IMC MCQ TESTING PDF

Introduction to media communication Chapter 1: Mass media literacy and revolution Introduction Times might be the best newspaper in the world, but similar to other traditional media, it s glamour is fading as audience and advertisers shift to newer, and flashier alternatives. Is traditional m...

Introduction to media communication Chapter 1: Mass media literacy and revolution Introduction Times might be the best newspaper in the world, but similar to other traditional media, it s glamour is fading as audience and advertisers shift to newer, and flashier alternatives. Is traditional media really dying? Greatest assets are contents generated, coverage, and stories. Less relevant is the medium, or platform that conveys the messages. ’ Online ventures is projected to climb 40% per year. A lot of these companies are not new, just revolutionized. Companies are looking into planting feet into multiple – print, video and the Internet. Broadband media is the future of distribution. Pervasiveness: -Millions wake up to clock radios, politicians spend millions of campaign dollars on television / video to get voters, consumer economy depends on advertising to create mass markets. ↕ ️ Mass media is so influential, we need to know as much as possible about how it works. -Hurricane Ida and Sam -Tokyo Olympics -The rapid and massive updates on Covid-19 pandemic -We are learning, informing, expressing ideas, and influencing audience. Information Source: -Weather forecast: quality of lives is at stake. Entertainment Source: -Bridging audience: There were more people who cried at the movie “Titanic” than reading all the books about the tragedy. -Even the most serious newspaper maybe have occasional humour column. Persuasion: -Opinions are form from the information and interpretations we are exposed to. The media attempts to persuade. -Advertisements? Public relations? Culture and Value Binding influence 1 -Mass media is able to bind communities together by giving messages that become a shared experience. -How many of us complied to MCO regulations? -How many Malaysians did the same thing? Shared knowledge and experience are created by mass media and thus they create a base for community. Similarly to national and global events. -Malaysian flood in Dec 2021, death of Diego Maradona in Nov 2020 Primary Mass Media Print Technology 2 -Introduction of mass produced books was a turning point in history. -The possibility to print pages using metal letters, as discovered by Johannes Gutenberg. -This impact cannot be overstated. – Maps, letters, books, magazines, newspapers, posters, flyers, etc. Chemical Technology -Photographic chemistry – video production, Cinema to VHS movies, and direct to TV movies. Electronic Technology -TV, radio and sound recordings. -Mostly 20th century development Technology Melds Print Visual Integration -Light sensitive photo process invented in 1826. -Halftone process invented in 1876. -A conversion of photographs into tiny dots for reproduction on printing presses. Digital Integration -Telephone upgrades, emergence of CDs, to the introduction of Netscape Internet browser in 1993. -Leading into the dot-com industry. -Shifting to downloadable music and leading into the digitised technology. -Though printing presses, film technology, etc is gone, the businesses of movies, novels, textbooks, news, broadcasting, etc is still around with a change in delivery of media messages. Mainstream and New Media Mainstream Media -Established media companies and products. New Media -Upstart media companies and media products resulting from new technology. Media Convergence -Not a new phenomenon, what is new is the pace of technological change that drives convergence. Mass media platform – entire gamut of technology based communication media, from a telephone to sophisticated Internet technology. ↕ ️ Media literacy – the ability to understand how mass media work and how they influence all 3  aspects of our lives. ↕ ️ Media dynamics – various processes and influences that go into shaping mass media content – from creative issues, to economics and business models to political influences, technological advances and limitations, to social, cultural and religious pressures and trends. ↕ ️ Media effects – ideas and theories about how mass media influence people – as individuals, families, communities, and nation. Passive and Active Media Mass media platform can be either active or passive. ↕ ️ -Active:allow for the exchange of information between users who share in creating the media content and messages, like the Internet. -Passive: allow for little or no direct input into the content from the user, such as when we watch a movie or television programme. Literacy for Media Consumers Linguistic literacy -Once it was almost entirely word centric. -Required vocabulary, grammar and other writing and reading skills. -Skills are both teachable and learnable. Visual literacy -Symbols of communication. -Meanings are communicated through images since Palaeolithic times as animal drawings in caves. -Modern day can be referred as street art. -However visual was not an integral part of mass media products until the emergence of photography in 1800s and improvement of printing processes. -Real breakthrough was in 1969 with Eastman Kodak. -Colour printing Film literacy -Ability to critically evaluate all aspects of filmmaking as a consciously articulated art form. -Includes understanding of various stages of productions (preproduction, production, and postproduction). -Includes director s vision, nature of screenplay, roles of actors, cinematographers and composers. -Audiences took time to learn not to be afraid of bigger than life heroes and heroines on screen, and overcame confusions about visual clues to flashbacks and symbolism like white hats being shorthand for “good guys”. 