Final Project Post

Well, its official, mass media economics is really confusing. And the only conclusion I can really give you is that I don't know whether its a good or a bad thing, but that business is going to expand and take over all mass media functions, even journalistic ones. My paper was based on the question of whether or not mass media should be guided by economic principles. This led me on a path where I got to talk about mass media gatekeepers, and how being guided by economic principles decreases their numbers.

Now, some of you may be saying "isn't that a good thing? don't we want fewer barriers between us and the information we desire and need?". The answer is no, because the few gatekeepers that we have because have become incredibly powerful, far more influential, and have many more ways to imprint their values on us. We actually want more gatekeepers, because with more gatekeepers comes more diverse opinions and broadcasts that show a wider range of events and more importantly, interpretations of those events.



When a guy like Rupert Murdoch controls more newspapers and Television stations, we end up with fewer broadcasts. Why make four different broadcasts for the same purpose when you can make one that does the same thing? This is the reason that I've come to believe that mass media economics is an inherently bad thing, but that we can't avoid it, unless we put all of the power over the media into the government. Doing that however, reduces the number of gatekeepers to one, which is the worst possible situation, far worse than having 5 competing companies.

Having the mass media run like a business isn't all bad, because it means that when something goes wrong, or a false story comes up, or a scandal arises we know who we can count to give us the story. Their jobs depend on it, and their credibility and livelihood do as well.

Product Placement

One of the things that struck me in this weeks readings was the section in Chapter 13 on product placement. Rodman talks about how more recently commercials aren't just a chance to get up and go to the bathroom or get a snack during your favorite shows, they've become part of the shows that we watch.

One of parts of this trend towards constant but only semi-blatant advertising is that reality TV is at the forefront of it, while shows that are taped in advance don't seem to have nearly as many intentional advertisements within them. Why would that be the case, ads are ads, when you tape something in advance, can't you just plan to release a product around the broadcast date and assume that re-runs only give you another chance at advertisement for free? It seems odd that every show that Rodman mentions (even the ones in the fine print) are reality TV shows, is it really that much easier just to slap a Coke cup on the counter during an episode of American Idol than it is an episode of House? I've been confused by this trend and have been trying to figure out what makes reality TV, or even the news a unique target of product placement. People can buy a news segment on your health, but they can't buy a sticker on the refrigerator during Two and a Half Men?

This trend towards constant advertisement on Television, radio, and newspapers suggests that anything can be bought, and that all you have to do is find the asking price. During a broadcast of World News Tonight, before every commercial break you get a sponsership credit, and then you get their commercial. I can't tell whether or not this increase in ad time is good or bad, but I do think that it is fascinating to watch.

The Internet vs. Journalism

The Internet is vast wonderland full of everything you could possibly imagine, and more, a lot more. One of major issues with having all of that information online is the fact that it can be tough to navigate, and even tougher to determine truth from lies and sensationalism. The news industry and educational facilities have been fighting with the Internet for years trying to help individual determine what to believe when you read it.

One of the issues with the rise of the Internet that I found most interesting and most controversial was the fact that anyone can post just about anything on the Internet without any sort of need for verification. In chapter 10 Rodman wrote about this posing a few issues about "internet self-regulation" and giving a short blip about what sorts of things to look for when determining the reliability of information that one might read over the Internet. But an issue that I think wasn't fully brought to light was how this can effect the journalist. In a world where anyone can edit a video down to a few short sound bytes (as was done with the Youtube video that launched into question Barack Obama's pastor's hatred for America) or Photoshop a picture from Iraq to look like soldiers are dancing over dead civilians (don't look for it), one has to ask whether or not the Internet is harming journalists who seek to report the truth. It only takes one short video taken from a cell phone to ruin someone's reputation, and whether or not that video is telling the truth cannot be verified. Journalists are at the very least stuck chasing ghosts that can be created using PhotoShop and a little bit of know-how. The Internet from this perspective, does not report accurately or fairly, and is too open for anyone to create scandal and cause trouble however they see fit.

