Chapter 2 Book Notes New producers are finding new ways to deliver content to new audiences Day and date release simultaneously releasing a movie to the public in some combination of theater video on demand DVD and download o Format what kind of media content is presented in a movie song etc o Platform is where you release the media content on how it is presented and made Media consumer behavior is shifting which is causing media companies to do business available to the public differently o Movie attendance dropped 4 5 from 2010 to 2012 o Downward trend in annual music sales o DVD sales have fallen as much as 20 between 2010 and 2011 Good News children 8 18 years old spend more than 10 hours and 45 minutes a day with media content o Media multitasking simultaneously consuming many different kinds of media o Today American s 11 8 hours of information daily o Smartphones and internet are becoming the primary media content delivery system for most American s o Convergence erosion of traditional distinctions among media o Media industries must deal with three forces Concentration of media ownership and conglomeration Rapid globalization Hypercommercialism o Conglomeration the increase in the ownership of media outlets by larger nonmedia companies Problems dominance of a bottom line mentality and its inevitable degradation of media content parent companies of newspapers and media can keep big scandals that are worth talking about out of the news Arguments for conglomeration and concentration are only inevitable but necessary in a telecommunications environment that is increasingly fragmented and internationalized companies must maximize their number of outlets to reach as much of an audience as possible Economics of scale bigger can in fact be better because the relative cost of an operations output declines as the size of that endeavor grows Revenues from a conglomerates nonmedia enterprises can be used to support quality works by its media companies o Oligopoly concentration of media industries into an ever smaller number of We re not in the business of providing news and information We re simply in business of selling our customers products Lowry Mays companies Globalization o Potential impact of globalization on mass communication process speaks to the issue of diversity of expression o How much should we accept in the name of globalization Example one Yahoo Employee was sentenced to 10 years in prison because the Chinese were outraged by a few of his emails o Defenders of increased globalization point to the need to reach a fragmented and widespread audience The growing economic clout of emerging democracies and increasing the intertwined of the worlds economies is necessary for the economic survival of media businesses Audience Fragmentation o Audience fragmentation individual segments of the audience are becoming more narrowly defined the audience itself is less of a mass audience o Before television radio and magazines were national media big radio networks brought news and entertainment to the entire country Some were no longer able to compete on a mass scale so these media targeted smaller audiences that were alike in some characteristic so their products would be more attractive to specific advertisers This process is called narrowcasting niche marketing or targeting Now specific television channels target certain ages or likes of particular audiences nickelodeon targets kids Bravo targets upper income older people etc Reason magazine in June 2007 subscribers 55 000 all received a magazine with their house circled on a map on the front cover Ads were personalized and so was information regarding specifics surrounding their particular neighborhood Cable companies have the ability to send specific commercials to particular neighborhoods and even particular individual homes Individuated News I News is a newspaper service that delivers completely specific and personalized newspaper printed at home Hypercommercialism People buy the printers at a discounted rate receive personalized content targeted ads and coupons all for the price of a small subscription fee Addressable technologies technologies permitting the transmission of very specific content to equally specific audience members This is changing the nature of the mass medias audiences then the mass communication process must also change What will happen to a national culture that binds us as we become increasingly fragmented into demographically targeted taste publics groups of people bound by little more than an interest in a given form of media content o Audience may be fragmented but the interconnectivity encouraged and facilitated by the digital media will reconnect and reconfigure us into a more numerous and robust and varied community Twitter and Facebook are places where people can share their passions and discover others on a worldwide basis o Two most common strategies selling more advertising on existing and new media identifying additional ways to combine content and commercials These lead to hypercommercialism o 25 of a prime network television hour is devoted to commercial announcement o 1 3 of air time for Revenge or Criminal Minds is devoted to promotions o Product placement integration for a fee of specific branded products into media breaks content Arguments that product placement is not a commercial brought on brand entertainment to the program Brand entertainment when brands are in fact part of and essential o Example Extreme Makeover Home Edition only ever uses Sears tools and it comes off as if the show could not go on without Sears tools and if you use Sears tools you will get an amazing house o Sometimes hypercommercialism involved direct payments of cash rather than mere branding An oral mention is also paid for Can buy the exclusive rights to a portion of a show and make sure that their products are featured on the show Radio stations now accept payment from record promoters to play their songs used to be illegal and called payola Accepted now as long as the sponsorship is acknowledged on the Erosion of Distinctions among Media Convergence air o Webisodes web only television shows o Places like Netflix and Hulu offer thousands of movies and television shows to stream but also are forums for feature films only available on their websites applications o Wi fi wireless internet Allows people to access information whenever they want o Convergence the erosion of distinctions among media Three main
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