4 ’  Audience Trends Expansion of mass media technologies has lead to audience demand for more information and knowledge. Understanding of the audience trend is vital in studying mass media. This demand helps drive the innovation and growth of interdependent union between technology, content and audience. Entire media industry continues to evolve and reinvent their operating, marketing and business models in response to careful projections of what audiences want. Consider the audience demand for reality tv shows like America s Funniest Home Videos to Survivor, to The Amazing Race. How has talk shows change over the years? ↕ ️ Even news broadcast has changed from just giving out information to co anchors engaging in ’ dialogues and commentary about the news stories they are reporting. Now news programmes also include more soft human interest stories, adding interesting graphics, and greatly increase the overall pace of reporting. Even news anchors are told to stop reading from papers on their hands and utilises teleprompters for more direct engagement with audiences. Why Research Audiences? Audiences rule production, packaging, and marketing of the content and format of mass media. Audience demographics – age, sex, race, education level, location, etc. Who and what they want? This also interest advertisers In earlier days, advertisers know a portion of audiences for Superman series is children, but had a hard time determining exactly what percentage were children. Now advertisers selling toys for children age 6 to 12 can buy commercial spots on programmes geared towards this age group, running on Nickelodeon or Disney channels and know a great deal of statistical certainty the demographics of audiences they are reaching. Even if it s for retirees. Culture and Mass Media All mass media operate within a social / cultural context. We can define culture as the integrated and dynamic social system of behaviours, ’ characteristics, customs, language, artifacts and symbols that distinguish one social group from another. Also comprises processes, methods, styles, and media that group members use to communicate with one another. Communication system and processes develop within and between each type of social group. ↕ ️ 5  We rely on culture to distinguish one social group from another. Culture give individuals their social anchor and identity and establishes the rules that enable individuals to engage with one another effectively. To some extent, culture consists of methods and media which the members in the group are able to communicate. As social groups become bigger and more complex into a society, it requires increasingly dynamic means of communicating with larger groups in ways that allow smaller groups to retain a knowledge of who they are and where they belong. This is where the tools of mass media comes in. Mass Media Convergence in the Digital Age Mass Media Revolution consistently emphasizes convergence as the primary trend in mass media these days. However, technological innovation may allow individuals, communities and societies to communicate through mass media, but it does not automatically mean that these systems are the best platforms for certain forms of communication. It also exemplifies the evolution of mass media convergence of content and businesses. ↕ ️ Media convergence brings unimagined opportunities and options for consumers but also presenting challenges to media content producers and providers. Reinvention of companies is required, and to some, it threatens the very existence of traditional forms of media including newspapers, tv networks, music labels, authors, etc. Technology has made our information transfer faster but also lesser time to make judgements on the relevance, reliability, and truthfulness of the messages. Challenges keep facing us as media consumers keep growing with the impact and proliferation of ever changing social media platforms. Dealing with Information Bombardment We are being bombarded by information on a daily basis. The sheer volume of information is fighting for our attention daily, and selecting and using these information is a daily challenge. Fortunately we are “gifted” with the ability to shut out and ignore stimuli that is not immediately relevant to us. We learn to practice information and media content filtering to avoid information overload Chapter 2: Books Influence of books: In 1440s, Johannes Guternberg printed Bibles. Hand operated presses with movable metal type. One page at a time, one side by one side. 200 copies was produced 6  Printing press sprouted across Europe, and by 1490, at least one printing press was operating in every major city. ↕ ️ Scientific progress – impact of printing press on scientific inquiry was explosive. Scientist were delayed in learning what their colleagues were thinking and learning. Mass produced of work allowed scientists to build on each other s work and discoveries. This sparked the Scientific Revolution in 1600s. ↕ ️ Social reform – cost of book productions dropped due to mass production. Exposed to new ideas, people honed their focus on human condition and social structures and ’ governance in new ways. Revolutionary ideas took root. Martin Luther advanced his Protestantism with printed materials. Did this spark the Renaissance? A period of intellectual, artistic and cultural awakening in 1500s and 1600s ↕ ️ Literacy – first works with Gutenberg technology was in Latin. Soon books and other materials were printed in native languages. Repository of Culture – the longevity of printed word exceeds all the traditional media. Even university libraries are measured in volumes on the shelves. Books in National Development: Cambridge Press was the first book producer setup in 1638. Thomas Jefferson s personal library became the basis for Library of Congress. John Harvard was known for his personal collection of 300 books. He died in 1638, and bequeathed his books to Newtowne College which was renamed for him. Today we know it as Harvard University. Mid 1800s U.S publishers brought out books that identified a distinctive new literary genre, the ’ American novel. Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter (1850), Herman Melville s Moby Dick (1851), Harriet Beecher Stowe s Uncle Tom s Cabin (1852), and Mark Twain s Huckleberry Finn (1884). ↕ ️ Today, most of the books that shape our culture are adapted to other media which expanded their influence. ’ ’ Magazine serialized Ronald Reagan s memoirs, more people saw Carl Sagan on television than ’ ’ ’ read his books. Even Stephen King s books sold spectacularly but more people saw the movie renditions. Books may have trickle down effect through other media, but their impact was felt by even people who cannot or do not read them. ’ Though we are more in touch with other mass media, books are the heart of creating the U.S culture and passing it on to new generations. ’ 7 Books and Current Issues Books frame much of our dialogue on current issues. 