon and BP could’ve done to improve was to communicate with the people and get people to stop the oil spill when it first happened instead of waiting months to fix it. Exxon and BP could contact ocean wildlife companies and try to help them out in any way because the oil spill had killed many wildlife. Tylenol did a great job at responding to their crisis because they contacted their customers by creating emergency phone lines and they also created tamper-resistant bottles so no one could contaminate their pills.  

Blog #9

1.The first advertisement agents served for people selling goods in town since people lived in isolated communities. The U.S. began advertising medicines when railroads were built so newspapers and goods could cross the country. The first ad agent that the U.S. came up with were space brokers. Space brokers were people who would buy a portion of the newspaper so they could sell those spaces to companies who wanted to advertise their businesses.    

2. Packing and trademarks influenced advertising because manufacturers figured out that if their products were unique and of good quality, people would buy their products because they would ask for it by name. This made it easier for companies to make prices for generic and name brand items. It also allowed companies to have their own individual identity compared to their competitors. When customers started asking for certain brands, businesses were allowed to increase the price of their goods.  

3. Advertising had a huge impact on making America into a consumer society. They helped businesses come up with new products and regain product start-up costs. Also, advertising helped build up technology by showing customers how the products can help them with their daily lives like cars and washing machines. Lastly, advertising helped raise the amount of sales due to consumers buying products that they have seen advertised.  

4. Visual culture influenced advertising by making commercials on the radio and TV. Video ads were all over the TV and commercial producers would add popular songs to their commercials because people would listen to the song instead of shutting off the TV. Computers and mobile devices also influenced advertising. Advertisements are now displayed on phones and other devices. Visual design helped bring these advertisements to life by making them in three-dimensional, animated and interactive. Visual design found a way to simplify ads so they can be easier to read on small screens.

5. The advantages that Internet and mobile advertising have over traditional media is that dealer can make profiles for certain customers who go on specific web sites. In order to do this, they send out surveys that customers will take such as telling them they could possibly win free stuff. Advertisers can track how many people look at a specific ad and they will know which ad is popular. Smartphones is another advantage the internet has. Advertisements can pop up on smartphones if the individual is in a specific area for example, going to a store or restaurant.

6. The association principle is a technique advertisers use to convince people to buy a product. What they do is link the product with positive images or cultural values when they have nothing to do with the commercial. It is an effective way to analyze advertising because it lures the customers in by showing them positive and happy scenes.   

7. Product placement is when a company buys a space in a TV show, movie, or music video to have their brand will appear in the scene. Some examples include Coca-Cola in American Idol and Reese’s Pieces in E.T. (p.403).

8. The difference between puffery and deception advertising is that puffery exaggerates their product. The reason you can tell it is a puffery advertisement is when they say it’s “new and improved”. A deception advertisement is when they take out bits of information to make the product sound better for example, a Klondike light ice cream bar is said to be 93 percent fat free. However, the Klondike bar is 93 percent fat-free after the chocolate is taken off the ice cream. The FTC regulates deceptive ads by telling the companies to either change them or take them off TV and they can also fine companies for civil penalties.

  

9.  The major issues that involve political advertising is the fact that some political advertisements are only thirty seconds long. People running for president can’t say much in that time slot, especially not serious political issues. When politicians violate other candidates, that could have an effect on the amount of people who vote.  

10. Advertising plays a huge role in our society because it helped mass media tremendously. If it wasn't for commercials, Even though commercials can be annoying, they have helped build our society and our economy. If it wasn't for advertisements, a lot of mass media would have to find a way to remake itself. 

Blog #8

1.The printing press was such an important and revolutionary invention because before the printing press, authors had to hand make their books which took time and made the books more expensive.  The printing press also allowed information to spread further so people could have access to the information. Due to the printing press invention, books were made cheaper because they were not handmade, the size was reduced, and it was much faster to publish. The only people who could buy the handmade books were people who were very wealthy like religious leaders and royal families.  

2. The reason why the sales of printed and CD encyclopedias decreased was because of the invention of digital encyclopedias. People began using search engines like Google and Wikipedia to look up information instead of using encyclopedias. Encyclopedias today are going digital but are still struggling because searchers rely more on Google and other online resources.    

