Media Studies Exam Prep - Weeks 9-11

Media Studies Exam Prep - Weeks 9-11

• Broadcasting vs. Narrowcasting:
  • Broadcasting focuses on mass audiences, aiming for the largest possible audience. The goal is broad appeal, often using "least objectionable programming."
  • Narrowcasting focuses on niche audiences, targeting specific demographics. The goal is to reach a specific audience for advertisers to promote products targeted toward that niche.
• Audience Segmentation:
  • Different groups of people are targeted through audience segmentation, as media producers want to reach the segments likely to value and spend money on their products.
  • 4 Forms of Segmentation:
    • Geographic (not as useful for national brands)
    • Demographic (characteristics like gender, age, education)
    • Lifestyle (interests and hobbies)
    • Psychographic (personality characteristics)
• Data Collection:
  • Consumer profiles are built from data (data points) accumulated from online user activity.
  • Data Sources:
    • First-party data collected by the site/platform
    • Third-party data bought from data brokers
    • Data collection is used for microtargeting (e.g., Einstein).

Two Understandings of the Child Audience

• Media Industry: (Producers, distributors, advertisers, marketers, app creators)
  • Children are a desirable and lucrative demographic because they're high-frequent consumers.
  • Kids learn brand loyalty early. Media creates conditioning toward brands.
• Protectionist: (Parents, watchdogs, educators, regulators)
  • Children are viewed as vulnerable and needing protection from potentially harmful media.
  • Consumption of media is often seen as a passive activity, lacking critical decision-making skills.
  • Considers how messages are presented and consumed

Children and Television (Why?)

• Consumption is passive: Children passively consume TV rather than actively engaging with it.
• TV as a window to the world: TV is a source for them to learn about the world and others.
• TV as a teaching tool: Programs can facilitate learning (math, words, behaviours).

Productivity Practices of Consumption

• Interpretation
• Speculation
• Projection
• Discussion

Defining Fandom

• High engagement
• Close scrutiny
• Social practice
• Public display of fandom (e.g., posters, clothing)

Black Fandoms

• Interventionist approach in examining black fandoms by focusing on how they deviate from mainstream, white fandoms.
• Interlocking discourses within black fandoms:
  • Must-see blackness (consuming as civic duty)
  • Economic consumption (monetary support)
  • Pedagogical properties (teaching tools and role models)

Fandom Online

• The internet facilitates fan engagement and behavior
• Info seeking, consumption, backstage access, social media, and community through online networks are key aspects of fandom online

Cultural Production

• Fans build upon/transform texts.
• Creativity in media and art can be inspired by fandom.

Industrial Utility of Fandom (Gwenllian Jones)

• Fandom is a product of industrial processes, not just a social community
• Consumption, not critique, is the basis of fandom.
• Consumers are also brand advocates.

Critical Media Policy

• A tool to analyze media, power, and society.
• Policy analysis often considers the “values, meanings, and systems of power” which influence policy.

Media Policy (Kirkpatrick)

• Defines formal and informal rules, regulations: How do these shape production, distribution, and consumption of media?

Media Conglomerate/ Vertical Integration

• Media companies merge to create large corporations that control production from start to finish across multiple media platforms.
• Companies controlling multiple formats and stages of production can reduce costs and improve profits.

Horizontal Integration

• Owning many different media divisions within a company.
• Helps reduce risk in one division and increase diversity of platforms while avoiding putting all eggs in one basket.

Synergy

• The benefits of consolidating (different) media divisions in the same company to enhance media visibility and efficiency.

Media Globalization

• Instantaneous and interconnected global media communication and connections (across time and space)

Globalization of Film

• Development of Small/major studio film production, and promotional and distribution mechanisms.

Hollywood in China

• The challenges Hollywood faces in China, including import quotas, censorship, and needing to work with Chinese distributors and exhibitors,
• To do well in China Hollywood films/content must prioritize cultural appropriation while appealing to audience preferences (content with some cultural specificity)

US TV Production Advantages and Challenges

• US TV producers can have an advantage in international markets where their strategy, and quality produce high-performing content, potentially reducing costs and risk.
• Faced with competition from other parts of the world

Co-production

• Different companies sharing costs and creative input in productions, tailoring the content to particular markets, resulting in benefits across multiple platforms (tax incentives, lowered production costs, etc.)

Formatting

• Companies adapting their ideas and products to local markets/formats/preferences. Companies improve success when they tailor their work for the specific audience/culture to which it's targeted.

Multiple Proximities

• People's relationships with media and culture can be complex, as consumers can be connected to their own cultural spaces, but also more globally through media consumption.

Technological Determinism

• Technologies have a profound impact on how people consume media, engaging with new forms of media and consuming them in new ways.

The Medium is the Message

• The key element of the medium/style of media is more important/influential than the content/message itself

Development of New Technologies

• Technical development is driven by human interest, but also by businesses and governments.
• Innovation in technology creates new ways people distribute, create, and consume media content.

Discourses on Mobile Media

• Mobile media use evolved from being primarily a home/work phenomenon to also including outside use cases.
• Mobile technology has reshaped how people live and work, connecting them with others.

Spatial Convergence

• Technology blurs the lines between public and private spaces and physical and virtual experiences, connecting people and businesses with each other

Planned Obsolecence

• Companies design products with a limited lifetime (intended lifespan) in order to create demand for future upgrades.
• Pro= increased efficiency, consumer demand, and product innovation.

Components of Mobile Gaming

• Accessibility in software and gameplay
• Everyday ubiquity of gaming
• Variable monetization
• Game space is separate from player space (real world interaction)

Video Game Spectatorship

• Esports- professional gaming tournaments
• The spectacle of gaming: how watching a gaming competition has elements of other entertainment media.

Web 2.0

• Technology of platforms driving the interaction/sharing nature of participatory culture
• Focus on shared creation, knowledge, and culture.

Viral Video

• Viral videos are fueled by user-generated content distribution and networked practices
• Videos are attractive because of “hooks”, or catchphrases/ideas that share common characteristics.

Costs of Web 2.0

• Many corporations take advantage of user-generated content
• Profits are often made from user engagement, not content-creation payment

Influencers

• Top content producers who are popular.
• Their presence in social spaces shapes consumer behaviour and preferences.

Intermediaries as Productive (Lobato)

• Companies and platforms that support content producers, often influencing the types of content that become popular.

Definitions of Surveillance

• Surveillance is the act of observing and monitoring without being seen/aware
• Digital trails and data collected from users across many platforms create a complex system of surveillance.

Sensor Society (Andrejevic & Burdon)

• Focuses on constant monitoring and data collection. Technologies are always active in tracking individuals.
• Data is collected passively and in large quantities.

Cryptopticon

• Describes the way corporate and governmental surveillance works together in modern society
• Massive and precise data gathering, and the goals of this data collection.

State Surveillance

• The intention of states to monitor and surveil citizens' interactions.
• Uses methods to track, capture, process, and share information on individuals (direct and indirect).

Reputation Management

• The process of maintaining and controlling one's online presence and reputation.
• The process of controlling social media profiles to maintain social-media presence.

Managing Privacy (Social Contexts)

• Controlling the extent of exposure on social media. This differs depending on the audience or context.