2004 U.S presidential campaign, even pundits lost track of the number of campaign books. Our emerging understanding of the shape of a new world order has been influence by various books. Historians favour books for constructions of the past, which are essential for our understanding of the present. Great literature by definition, gives us new insights into ourselves and the people and world around us. With 165,000 books a year being published in U.S, although not all contributed equally to our society and culture. The book industry is a mighty force. Book Industry Small Presses – by count there s around 12,000 companies in U.S. Normally contain only a few titles. They are important regional publishers that publish only low volume books with long life. Some specializes in poetry and other special subjects for limited audience that wouldn t otherwise be served. University Presses – mission is to advance and disseminate knowledge. Have been in the publishing industry since 1478. The same time when Oxford University Press, the oldest English ’ language book publisher was founded. There are less than 100 publishers in U.S. today. Vanity Presses – It s easy for authors to get a book published, if the author is willing to pay all ’ expenses up front. Family histories and club cookbooks are the staple of this book industry. Book Retailing Over the years book retailing has undergone rapid changes. ’ From independent bookstores to large chains. Book clubs – small town and rural people who lacked handy bookstores. -Entice people to join with free books on condition that they buy future books. Direct Mail – Reader s Digest, Time, Meredith and American Heritage used this method. Promotional literature is sent to people on carefully selected mailing list and customers order what they want. ↕ ️ Mall stores – the growth of mass merchandising and shopping malls in the 1970s, a few bookstore chains emerged. ’ Ordered and stocked in bulk for their coast to coast stores. Some even bought before the books being published with promises of promotional tours and discounts for bulk purchases. ↕ ️ Superstores – marketing driven book retailing units that entered a new dimension. 8  Stand alone superbookstores like Borders, with a huge space that can store 180,000 titles. Part of the appeal is becoming the community centre of sorts with cafes, lectures, children s programmes, and poetry reading. Best appeal is the enormous inventories which meant people could find just what they needed. It was an improvement over mall stores. ↕ ️ ’ Web Shopping – Amazon created their online bookstore in 1995 with 1 million titles, larger than even the biggest superstore. Personalised recommendations, book reviews, author biographies, chatroom, and other attractions. Even during strong competition times, they were able to offer 40% off retail price. In 2003 Amazon earned 1 billion profit per quarter. Book Products Trade books – most visible part of the $28.8 billion a year that the U.S book publishing industry produces. General interest including fiction and nonfiction. J.R.R. Tolkien, Margaret Mitchell, Stephen King, J.K Rowling, Danielle Steel. Texts and References – textbook has a longer life with steady income. Can be ongoing for a number of editions. Reference and professional books, college textbooks, elementary and high school textbooks, and learning materials. ↕ ️ Prof & Ref Books – dictionaries, atlases, and bibles. Can range from Baby and child care, to better homes, and garden cookbooks. College textbooks – sold in numbers mostly by coercion of the syllabus. Written for students but publishers pitched them to professors. Elem / Hi school books – learning materials for elementary and high school. Graphic novels – comics was an enduring genre since 1930s. Greatest contribution was the superhero genre beginning in 1938 Superman, and Batman in 1941, and Marvel s Captain America. Transformational Format Paperback Books – through history, books have been innovative in meeting the changing needs of time. ’ During Civil War, troops in the field had idle time to read, and publishers introduced low cost books for soldiers. These were coverless and lightweight, and easy to pack. Modern paperback was introduced in 1939. As the nation went into Great Depression era, books were still affordable. Electronic Books – in early 2000s, with e-books, portable devices the size of notebooks and hard 9  drives that could hold multiple books. Devices did not catch on, as some said reading on screen is harder than on paper. Author – Publisher Relations Authors are like creators of intellectual property and almost always own what they write. Publisher s responsibility is to edit and polish the manuscript then manufacture, distribute and market the book. Royalties – authors usually give publishers the ownership of the book in exchange for these services. Authors receive a percentage of the book s income in the form of royalties. Publishers take the rest to cover expenses. ’ Agents – most authors, except for textbooks would hire agents to find appropriate publishers and negotiate the contract. Agents earn 10% commission taken from the author s royalties. ’ ↕ ️ Blockbusters – Harriet Beecher Stowe s Uncle Tom s Cabin, more Americans read it than any other book between 1852 and the Civil War. It sold 100,000 copies a month in the first three months it was out. – the first blockbuster novel. ’ Publishers ever since have put a quest on blockbusters. The transition from books to movies adaptation. ’ ’ Global Online Access Google Library Project – a project that started in 2005, Google scan and digitized all the works in four great U.S academic libraries and one in Britain for online access. That s 15 million titles that took years to complete. European Response – what about French literary works? British Library and the National Lottery launched the Collect Britain project. The European Commission plans to digitize and preserve records of Europe s heritage ranging from books, film fragments, photographs, manuscripts, speeches, and music to be available online to all European citizens. ’ Chapter 3: Newspaper ’ Importance of Newspaper: Newspaper Industry Dimensions Dwarfs other news media by almost every measure. During it s heydays, more than one out of three people in the US reads a newspaper everyday. Much more than people who tune into network news on TV in the evening. 1570 daily newspapers put out 52.4 million copies a day. It gets passes along to an average of 2.2 people. 