Mass media

1
Mass media

• The mass media are pervasive in our everyday
  lives.
• The primary mass media are built on print,
  electronic, chemical and digital technologies.
• Scholars have devised models to explain the
  mass media.
• Most mass media organizations must be
  profitable to stay in business.
• Mass media are focusing on narrower audiences.
• Mass media ownership is consolidating.
• Technology is blurring traditional distinctions
  between mass media.

2
The Simpsons and the First Amendment

• About 22 percent of Americans could name the five
  members of The Simpsons family, according to a
  survey conducted by the McCornmick Tribune
  Freedom Museum (March 2006).
• About 52 percent of Americans could name at least
  two members of The Simpsons family.
• About 40 percent of Americans could name two of
  the three American Idol judges.
• One in 1,000 people (.1 percent) could name the
  five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.
• One in four Americans could name more than one of
  the freedoms.

3
Class results

• 1. The names of the five Simpsons family members
  are
• Homer (94 percent)
• Marge (88 percent)
• Bart (94 percent)
• Lisa (94 percent)
• Maggie (76 percent)
• 2. The three judges on American Idol are
• Paula Abdul (71 percent)
• Simon Cowell (88 percent)
• Randy Jackson (59 percent)
• 3. The First Amendment rights are
• class national survey
• Freedom of speech (94 percent) (69 percent)
• Freedom of religion (59 percent) (24 percent)
• Freedom of the press (47 percent) (11 percent)
• Right to assembly (11 percent) (10 percent)
• Right to petition for the redress of grievances
  (.05 percent) (1 percent)

4
What are the mass media?

• Pervasive
• Americans average almost 70 percent of their
  waking hours using the mass media. Media exposure
  often blends into the backgrounds of peoples
  lives.
• Americans learn almost everything about the world
  beyond their environment through the mass media.
• Often what is learned through the mass media is
  popular culture.

5
Daily media usage

• Time spend exclusively with media 3 hours, 45
  minutes
• Concurrent activities 5 hours, 37 minutes
• Media multi-tasking 45.9 minutes

6

• The average person spends almost 10 hours a day
  using some type of media.
• Key findings of the Ball University research
  include
• --About 30 percent of the observed waking day was
  spent with media as the sole activity versus 20.8
  percent for work activity, while an additional 39
  percent of the day was spent with media while
  involved in some other activity
• --In any given hour no less than 30 percent of
  those studied were engaged in some way with
  television, and in some hours of the day that
  figure rose to 70 percent
• --About 30 percent of all media time is spent
  exposed to more than one medium at a time
• --People ages 18 to 24 spend less time online
  than any other age group except those older than
  65

7
Americans will devote half their lives to forms
of media next year

• Dec. 14, 2006/USA TODAY
• Americans love their media so much that next
  year they'll spend nearly half their lives
  watching TV, going online, listening to the radio
  (or music) and reading.
• That's what the U.S. Census Bureau is predicting
  in its Statistical Abstract of the United
  States 2007.
• The annual report uses data from several sources,
  including private industry and non-profits. It
  has statistics on everything from elections to
  transportation to finances.

8

• In 2000, Americans spent 3,333 hours consuming
  media and most of that time (1,467 hours) was
  spent in front of the TV, according to Veronis
  Suhler Stevenson, a media-oriented money
  management company that supplied much of the
  media data used in the report.
• In 2007, Americans spent 3,518 hours with the
  media, including 1,555 in front of the TV, says
  Veronis Suhler Stevenson. That means the average
  American will spend roughly 146 days, or five
  months, consuming media.
• "It's the activity we do more than anything
  else," said Leo Kivijarv, vice president of
  research at PQ Media, which collaborated with
  Veronis Suhler Stevenson.

9

• However, the numbers don't mean we're just
  sitting in front of our machines we're
  multitasking.
• "I know people who use television as wallpaper,"
  said Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster based in
  Silicon Valley. But, he added, "The news means
  that America is making a smooth transition from a
  couch potato to a mouse potato. Put another way,
  I suspect the only exercise Americans are getting
  is walking between their TVs and their
  computers.
• The numbers mean that "people want to have and
  almost need to have information and
  entertainment at their fingertips now, 24 hours a
  day," Kivijarv says.
• They also mean that technology tools are
  continuing to shift our "social, political and
  economic lives," said Lee Rainie, director of the
  Pew Internet American Life Project, which also
  supplied data for the report. "In the past
  decade, the Internet and cellphones have changed
  the way people interact with each other, the way
  they work, the way they spend their leisure
  time," Rainie said. Also changed "The way they
  maintain and grow their social networks, and the
  way they share their stories with others through
  blogs (and) social networking sites."

10
The mass media

• Informational
• news
• advertisements
• books
• Entertaining
• music
• movies
• books
• recordings
• Persuasive
• newspaper editorials
• advertising
• public relations

11
Mass media bind people

• Bring communities together by distributing
  messages that become shared (common) experiences.
• Mass media's culturally binding role has been
  diminishing recently (three TV networks to
  hundreds of TV channels).
• Media content was produced for a broad audience.
  Its now produced for specialized niches of the
  population. This could increase the media
  becoming a vehicle for dividing society instead
  of bringing society together.