3. Book and movie industries are similar because they talk about recent events that have happened. Book industries have also were very successful writing about government reports. Just like movie industries, the book industry have wrote books on important events like the assassination of President Kennedy and the marriage of prince William and Kate Middleton.

4. The kindle was very successful than other e-book devices because the Kindle was the first ever to make an electronic paper that was easy-on-the-eyes. The kindle also made wireless e-book downloads from Amazon’s online bookstore. Then Kindle made the Kindle fire which is where readers could browse the internet. The reason why other devices failed was because their devices were expensive and Kindle was the least expensive device to use.

5.The major issues on the debate of digitalizing millions of books for Web search engines was that Web search engines such as Google had too much power to profit from millions of books but Google didn’t get the copyright permission first. They then began a nonprofit service to stop this issue.

6. When a book is challenged it means that the book is removed from the library collection because there have been complaints due to offensive language, violence, nudity, racism and so on. When a book is banned it is because they have challenged authority and promoted radical ideas.

7. The growth of book superstores made a great impact on other bookstores because they had coffee shops in their stores along with selling recorded music and having live performances in their stores.  Other bookstores began to go bankrupt due to the growth of these superstores because the superstores began taking older bookstores customers.

8. The concerns of Amazon’s powerful role in determining book pricing and having its own publishing divisions is that Amazon expanded to its own publishing company.  This allowed Amazon to become too powerful because they competed with other e-book companies trying to decrease the prices of books so that customers will buy the book from their website.

9. Andrew Carnegie’s built 2,500 public libraries in the U.S., Britain, Australia, and New Zealand because he thought that libraries was great  learning opportunity for people who lived in those countries but especially for immigrants because Carnegie was one.

Blog #7

1. The partisan press mainly wrote about politics and the people who read these articles were wealthy and educated. The reason why the partisan press targeted highly educated and wealthy people is because they controlled local politics and businesses.

2. Newspapers emerged as a mass medium during the penny press era due to the modern technology that cut the costs of newspapers dramatically. The penny press newspapers was very popular to the middle and working class because they could now afford to buy them. The middle class also had more free time to read the newspaper. The interest that people liked to read was crimes people have committed not so much about politics and businesses.

3.  The two main features of yellow journalism are stories were over dramatic and that journalists would find out what businesses is struggling. The stories that are over dramatic talked about disasters, celebrities, crimes and scandals. People were very interested in these particular topics.

4. Newspapers declined during the Great Depression  and when the radio was becoming popular. People realized that it was cheaper to listen to radio than buying newspapers. Television also posed a threat to the decrease in newspaper industry.

5. Citizen journalism came about when the internet came about. The people who wrote these articles are not professional journalists. Instead, these amateur journalists would use the internet  and blogs to send out information and news.

6. The challenges that new online sites face is the major change of print journalism’s businesses. If the newspaper puts local ads and coupons in their newspapers, more people will end up reading the newspaper. These ads and coupons will attract people’s attention and it would be more likely that people will return to that newspaper site.

7.  The newspaper’s role in democracy is keeping people informed about the news around the world. However, many reporters have been killed trying to keep the world informed on what’s going on in other countries. Many of these deaths included reporting in foreign countries during a war. The world depends on reporters to keep us updated on what’s happening around the world.

8. Magazines made a social reform in the turn of the twentieth century because they could write more in depth and their articles were longer in length. They also wrote about interesting topics such as urban problems immigrants face, racial issues and issues big business are dealing with.

9. The advantages magazines have moving into the digital form is by expanding and reaching out to their customers in different ways. Online magazines allows more space for information and things to do that print magazines can’t. Some of the things online magazines have are videos, blogs, games and virtual fitting rooms.

10. What triggered the move toward magazine specialization is radio and television. What radio and television did was target an audience so magazines began to target a specific audience which guaranteed advertisements in their magazines. 