116 million readers a day. ’ Approximately 11,000 people are involved in the production and distribution each day. 10  Medium of choice for more advertising than competing media. Daily newspapers attracted $44.9 billion in 2004. Over air TV stations were second at $42.5 billion. Consistently profitable through the 20th century. Content Diversity and Depth Newspaper cover more news at greater depth than competing media. Washington Post typically carry 300 items and much more on weekends. More than any TV or radio stations and at greater length. No broadcast organisations comes close to the number of stories or depth. Rich mix of content – news, advice, comics, opinions, puzzles, and data. Unlike TV and radio, you don t have to wait for what you want. News and features give people something in common to talk about. A medium that adapt to changes. Weekend newspapers grew from 600 in 1970s to 900 in early 2000s. Problems with competing media, new technology and ongoing lifestyle shifts. ’ Reacted to changes quite effectively. Transition of work schedule from 7am to 9am. Allowing more time in the morning and phasing off afternoon edition. Newspaper Products: Broadsheets – First modern newspaper were pint size. New York Sun in 1833 was the size of a handbill. Large steam powered presses were introduced and paper supplies became plentiful, page size grew into broadsheets. 50inch paper folded into 25inch wide page became the standard until 1980s. ↕ ️ Tabloids – the word itself has a tawdry, second rate connotation from papers featuring eye catching but sensationalizing headlines. Newspaper people use the word in a clinical sense for half size newspaper that is convenient to hold. Joseph McCormick and Joseph Patterson created the New York Daily News in 1919 as a photo strong tabloid. Wacky news selection and emphasis on crime, sex, and disaster. Shunned by the newspaper establishment, but soon found a following. There were few imitators, mostly in cities with commuters who preferred the handy size in cramped buses and train seats. Still an exception and by 2001, there were only three dozen. Then readership declines, especially among young adults, newspaper executives have discovered that people prefer compact newspapers. Most publishers were working on smaller sizes. 11  Some publishers were facing plunges in readership, and some were testing water on the new size. In London, Times run on twin versions; one broadsheet and one tabloid. Some went for full conversion, while others converted inside sections to get a feel of what a fuller transition will be like. Newspaper Chain Ownership: Trend toward chains – being able to multiply profits by owning multiple newspapers in the late 1880s. Then expansions into magazines, radio and television. 160 chains own four of every five dailies in the US. Newspaper profitability skyrocketed in the 1970s and 1980s. Prompted chains to buy up local newspapers. Single newspaper cities were the targets, as there are no competing medias. National Dailies: USA Today – strict format, snappy visuals and crisp writing. Reached 1.6million circulation in less than a decade. 2.3million by 2005 passing the Wall Street Journal. Business travelers on the road, and not so much on subscriptions. By mid 1990s, focuses longer, weightier stories and depth and enterprise coverage, while without sacrificing the blurblike short stories. Followed by thoroughness and depth in the enterprise coverage. ↕ ️ Wall Street Journal – began in 1882 with scribbled notes by hand, to newsletter, and in 1889 the Wall Street Journal was founded. By late 1920s and early 1930s, went for a threefold shift. -Simplify the Journal s business coverage into plain English without sacrificing thoroughness. -Provide detailed coverage of government but without the jargon that plagued Washington reporting most of the time. -Expand the definition of the Journal s field of coverage from “business” to “everything that somehow relates to earning a living”. ’ It was not to reduce business coverage but to seek business angles in other fields and cover them too. Circulation was up to 1.8million and was the second largest US daily in the early 2000s. ’ New York Times: Newspaper of Record – at least one subscriber in every county in the country. Founded in 1851, had a reputation for fair and thorough coverage of foreign news. A large widespread staff covers Washington. 12  Printing the president s annual state of the union address and other important documents in their entirety. Puts out a monthly and annual index that lists every story. More than 100 years of the Times pages are available online in many libraries. The editorials are among the most quoted. ’ To attract younger readers, Times followed the lead of other newspapers by adding some lighter fare to the serious coverage. In 2005, a Thursday style section was launched that includes more lifestyle oriented advertising. Added a 10 page “Funny Pages” section that includes work by graphic artists, serialised genre fiction and a venue for humour writers called “True-Life Tales” ↕ ️ Journalistic reputation was cemented in the 1870s, when courageous reporting brought down the city government. Tweed scandal – City council member building a fortune with fraudulent streetcar franchise, sales of non-existent buildings to the city and double billing. Times vs Sullivan – In 1960, racial desegregation tensions. Alabama police commissioner was incensed at criticism in an advertisement that promoted racial integration. Pentagon Papers – after being leaked a copy of secret government study on US policy in the Vietnam war. Times ran a series of articles which was stopped by the government creating a showdown for free press. 2005 Jayson Blair plagiarism and serial fabrications reporting. Hometown Newspapers: Metropolitan Dailies Washington Post – cemented its reputation for investigative reporting by breaking revelation after revelation. 1972 Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace. LA Times – circulation reached 1.3million in 1990. Newspaper Blogs – joined the blog revolution. Interacting online with readers by having host reader chatrooms. Focus on a wide range of subjects. New Efficiencies – a transition of news delivery on the Web. Most profitable newspaper chains were facing losses. Circulations dropped. Fewer editions, smaller pages, fewer pages, lighter papers, outsourced printing, content cuts, fewer outstate bureaus, and shared content. Weekly Newspapers: Community Weeklies – suburban communities. Some bigger publishers publish twice a week. Circulation hits up to 50 million in 1970 that focuses on household. Almost 8000 weekly newspapers are published. Rural Weeklies – areas with significant agricultural economy. 