12
Sports Fan Names Newborn Son ESPN

• By Associated PressPublished October 7, 2006
• BILOXI, Miss. -- Leann Real promised her husband,
  an avid sports fan, that if they ever had a son
  he'd get to pick the name. ESPN Montana Real was
  born this week at Biloxi Regional Medical Center.
  Rusty Real, of D'Iberville, chose ESPN
  (pronounced Espen) after the sports network and
  Montana after football legend Joe Montana. Baby
  ESPN isn't alone. Three others were cited in a
  2005 report on tivocommunity.com about the
  network's 25th anniversary. They are Espn Malachi
  McCall in Pampa, Texas Espn Curiel in Corpus
  Christi, Texas and Espn Blondeel in Michigan.
  "We were the talk of the hospital," Rusty Real
  said. "The nurses kept asking my wife if she was
  really going to let her husband name him ESPN.
  She said, 'Oh, yes.'"

13
Primary Mass Media and Their Technological Bases

• Print Technology
• Books, Newspapers, Magazines
• Electronic Technology
• Records, Radio, Television, Internet
• Chemical/Photographic Technology
• Movies (moving to digital technology)
• Digital Technology
• Traditional mass media have adapted. It has
  created a merging of media (e-books) or entirely
  new categories of media offerings (Google,
  MySpace)

14
Mass media models

• Hot-Cool Model
• Engaged vs. passive
• Hot media require a high degree of concentration
  to use them. Cool media can be used passively.

15
Entertainment-Information Model

• Media are defined by their content.
• The content can be entertaining or informational.
  Infotainment is a blend of entertainment and
  information.
• Model limitations no media content is strictly
  entertaining or informative. It misses the
  potential of all media to do more such as
  persuade or bind communities.

16
Content-Distribution Model

• Separates the functions of a company into
  creation divisions and distribution divisions.
• Vertical integration a sole companys control
  over products from creation to distribution.
  (DisneyDisney studios, ABC)

17
Elitist-Populist Model

• Elitists serious media content that advances
  social and cultural interests is essential to
  society.
• Populists mass media are at their best when they
  give people what they want.
• Media criticism usually follows this
  elitist-populist continuum.

18
Push-Pull Model

• Push media such as advertisements that intrude
  on the consumer (pop-ups).
• Pull media that consumers locate themselves
  (magazine ads).

19
Maturation Model

• This model looks at mass media by studying three
  stages of development. Books are a mature medium
  and the Internet is a new medium.
• Innovation Stage
• Technology emerges to create medium.
• Entrepreneurial Stage
• Commercial possibilities are explored.
• Stability Stage
• Technology can be marketed for widespread use.

20
Media Must Be Profitable

• Most mass media owners are in business to make a
  profit. Although some companies exist to serve
  the readers (Christian Science Monitor) or
  viewers (PBS), most need to make money to stay in
  business.
• Economic foundationsources of revenue
• advertising
• circulation/cable subscribers/movie tickets
• audience donations (PBS)
• private support (businesses, foundations,
  churches)
• government subsidies (PBS, legal notices)
• government advertising (post office, military
  recruiting)

21
Media demassification

• The mass media are focusing on narrower
  audiences.
• This demassification is occurring as media
  company owners are looking for new ways to
  effectively sell more products.
• Even with targeting narrow segments of audiences,
  the media try to reach as many people as possible
  in those segments.
• A medium will focus on narrower audience segments
  as it matures. As new technology competes with
  older media, the older media begins to narrow the
  segment of the population it targets.

22
Demassification

• Magazinesfamily-oriented stories with multiple
  photos. The competition from television helped
  magazines to change into publications targeting
  select readers.
• Radiofamily-oriented programming at its
  beginning. This programming changed to target
  narrower segments of listeners when television
  became popular.
• Televisionbroadcast programming changed when
  cable television became popular. (For example, 72
  percent of TV households watched I Love Lucy on
  Monday nights in 1953. About 15-20 percent of TV
  households will watch the top show in 2009.

23
Effects of demassification

• Advertisers are able to reach narrow and targeted
  segments of the population. This is a bonus to
  company officials who are targeting their product
  to a certain part of the population.
• This media focus on narrow audience segments will
  continue because of three newer technologies
• the Internet
• digitized messages
• satellite communication

24
Media conglomeration

• Mass media ownership is consolidating. America
  has fewer independent media companies now than
  ever before. Most medium-size companies are
  joining together or being bought by larger
  companies.