The easy solution to this type of problem is pretty simple but highly controversial, restrict content that can be uploaded and viewed on the Internet. Its controversial because such a thing would restrict individual freedoms to expression and because doing so would create a control system over something that ought not be controlled. I think that there should not be restriction over the use of the Internet, but I can certainly see when reading the news why it might be a thorn in the side of every journalist who wants to report honest and timely news that it we might be better off restricting it to those who are accountable for their actions.

Reading Response #2

Unlike the print and news media that we covered in last week's readings, this weeks the industry that is entertainment has become the focus. What surprised me about the readings and videos that we've come to a point where hating the corporate aspect of media has become the product that the corporate media is selling to us. It has become popular to hate how a few major corporations control almost all of the music that we listen to. Starting with the Payola scandal in the 1950's, and only exacerbated by the perceived homogenization of culture, it has become popular for there to be two major products that are sold to us in music: pop culture and counter-culture, each has its own labels, artists and marketing strategies, but both are sold to us by businesses that have the capital to distribute and market music to the masses. Counter-culture, through not directly addressed within the book, is an ironic way for individuals to vent their anger and distrust for big, evil corporations that control the music industry. Counter-culture is the product that people spend money on in order to attack the idea of spending money on. People spend money on counter-culture in order to feel like individuals. Things that start out as counter-culture usually move into pop culture when they reach a point in popularity among the masses, especially amongst teenagers. The book uses artists like Eminem to explain a transition from counter-culture to pop culture in how he went from a cult favorite as a white rapper, to a marketing dream who can be marketed as popular in order to sell new products. This sort of this will continue to happen to artists who "sell out" because as long people are willing to spend money, corporations will be there to pick it up, because that's what they exist to do.

Artists "sell out" for the same reason that corporation sponsor them: to make more money. Rock and Roll started out as a piece of counter-culture that was seen to threaten the morals of America, and has now been integrated into pop culture. Rap and hip-hop is doing the same thing, because corporations have the means and the creativity to make more money with the music than artists do on their own. It seems strange to think that genres of music that were born because of the dislike for pop culture have been integrated into it so well. Not all artists follow the money, and some do extreme things to avoid being packaged by the corporate world, but as long there is money out there to make, someone will take it.

Reading Response #1

During this week's readings, I noticed that there were some rather chaotic answers that were presented by a the large number of theories that were used to explain in what ways media impacts people's lives. There were theories in the reading to explain just about everything, from seeing both Catharsis theory (Theory that viewing violence actually reduces violent behavior) and the theory of violent stimulation (Theory that viewing violence increases aggressive tendencies), I noticed that for every theory presented there were one or more theories that would be in conflict with it. These theories were in conflict on just about every level from how information is actually passed on (flow theory) to theories about the motivations that are behind the use of mass media. All these different theories leave me wondering whether or not there really is a single explanation for our consumption of mass media in its wide variety of forms. The best guess from where I'm sitting appears to be that all these theories are true, but apply differently to different people depending on our experience.
Catharsis theory may be accurately applied to a person that can watch a violent and gory movie and feel like they've experienced it, but if a person doesn't feel like they've experienced it through some kind of osmosis (I'm not sure how else to put it), they'll be more likely to be stimulated into violent behavior. The different flow theories may apply better in different settings, but there probably isn't a single way that information flow from the media to the masses. Some of the theories suggest that the person who watches the media is the end, that once the information reaches them, that's it, a person has absorbed it and we can move on. But the two-step theory suggests that people continue to spread that information in a...pre-chewed format to others that may not have been exposed to a particular news story or seen a movie.
These conflicting theories always give me a sense that we have no idea what is actually going on, we just see a piece of the puzzle and assume that the study is over. Every piece is flawed until we put them together into some messy and chaotic picture.

J201 first post

Hooray, this is my first post for J201. Its not a response post.