13  Shoppers – free distribution papers that carry only advertisements. Alternative and Minority Newspaper: Counterculture Newspapers – haven for bohemian writers of diverse competence who volunteered occasional pieces, some lengthy and many rambling. Cultural coverage that emphasizes contrarian music and art and exalts sex, and drugs. Black Newspapers – hit a circulation of 3.6 million. 172 publication was still around in the early 2000s. Foreign Language Newspapers – to serve the wave of immigrants. Less than 10 Spanish newspaper and around 150 Spanish weeklies in the early 2000s. The transition over to online news with subscriptions. Chapter 4: Radio Influence of Radio: Ubiquity – Radio is everywhere. Signals being carried on electromagnetic spectrum. US household alone has around 6.6 radio receivers on average. Every car comes with a radio. People wake up to radio clocks, and workout with headset radios. People commute with car radios, listens to sports event even at the stadium. Millions are relying on hourly newscasts for keeping news and information up to date. ↕ ️ Arbitron – the company that surveys radio listenership, says that teenagers and adults average 22 hours a week listening to radio. People in US owns 520 million radio sets. That means radio outnumber people 2:1. Many people actually receive their morning news from radio while commuting in cars than any other medium. 14 Scope of Radio Industry: More than 13,000 radio stations licensed by the federal government as a local business. Communities as small as a few hundred people have stations. $19.1 billion a year industry, but growth seems to have peaked. Revenue is almost entirely from advertising grew only 1.2% in 2003, less than all other major mass media. Revenue growth was mostly due to massive consolidation. Chains bought up individually owned stations and chains buying chains. Radio Technology: Electromagnetic Spectrum – Radio waves move through the air and ether like light waves. 1873, physicists speculated that electromagnetic spectrum exist. Italian nobleman, Guglielmo Marconi made practical application of the theory. Believed the possibilities of ringing a bell with remote control, no strings, no wires just electromagnetic charge on and off. 1895, Marconi transmitted codes for more than a mile. The invention was patented in England, and setup Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. Soon ocean ships was equipped with Marconi radiotelegraphy equipment for communication. ↕ ️ Transmitting voices – Breakthrough came in 1906, when a message was sent across the Atlantic. Lee De Forest created audion tube to make voice transmission possible. Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden broadcast the first radio program. Played recorded Christmas carols that shocked wireless operator on ships at sea. Instead of dots and dashes of Morse code, suddenly there was music. ↕ ️ FM Radio 15  Static free transmission was developed by Edwin Armstrong. 1939, using a new system called frequency modulation. FM for short. It was a different from the older amplitude modulation, AM. Eventually developed FM stereo with two soundtracks, one for each ear. Radio Industry Infrastructure: Trusteeship Rationale – regulated by federal government, unlike print media. Airwave Cacophony – 1920s, everyone recognised wonderful possibilities for the radio industry. Stations were signing on the air and establishing revenue streams. With more stations, the problem was not enough frequencies. Regulation – 1927, Federal Radio Commission was established. Authority to specify frequency, power and hours of operation. 732 stations but technology could only allow 568 stations. By utilising day time only and night time only operation, managed to accommodate 649 stations. ↕ ️ Public Airwaves – was established. Considered to be public asset but subject to government regulation for the public good. Licenses awarded to applicants who best demonstrated that they would broadcast in the public interest, convenience and necessity. Today, the standard remains in effect. Networks – By 1930s NBC and CBS were piping programs to local stations called affiliates. Infrastructure in Transition: Private sector – the industry was privately owned in the US. Advertising supported – the industry was financially self supporting through advertising. But there are also non commercial licenses. Engineering Regulation – licensees strictly accountable to broadcast within their assigned space. Ownership – stations were licensed to local owners to encourage diverse content, including news and ideas. Content – government never had agents sitting at radio stations to keep things off the air, but FCC is willing to listen to complaints and does. There was a possibility of having your licence revoked. Deregulation: 1996 saw deregulation and relaxation of rules with the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Marketplace concept emerge. Satellite Radio – first two went on air in 2001. New technologies – early 2000s, other technologies were working against the radio industry. iPod – handheld MP3 players with music downloaded from the Internet or ripped from CDs to create own playlist. No DJ, no commercials, no waiting through less than favourite tunes. 