25
Media ownership consolidation

• Media ownership collaboration
• complicated joint deals
• Dubious effects of conglomeration
• growing vertical and horizontal integration
• quality can suffer and sameness
• profit-driven
• Positive effects of conglomeration
• stronger financial base for subsidiaries
• more audience choices with repackaging
• parent corporations own companies abroad, which
  helps to open global markets

26
Top media companies

• (AOL) Time Warner
• HBO
• CNN
• CNN International
• CNN en Espanol
• CNN Headline News
• CNN Airport Network
• Court TV (with Liberty Media)
• Warner Bros.
• Warner Bros. Studios
• Warner Bros. Television (production)
• The CW Television Network
• Warner Bros. Television Animation
• Hanna - Barbera Cartoons
• Castle Rock Entertainment
• Warner Home Video

• Time
• Time Asia
• Time Atlantic
• Time Canada
• Time Latin America
• Time South Pacific
• Time Money
• Time For Kids
• Fortune
• Life
• Sports Illustrated
• Sports Illustrated International
• SI for Kids
• People
• People en Español
• Teen People

27
Top media companies

• Showtime
• The Movie Channel
• CBS Radio
• Paramount

• Viacom/CBS
• (split into two companies in 2006)
• CW
• MTV
• MTV2
• Nickelodeon
• BET
• Nick at Nite
• VH1
• Spike TV
• Comedy Central

28
Top media companies

• (Walt) Disney
• ABC
• ESPN
• US Weekly
• DISCOVER
• The Disney Channel
• Toon Disney
• AE Television (37.5, with Hearst and GE)
• The History Channel (with Hearst and GE)
• Lifetime Television (50, with Hearst)
• Lifetime Movie Network (50 with Hearst)

• Walt Disney Pictures
• Touchstone Pictures
• Hollywood Pictures
• Caravan Pictures
• Miramax Films
• Buena Vista Home Video
• Buena Vista Home Entertainment

29
Top media companies

• NBC Universal
• NBC Universal (80-owned by General Electric, 20
  controlled by Vivendi Universal)
• NBC Stations
• Telemundo Stations

• NBC Universal Television StudioNBC Universal
  Television Distribution
• CNBC
• MSNBC
• Bravo
• Mun2TV
• Sci-Fi
• Trio
• USA
• Film
• Universal Pictures
• Parks
• Universal Parks Resorts

30
Top media companies

• News Corporation
• FOX
• 20th Century Fox
• Fox Searchlight Pictures
• Fox Television Studios
• MySpace
• DirecTV
• MyNetworkTV

31
Top media companies

• Bertelsmann
• Random House Publishing
• BMG Labels
• Arista Records

32
Combined integration

• Most conglomerates combine vertical and
  horizontal integration.
• Horizontal integrationorganizations starting or
  acquiring other companies in a similar line of
  business.
• Vertical integrationstarting or acquiring
  businesses at different stages in the production
  process (content provider merging with a content
  distributor).

33
Integration

• IntegrationDisney, for example, owns not only a
  group of movie studios but also movie theme parks
  where topics of the movies become attractions.
  Pirates of the Caribbean, for example, was based
  on a long-standing theme park ride.
• Disney also owns recording studios that sell
  movie soundtracks and publishing companies that
  produce books and magazines about their movies
  and movie characters. It owns a profession hockey
  team, which was the subject of one of its movies.
  (horizontal integration)
• Disney also owns ABC television network and
  several cable channels that show its movies as
  well as video companies that distribute those
  movies (and others) in video form. (vertical
  integration)

34
Intracorporate synergy

• After shunning the television industry in the
  1940s and 50s, the movie industry now works
  closely with small-screen productions. Television
  programming is often produced in Hollywood.
• Many movie and television studios are owned by
  the same conglomerate.
• Company movie studio TV network
• Viacom Paramount CBS CW
• Disney Disney Pictures ABC
• News Corp. 20th Century Fox Fox
• GE/Universal Universal NBC
• Time Warner Warner Bros CW HBO

35
Media melding

• Digital technology is blurring traditional
  distinctions between mass media by removing many
  of the differences between the mediums.
• Mass media now are created and distributed in
  this digital form. This change means that the
  same technologies can be used to transmit text,
  audio, or video in an integrated communication
  system such as the Internet.
• Separate channels of communication are no longer
  needed for each medium, which means that the
  differences between the mediums are eroding.

36
Media melding

• In this media melding, newspapers or television
  news reports can now be read or watched online.
  Movies can be watched on the computer. Radio or
  television programs can be downloaded to iPods or
  cell phones.
• The blurring of the media will only continue.
  This is in part because Americans are using the
  Internet more and in different ways.
• This digital melding is being accelerated by the
  continuing consolidation of companies that
  produce and distribute mass media.
• Increased demassification is occurring in some
  part because of digitization of media content.
  Digitization makes it easier to identify segments
  of the mass audience and tailor messages to
  narrower interests.

37
Mass media questions

• How are the mass media pervasive in our everyday
  lives?
• What are the three technologies on which the
  primary mass media are built?
• Explain the models that scholars have devised to
  explain the mass media (hot-cool,
  entertainment-information, content-distribution,
  elitist-populist, push-pull and maturation).
• Define demassification. Describe demassification
  that has occurred in radio, magazines and
  television.
• Is conglomeration good or bad for mass media
  consumers?
• How are mass media and digital technology
  converging?