Class 1 Internet 04 01 2013 Life After the Bubble Web 2 0 2 economic advantages o 1 because most of their content was created by users the sites production costs were lower o 2 the sites could generate page views more efficiently than traditional content sites How the Internet has improved News and Information More diversity and choice Greater depth finding the raw materials rather than just seeing the written article etc More diversity in commentary analysis Enabling citizen engagement getting more people involved in production process and then many people reacting to content Speed and ease Cheaper and content distribution Cheaper content creation How and Where the Internet Has Fallen Short 1 abundance of voices does not necessarily mean abundance of journalism 2 disappointing track record for local online labor intensive accountability journalism Why has the Internet not filled the reporting Gaps Left by Newspapers 1 consumer choice 2 free riding 3 ad rates down 4 advertising less dependent on content ads today are LESS relevant on content ads are based on algorithms google other tracking functions Class 2 Free Speech and the Internet Free speech and the Internet 04 01 2013 Stop online Piracy Act SOPA to shutdown sites that supported piracy of internet Limewire Coordinating efforts last year to fight the proposed stop online piracy act changed the face of the internet for a day o Local legal restrictions are no longer local Speech Chokepoints o Speech on the internet goes through a series of intermediates to reach its audience each one vulnerable to pressure from people who want to silence the speaker o 4 Intermediates Speech goes through to reach its audience 1 webhosting services 2 search engines 3 payment service providers 4 third party platforms Search Engines Magnets for censorship Some authoritarian governments block entire search engines or force them to blacklist certain queries Top 3 search engines Google Yahoo bing In 2005 China locked someone up for trying to break Yahoo Google and China have set traps error messaged 404 not found when you click on a broken link o 451 code was intersected by gov it wasn t just info not received Payment Service Providers Make it possible for users to send and receive payments online bridging the gaps between senders financial institutions and receivers Government and private acts can pressure payment providers to cut off a speaker s means of financial support Ex wikileaks and paypal Third Party Platforms For many people these are their principle means of online communication People are storing lots of private data on them Paradox of resources and incentives Google transparency report Right to be forgotten ex Facebook Law enforcements want to track them down Dangerous to use We re seeing a dramatic increase in use of our stored info online Right to be forgotten would create legal right to go to third party platform and demand them to remove take down info of you Europe is trying to get it to where you hold the eraser and can delete pics and info of you online that other people have if you don t like it You re allowed by 1st amendment to videotape police action in public Class 3 Media Economics 04 01 2013 Media Economics The Commercial Media In the U S we ve developed a market based approach One reason independence o Government control of media could threaten independence o Government shouldn t interfere w entrepreneurs Central tension is between the entertainment what we want and the public content need to know Who owns the Media Vast majority of news media in the U S are commercially owned meaning they are for profit businesses o Mass communication is conducted by and through businesses that are owned by individuals families groups etc through stocks and mutual funds Handful of corporations owns the majority of broadcasting and cable companies and a few newspaper chains own nearly a majority of the nation s newspapers Media Ownership whether an individual a corporation that issues stock or the government has a big impact on how the media operate particularly the kind of content an outlet produces as well as expectations about how much profit the outlet is expected to make Concentration of Ownership When ownership only rests in a few hands Main advantages from the owner s perspective o Dealing with a relatively small number of competitors which means they get a larger chunk of profits Disadvantages for the Consumers o With fewer competition it gives these companies little reason to keep their prices low Horizontal and Vertical Integration Concentration offers opportunities for horizontal and vertical integration o Horizontal a media corporation owns a variety of media products or outlets Cross promoting promoting media products through a corporations owned companies o Vertical a media corporation owns companies involved in different phases of the media production processes creating distributing them etc Owns different types of companies o A media corporation can be horizontally and vertically integrated at the same time benefits economy is in scale with efficiency Integration how the many businesses within a media conglomerate work together to create advantages within a market segment Dual Product Model Media companies are really selling 2 products o First is content which is sold to viewers o The second is the viewers attention which is sold to advertisers Ex McDonalds pays big money on advertisements to catch attention which means the viewers eyeballs are the product In that model advertisers truly pay the bills because media companies make more money from ads than they do by charging consumers for content Because the owners are inclined to be the most responsive to the demands of shareholders they also are inclined to be more most responsive to the advertisers who help them meet those demands o Therefore the advertisers have quite a lot of say in the eyeballs they want to buy which in turn influences the content produced to attract those eyeballs Notes Ch 4 Radio Debate In the U S the market group argued that government in control of media threatened independence and the government had had no business interfering with or depriving entrepreneurs from creating a vibrant broadcasting industry o Advantage government cant control information people are getting In the UK what we might call the public sphere argued that leaving mass communication to market forces would not serve the industry at all because the media would be so busy