11. Adverting in magazines affects what gets published because by advertising, it gives information about politics, society, and culture which allows us to put ourselves in a democracy.  Except, the magazines look at their customers as a consumer first and citizens second. Magazines do help us stay connected to words and keeping up with the new technologies.

Blog #6

1    1. Silent films were so popular because it created a way for the audience’s imagination. Georges Méliès, a French magician, created the first movie theater in 1896. He figured out that you can be creative when making a film like creating fairy tales. He began playing around with the film using different techniques to edit them by using slow motion and making cartoon films. These silent films created short stories and people enjoyed watching them.

2.    2.   Nickelodeons helped immigrants learn English and so they could go to a movie theater for a reasonable price. The reason why nickelodeons were so affordable is because they used only a pre-owned projector and a large white sheet to display the film. They also included live music and theater operators to add sound effects that went along with the movie. Nickelodeon theaters after that became more popular and attracted more people.   

3.      3. Hollywood ended up being the center of film production due to World War I. American films were marketed in Europe but once World War I happened, Europe’s film production industry crashed. Once Europe was disrupted, the United States was the only ones who could control Europe’s film production. After that, Hollywood became the center of film production.

4.      4. During the late 1940’s, when the Great Depression occurred, people stayed home and listened to the radio because it was cheaper than going to the movies. However, when people listened to their radios instead of going to the movies, the TV got rid of both radio and movies. TV channels then began to shows about social problems such as racism and alcoholism. Then TV improved and was produced in color instead of black and white. Television then went on to develop into wide-screen images and eventually decreased the fuzziness in the image.

5.      5. Major movie studios make money from the film business in many ways. One way is my getting part of the box office profit. Another is by making DVD’s, rentals and downloads. After that they would put the movies on cable TV in which the cable and television stations would negotiate with the studios to put the movies on their channels. The movie industries also sent the movies internationally. Studios let independent filmmakers and producers use their studios so they can gain popularity. Lastly, they earn money by product placement, for example, an actor drinking a Coca-Cola during a scene.

6.      6. Major movie studios make money from the film business by promotion and synergy. Synergy is when different types of media try to promote and make sales of a particular product. Some examples are turning the movie into a book, calendar, clothing, toys, theme parks and many more.

7.      7. The movie industry is embracing and are alright with the Internet using their movies. They believe that the more devices they can watch their movies on the better. What they do to promote their films is by advertising their movies in the media like Facebook.

8.      8. Inexpensive digital technology has made a huge impact on filmmaking. The low-cost videos allows for new and creative artists to make their own movie. It also allows people to make their own movies at a low cost. In more recent films such as Paranrmal Activity was made with $15,000. Using digital technology allows independent filmmakers to show their work and get an audience. 

Blog #5

1. The major technical standards that were established in the 1940’s was analog television. Analog television worked by using radio waves to watch TV. However, analog TV was taken over by digital signals which allowed people to watch TV with more channels, better image quality, and sound. Digital TV also allowed customers to view TV on their phones and laptops.

2. The sponsorship of network programs changed during the 1950’s by increasing the program length. TV programs used to have a single sponsor for a show which meant that the advertiser has complete control of what content they can show during the program. Broadcast networks were getting upset because there was no control in the arrangement of advertising. However, the population of viewers and cost of television grew which offered more opportunities. They also increased the program length to a half hour or longer to increase program costs for advertisers.

3. Mobile devices and computers challenged the TV and cable industries by allowing viewers to watch their TV shows on laptops and their cellphones. The television industries came out with DVR’s where viewers can record their shows whenever they want. The amount of people who use their phone to download and watch TV shows on their phones have increased eight hours a day.

4. The government imposed many rules and regulations to restrict the networks power.  One of them was the Prime Time Access Rule (PTAR) which reduced the networks control of the programming time from four to three hours.  Another regulation that they enforced is the fin-syn which attacked the TV oligopoly.  They also limited the amount of non-news shows by telling them to find production companies and film studios to program their show.

5. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 changed television and cable industries by allowing phone companies long-distance calls and cable companies to be in each other’s market. It also allowed cable companies to sell telephone service but it doesn’t allow phone companies to sell internet service to customers.

