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.