140 Comm notes 9/7: The Business of Media
How can a statue be a media event?
- Why was it put there in the first place?
Ex: remediate history; silent sam remediates uncs history w/ civil war
- meaning continues to change over time; meaning is social; meaning is
emotional
Media Models
market and public sphere also media models
all 4 models (above, cultural, transmission) useful and accurate
models DONT work in tandem
Rvw: Cultural and Transmission Model
difference btwn 2 models is context
meaning is audiences
born into shared vocabularies; meanings inherited
every new meaning/media born out of conditions of possibility for meanings and
changes the world around us
Market and the Public Sphere
seems like models should go well together, but they dont. why?
Market model and public sphere model more real
2 separate competing visions for what media is/should be, yet not opposites
prescriptive and descriptive models
see pg. 39 chart
market model- sees media as entertainment for private consumption
- addresses media audiences as consumers w/ money to spend
- considers competetition btwn media companies to be the best and right
context for our mediated lives
- says media is just another thing for sale; no different from any other business
public sphere model- sees media as info. for public use
- addresses media audiences as citizens who have the ability, the right, and the
obligation to help make media as well as consume it
- not satisfied w/ competition btwn companies as media context; puts greater
good ahead of private profit
- believes that media products are more significant than other products in our
lives b/c theyre our primary info. sources and story tellers
- **author favors**
FCC = Federal Communications Commission
- gov. agency that regulates/monitors media; determines diff. media model
approaches
Why is supply and demand insufficient for understanding media?
Why do we, as Americans, have a more distinctive relationship to media?
1. Media has the power to serve the public interest; facilitate
2. Media has the power to shape the public interest; influence
Recitation
-application of a model in unexpected way; test limits of it = paper example
- opinion page of newspaper align w/ public sphere model
could also be under market model, b/c wont get advertising if support its boring
- prescriptive: trying to influence/push your view of media; normative; focuses
on how media should be; presents ethical imperative
*market and public sphere models
market ex: tv
- descriptive:
*transmission and cultural models
- as far as description goes, models can overlap, but not as far as prescription is
concerned
- we interpret the media, but not under conditions that we choose; choices
constrained by social, economical, etc. factors (cultural model)
- active audience = the control we have over our constrained choices
- no news provider/type of media fits only under one kind of model
media esp. diff./distinct b/c it shapes public interest
Comm 140 notes 9/12 : New media giants
no longer new in the chronological sense; 5 yr old article
google, apple, amazon truly new media giants that come to mind
twitter targeting devices rather than users
sales of new pcs have ground to a halt worldwide; sales down less than 4% from
prev. year (2009); may be b/c ppl buying new tablets/smart phones instead
amazon.com now sells more ebooks than paper books
extraordinary events commemorated ordinarily
companies and corporations des. As new media giants b/c as media companies
are not new, but newly gigantic; largely responsible for lots of mediamaking
vast majority of media we encounter (95%) produced by same 6 companies
public sphere model says media means more to us than other products; pg. 22 last
weeks reading media more than profitprimary info. sources from storytellers
media also the means by which all of us make meaning in our lives
media can contribute to democracy by cultivating social spaces for ongoing public
dialogue
media not just bought and sold, but citizen resources? Pg. 29
Can we call boil public interest down to public interest? Is there just one
singular public interest? Who decides what is in the public interest?
Net neutrality- look it up; Is net neutrality as its articulated in the media sources
we consult? Is it in the public interest? Why/why not?
freepress.net/ownership/chart/main = big 6 chart of ownership
2 aphorisms/cliches
1. people everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with the news
-if what you read in the paper is not news, then what is?
2. freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one