6. Television’s roles as a national cultural center has changed over the years by the development of VCR’s, DVR’s, DVD players and phone companies that have internet. These inventions have influenced individual’s special needs and it changed TV’s role. The reason why cable channels survive is because they re-run TV shows and movies.

Blog #4

The music industry attempted to curb illegal downloading and file sharing by a number of ways. Phone companies such as Verizon and AT&T helped the music industry by sending their customers “copyright alert”, warning letters and slowing the downloading process.     Rock and Roll had a huge influence on racism and youth culture.  Black music, art and literature helped break racism between blacks and whites. During the rock and roll age, artists would show their feminine and masculine side to challenge the rules of how they should behave onstage. For example, Elvis used inappropriate movements of his hips while he was performing.

          Pop music remains powerful today due to T.V. shows such as Americal Idol and Glee because 
      these shows are very popular. They also bring back the older songs in the past so older pop songs        are still played today.The company who is more in control of the worldwide music  production   and distribution is Apple’s iTunes. ITunes has raised their price per song but still   sell 38.2% of music in the U.S..   

         I believe the internet helps musical artists because today’s world is more digital.  I think if musical artists are online the artist will become more popular and get more fans because more people can hear their music on different websites they use.  Artists might not like the idea of internet because they don’t make as much profit off of it if they were to sell CD’s but they would get more fans if they were to put their music online. The development of the telegraph was very important in media history because it lead to further inventions. However, the telegraph couldn’t do mych when it was first invented because it could only give out codes but not the human voice. The telegraph helped lead to the inventions of the telephone and the wireless telephone which then lead to the radio.

        Broadcasting became federally regulated because of the tragic Titanic event. After the Titanic sank, congress had to pass a radio act which meant that people had to get a license to transmit radio waves. Years ago media companies could only own a certain amount of AM and FM radio channels. The 1996 act made these changes and allowed people to own many radio channels as they would like but had to follow certain rules.  For a large area, companies could own more station s in that area. For areas where there were only about fourteen and lower channels, radio companies could only own up to five stations. In the small areas where there are only a very few channels, companies couldn’t own more than half of the stations.  Today,  a broadcasting company, clear channel, owns 886 radio stations and 140 channels internationally.  Clear channel is not only on normal radio but they also have internet radio stations as well. The government encouraged monopoly, which is when a private company would get the government’s approval to rule the entire radio. The reason why they wanted to do expand American technology worldwide.

Blog Post #3

The Internet originated from a military-government project which allowed the military to communicate through computer time sharing. One of the major web searching corporations created is Google. Google's web searching was such a huge success because they made a new algorithm. These algorithms allowed people to search a word or phrase through the entire internet. The search engine would then direct the search to other websites that had the key word they were looking for.

Democratic possibilities of social media are to get rid of restrictive regimes that develop into persuasion and cover peoples outrageous behavior. How social media can help with this problem is by using social media like YouTube and Facebook to show what is happening because the news won’t show it. For example, in the U.S., people protested about the Occupy Wall Street movement and put it on social networks to show them that the economy and income of wealthy people and everyone else wasn’t equal and wasn’t fair.

I think the major corporation that seems to be the most evil is Amazon.  The reason why I say this is because it seems that Amazon keeps trying to improve on their devices so they can be better than the other corporations. An example of this would be Amazon creating the Cloud Player where people can use media everywhere and gives an additional five gigabytes of hard drive space. I believe the most good digital corporations is Facebook. Instead of competing with other corporations, they make deals with them that will help each corporation.  For example, Facebook created an app called “Instagram” that allowe

When we moved from a print-oriented Industrial Age to a Digital Age there has been a positive effect to the world. One effect is that information is sent and received over a short period of time. If information is faster, issues will be solved faster and we can communicate with people quickly. Also, it saves a lot of trees and money because everything is becoming paper free. However, this can be affected negatively for a number of reasons. The major reason this can become a problem is because people can lose their interpersonal skills and won’t know how to react to one on one communication. Lastly, it has a horrible effect on our physical fitness because nowadays people are always watching TV and are sitting down at the computer instead of going outside and being active. This lack of physical activity is causing a huge problem in the U.S. with obesity.