16  Podcasting – anyone who wanted to create a show with prerecord batch of favourite music. The world can download the show for playback. Everyone is a DJ. On demand Radio – recording programs for later playbacks. Radio Content: Radio entertainment – comedies, dramas, variety shows and quiz shows in 1930s and 1940s. but lost to television in the 1950s. 1970s was the FM / AM war. Radio news – 1920 KDKA signed on as the nation s first licensed commercial station and began by reporting the Harding-Cox presidential race. Breaking news – radio news came into its own in world war 2. Americans eager for news from Europe. Radio offered news even before newspapers could issue special extra editions. The term breaking news emerged to what radio was uniquely suited ’ ↕ ️ Headline service – news format shifted to shorter stories after WW2. Depth and details left to newspapers. All news – nonstop news reporting stations with skeleton staff. News Packages – non breaking news and long form stories. Decline of Radio News – hardly a core element of radio programming. By 1990s even license renewal dropped public service as a condition. Talk Radio – feature live listener telephone calls emerged as a major genre in US in the 1980s. Effects on news – focused on music as a disguise to get out of news and public affairs due to higher cost. Playing records is cheaper. Fewer stations offer serious news and public affairs programming. Chapter 5: Music Influence of Sound Recording: Pervasiveness of Music – earlier eras concerts are arranged when they want music. Fiddle at the front porch evening. Harmonica at campfires. Music was a special event, something to be arranged. Now, music are everywhere, we wake up, shop, work, study and drive to music. Scope of the Recording Industry: The industry is large, $33.6 billion in sales estimated in 2004. $12.9 billion in the US alone. Does not include fan magazines, music tv, radio, which claims $17 billion a year. Recording Industry: Majors – four major companies known as the big four. 17  Universal Music (French), Sony BMG (German), EMI (Anglo Dutch), Warner Music (US). Napster induced crisis in early 2000s shook up the industry. Indies – secondary tier of independent recording companies. Well funded labels created by major artists who decide to go on their own way. Transforming Innovations: Sound Technology – 1877 Thomas Edison patented Phonograph. Acoustic Recording – a cylinder wrapped in tin foil and rotated as a singer shouted into a large metal funnel. The funnel channel voice against a diaphragm which fluttered to vibrations. A stylus (needle) connected to the diaphragm and cut a groove in the foil. Depth of the groove reflects vibration. To listen, put the cylinder on a player and set the needle on the groove then place your ear to a megaphone like horn and rotate the cylinder. In 1887, Emile Berliner used a sturdy metal disk to make a mould and poured thermoplastic material onto the mould. Once harden, a near perfect copy is made. – Gramophone, led to mass production. 18  Electrical Recording – 1920s, having metal funnels replaced by microphones. Loudspeakers to amplified sound electromagnetically. Digital Recording – technological revolution in 1978. By 1983, digital recordings were available to consumers in the form of compact disk (CD).  Performer Influences: Dance Music – big boost in 1913 when a dance craze hit. Then WW1 and flu pandemic. Jukeboxes – helped the industry through economic difficulties in 1930s. By 1940 a total of 250,000 jukeboxes were available. 19 It was made possible by electrical recording technology. It improved sound and with radios it fueled a demand for recordings. Rockability – a linkage of black and hillbilly music. Elvis Presley in 1950s. A new genre call rock ‘n roll. British Invasion – 1960s with The Beatles. International licensing agreements to market music became a new way of doing business and introduced a global potential. Rap – a new style of music with intense bass line for dancing and rhyming riffs. ’ 20 Regulatory Pressure: Objectionable Music – campaigns to ban recorded music. Jazz was considered morally loose in 1920s. 1950s “nigger music” War protest songs on Vietnam - American war. Censorships are rare but broadcasters are guided towards cautions. One of the main issues was music that glorified drugs. Labeling – 1980s lyrics about drugs, sexual promiscuity and violence. Parents Music Resource Centre lead to labelling of potential offensive records. Touring – a way to secure income outside of the recording industry. Bringing the music directly to the fans. Touring are controlled by promotion companies not recording companies. Birth of Music Videos: 1981 a giant leap forward. The best of TV combined with the best of radio. “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. Reinvention or rise of artists who were able to tap into new creative possibilities of music videos. Michael Jackson s 1983 Thriller was produce into a 14 minutes mini film / music video. Streaming Crisis: File sharing – Napster technology ushered a fenzy of free music swapping on the Internet. Recording companies went to court with Napster. ’ Copyright infringement by facilitating illicit copying of protected intellectual property. Kazaa moving its operations from one offshore site to another where legal actions were 21  impossible. Legal actions against individuals who downloaded music without paying. Ipod – Introduced in 2002, with iTunes. Public could sample songs with one click and download with another click. The advantage was iTunes is not free. Downloaders need to pay for the music. Soon copycat services followed, even Napster name was resurrected. Pirate Dubbing – Caused $5 billion losses a year, globally. Chapter 6: Television Television in transition:- Television Industry in Crisis – television transformed the mass media. 1950s – new kids on the block, forcing movies, radio and magazines to reinvent themselves or perish. Hot new medium – dominant medium, but now they are in a crisis. The once dominant medium is now overtaken by innovations in delivering video through other channels. Cultural Role of Television – almost every household has at least one television set. On average, television is playing about seven hours a day. Millions still shape their leisure time around television series. (The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, etc. Approx. 134 million still tune in to Super Bowl. 5.4 billion watched World Cup 2022. Final alone was watched by 1.5 billion. 1.28 million average streams. As a medium, television can create cultural icons. Budweiser demonstrated this time and again. Remember the “Whazzup” trend? Even presidential election campaign still utilises television for important messages. Millions still refer to network news for information. Television Technology:- Electronic Scanning – 1927, vacuum tube to pick up moving images and then display them electronically on a screen. Dual infrastructure – similar to radio, Federal Communications Commission is to issue licenses to entrepreneurs to build local tv stations. -Local stations that sent signals to viewers. -National networks that reached viewers only through the local stations. 