When I was younger I played Pac Man, Super Mario World, Super Smash Brothers, Dance Dance Revolution and Nintendogs. The reason why I have played majority of these games is because of my two brothers. I am not good at video games at all but, they have introduced me to these games and we would play against each other. I have learned that video games and graphics have improved dramatically over time. I also have learned that games that I have never played before were some of the top hits such as “World of Warcraft”. I never realized this game was so popular until I read this book because my brothers have never played that game before.

Video games are a huge part in society because it allows different age groups to compete against each other and have fun. In some games it allows players to interact while playing and they can form new social groups. I believe that certain games are bad for society because some are too violent. However, research has shown that people who play violent video games don’t bring that violence into the real world. Instead, the major concern should be with people who have certain personality types such as high temperament, depressed and act without thinking. In my opinion, violent video games are pushed a little too far. For example, in Grand Theft Auto 3 players can use prostitutes to increase their “health” but then beat them or kill them to get their money back  (p.97).

Chapter 1 Questions

·         What are the key technological breakthroughs that accompanied the transition to the print and electronic eras? Why were these changes significant?

The print revolution came to be in the mid fifteenth century by a man called Johannes Glutenburg. He was the man who invented the printing press. This allowed the cost and size of books to reduce so that it would be more affordable to people. The printing press had great impact for a number of reasons. It allowed to get rid of the process of writing books by hand and it produced more books in a short amount of time, which allowed books to become more affordable. Due to the large quantities of books created cheap and fast, it led to the Industrial Revolution, modern capitalism, and consumer culture. The print era gave political and commercial leaders the idea of taking charge of the print media to continue to have social order. This then created individualism and people didn’t rely as much on their leaders anymore.

After the printing era, a new invention was created, the development of the telegraph. As well as the printing press, telegraphing has also made a great impact on improving communication. It created instant media messaging and turned information into merchandise. In addition to creating information into merchandise, it made it easier for leaders to coordinate commercial and military activity.  Lastly, it helped lead to better technology like what we have today.

 

 

·         In looking at the history of pop culture, explain why newer and emerging forms of media seem to threaten status quo values.

 

Newer forms of media seem to be threatening our current values in life for a variety of reasons. The media has “stunted” our imagination to see the great works that have been created in the past. This is because culture today is made for profit. Today what has been happening is people would create new works of literature and art. For example, the book Frankenstein was created into a movie. Pop culture today is always upgrading and is always creating new things so people won’t get bored. For example, Twitter and Facebook have changed our lives by allowing us to interact with one another online. The problem with this is it can have an effect on our interpersonal skills because if we become so addicted to talking online we will begin to lose the value of spending time with people in person.   

  

·         What are the five steps in critical process? Which of these is most difficult and why?

 

The five steps in critical process are description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and engagement. Description is when we examine, really concentrate, and take notes on what subject we are looking at. Analysis lets us take a closer look at parts we think need improvement in the description stage and find patterns that arise from it. The interpretation stage is the most difficult because we have to ask the questions “what does that mean?” and “so what?” about what we have found. Evaluation helps us tell if the subject is good, bad, or average. The last step in the critical process is engagement. This last step is when we take action by questioning the media and add our own thoughts.  

 

 

·         Why is the critical process important?

Critical process is important because people should be able to voice their opinion on a subject. It also allows people to give others advice on their subject to make it better because sometimes it might not have enough information or too much information. Lastly, it allows us to develop more knowledge on the subject and let others know what information is true and false.

About Me

My name is Emily Denmark, I am from Falmouth, MA and I am an exercise science major. My goal is to get into graduate school and become a physical therapist. I usually use google on a regular basis and I would say the social media that I use the most is Facebook. My favorite movie is The Hunger Games and my favorite TV show is modern family. I also love working out, playing field hockey, going to the movies and shopping.  A fun fact about me is that I drive a red punch buggy. Lastly, I am looking forward to learning how to interpret films and to have a better understanding of the different types of media.