22  Cable delivery system – CATV, community antenna tv. Locally owned small town cable systems. Satellite Delivery – using a transponder on the Satcom 1 orbiting satellite, HBO could be amplified and retransmitted down to local cable system. Cable systems could charge a premium to subscribers for HBO. Satellite direct – 1984, direct broadcast satellite was possible. People could pick up signals from almost anyplace with home dishes. Video on Demand – VOD, devices for people to watch what they want when they want. Today they have multiple forms. Cable VOD – cable system operators saw the potential and upgraded their system. Satellite VOD – DirecTV and dish satellite services forged agreement with telephone companies to compete with satellite VOD services. Wireless Downloading – Verizon rolled out subscription service that offer snippets for subscribers. Computer Downloads – Apple s video iPod introduced in 2005 could store 150 hours of video on a 2.2 inch colour screen. Internet Video – 2006 AOL created online channels offering programs from archives of Warner Studio. ’ Dual Infrastructure:- Local stations – backbone of the national television system. Squeezed into electromagnetic spectrum in a range of VHF (very high frequency) channels UHF (ultra high frequency) was added. But they were handicapped because tv manufacturers were not required to include higher channels. (1962). Affiliate Network Relations:- Programs offered by the networks are of a quality that an individual station cannot afford to produce. This allows local stations to charge higher prices for advertisements. NBC Television – first licensed station was in 1941, but television sets were manufactured after peace arrived in 1945. CBS Television – 1953, edged out NBC in audience size by acquiring affiliates and creating popular programs. ABC Television – established in 1948. Merged with United Paramount Theatres in 1953. Programs aiming at Hollywood like mass audiences. Fox – 1986, Rupert Murdoch bought seven non network stations and 20th Century Fox movie studio. Production facilities and a huge movie library. 23  Fragmentation:- Network affiliate corporate was unchallenged money making bliss for almost 30 years. Then cable came. Cable Network – HBO launched with only 265,000 households. CNN, Headline News, TNT, ESPN, weather network, music video network, home shopping networks. Economics of Television:- Network Advertising 30 Second Spot. Cable Revenue Streams – subscribers. Charging local systems to carry their programming. VOD Business Models Monthly access fees Charges by download. One program at a time. Noncommercial Television For education purposes. Could not sell air time for advertisements. Television Content Issues:- Quality Quest – A battle to secure quality programs. Big budgets = quality productions? To attract big advertisers, networks realised they needed to pitch programs expected to draw well heeled viewers. To charge premium rates to advertisers looking for hard to reach big income audience. Network Violence – growth of violence on tv. Even CSI attracted a large audience but also had their fair share of violence. Chapter 7: movies Importance of Movies:- Overwhelming Experience: Intensive media experience. Cinematic Dream Theory: movies mix fantasy and reality. Powerful escapism into someone else s mind, and soul. Hollywood s Cultural Influence:- Clark Gable took off his shirt in the movie It Happened One Night and reveal he wasn t wearing anything underneath. ’ American men decided they would go without undershirts. Sales plummeted. A powerful cultural influence. ’ ’ 24  Culture wars – sexual and violence content in mass media. Linkage with changes in acceptable behaviour. Movies corrupt young people s mind? Movies is part of our lives. Hollywood s New Century:- Home theatres, big screen tv, and mobile devices are lacking of intensity of cinemas. ’ Theatre attendance can be incredible in the first few weeks or when a highly anticipated movie is shown. Home and mobile video is extending the impact. ’ Experiences can be on a daily basis. 70% of US households have DVD players. Wal-Mart has the largest home video volume. Netflix services. Movie Technology:- Photography Root D-Cinema: George Lucas pioneered this shift in 1999 Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Scenes shot with digital equipment and facilitated integration into digitally created special effects scenes. One film format and one digital format. The Phantom Menace became the first major motion picture to be seen in digital form. Movie Industry Products:- Feature Films: movies that tell stories, narrative films. Animated Films: Walt Disney took animation to full length with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Subspecies of narrative films. Labour intensive productions. 1000 plus sequential drawings for a minute of screen time. 1995 Toy Story was the first movie produced entirely on computers. 25 Movie Industry: Production:- Major Studios: Responsible for 90% of the US movie industry revenues. The Big Six – Columbia, Disney, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner. Dominated the industry from production to distribution and owned many cinemas. 1948 US Supreme Court anti trust opinion called Paramount decision forced major studios to divest. Most chose to sell off their cinemas. 26 Other studios: United Artists. Concerns of Big Six focused on profits and infringing on creativity. Full creative control and produced movies that scored well among critics and attracted huge audiences. Independent Producers: independent movie makers using big studios distribution network. Studios cash in on distribution revenue. 1998, Blair Witch Project cost $35,000 to produce, then sold for $1.1million for distribution. Within a year, the movie generated $141million in revenue. Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, etc. 27 Distribution:- Booking Movies: opening weekends is a make it or break it for movies. Weak attendance = powerful word of mouth promotion is lost. Right promotion, right number of screens, and right places. 28  Even great movies can flounder beyond recovery if distribution is fumbled. Foreign Distribution:- Hollywood didn t have an edge on European movie makers until World War 1 suddenly created a vacuum that the US movie industry filled. That began Hollywood s dominance globally. Foreign distribution sometimes generate more revenue than domestic box office. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (13 weeks) made $287million domestically and $599million ’ foreign. Competition developed in the form of Bollywood, Nollywood (Nigeria). ’ China muted cultural influence of Hollywood by allowing only 20 movies a year to be imported for theatre release. Exhibition:- Movie palaces: 3,300 seats with the opulence of the grandest concert halls. Doormen, ushers, lavish promenades, Roman columns, grand colonnades, etc. Neighbourhood cinemas: handy and affordable and broadened the base of movie attendance. Multiplexes: television hurt movie attendance. 1970s saw multiple auditoriums showing different movies simultaneously. GSC Leisure Mall was the first multiplex with 4 screens Exhibition Crisis:- The explosive growth of movies on DVD for rental and purchase. Movie experience: posh seats, better sound systems, better screens, 3D, 4D, even on screen messages imploring people to honour theatre etiquette. Cost cutting: with declining audiences and revenues, movie theatres hold up conversion to digital projection until movie studios and distributors agreed to subsidize conversion. People watching reactions of other people watching movies + watch along. Chapter 8: Advertising Importance of Advertising:- Consumer Economies – major component of modern economies. Advertisers spend about 2% of the GDP to promote their products. Production of goods and services is up, so is advertising spending. When production falters, most would pull back their advertising expenditures. Advertising and Prosperity:- In poor society, there s shortage of goods and people line up for necessities like food and clothing. Advertising have no role and serve no purpose when survival is in question. 29 ’  With prosperity, people have not only discretionary income but also a choice of ways to spend it. Advertising is the vehicle that provides information and rationales to help them decide how to enjoy their prosperity. Advertising inspire people to greater individual productivity to gain more income. Origins of Advertising:- Stepchild of technology – advertising is not a mass medium, but it relies on media to carry its messages. Printing presses made mass produced advertising possible. First came flyers, then advertisements as newspapers and magazines. High speed printing presses in 1800s, could produce enough copies for larger audiences. It s possible for advertisers to expand their markets. With radio, advertisers learned how to use electronic communication. Then came television Industrial Revolution – Penny newspaper spawned by the industrial revolution. Steam powered presses made large press runs possible. ’ Factories drew a big number of people to jobs in the cities. Industrialisation with labour union movement created unprecedented wealth to an emerging consumer economy. A key to success was a penny a copy of newspapers. National advertising took root in 1840s as railroads expanded. Spawned new network. Pioneer Agencies – Wayland Ayer came up with the idea of an advertising agency. N.W. Ayer and Son. First advertising agency was born. Created advertisements and also: Counsel on selling products and services, Design services, i.e. creating advertisements and campaigns, Expertise on placing advertisements in advantageous media. Advertising Agencies:- Agency Structure – full service agencies conduct market research, design, produce advertisements and choose the media in which the advertisements will run. Creativity – copywriters, graphics experts, layout people, creative directors, art directors, and copy supervisors. Liaison – account exec, responsible for understanding clients needs and communicating with creative staff. Buying – media buyers, determine most effective media to place advertisements. Research – generate information on target consumer groups, and data that can guide creative and media staffs. ’ Agency Compensation:- 30  Commissions – 15%, but the system broke down in 1990s when businesses scramble to cut cost. Now a handful uses standard percentage. Mostly negotiated, but larger companies average out around 13%. Performance – commission contracts replaced by performance contracts. Advertisers pay agency costs plus negotiated profit. If the campaign works, then a bonus is offered. Placing Advertisements:- Media plans – to be created by agencies to ensure advertisements reach the right target audience. 1400 daily newspapers, 8000 weeklies, 1200 general interest magazines, 13000 radio stations, 1200 television stations, direct mails, banners, websites, billboards, blimps, posters, etc. Media Choices:- Newspapers – main information. Tangible and easy to refer back for information. Coupons are possible in newspapers. Becoming less valuable to reach younger audience. Magazines – longer shelf life. People share magazine which would have higher pass along circulation. Radio – air time can be bought in shorter notice and changes is possible almost until airtime. Repeated advertisements and cheaper than television. Television – moving and visual medium, offers unmatched impact. Growth of network and local tv advertising outpaced other media. High production cost and airtime rates. Demand outstrips supply of slots, especially prime time. Online services – websites and readers can click deeper and deeper levels of information about the advertised products. Packed more information. New Advertising Platforms:- Gaming – on screen plug. Messages can be change instantly. Google Ads – capitalising on superfast hunt technology. Placement service into websites. Using advertiser links on search screens. Under the Radar Advertising:- Stealth Ads – fit into the landscape that people may not recognise they re being pitched. E.g. Coca cola banners in stadiums. Product Placements – placing products in movie scenes. Iinfomercials – program length television commercial dolled up to look like newscast, live audience participation or a charity talk show. With 24 hour tv service, airtime is cheaper. ’ Chapter 9: public relations Importance of public relations:- Defining PR – handing out circulars, glad handing, back slapping, and smiling prettily to make 31  people feel good. Far beyond good interpersonal skills. Management tool for leaders in business, government, and other institutions to establish beneficial relationships with other institutions and groups. Four steps for pr success:- Identify existing relationships: analyze relationships with various publics (e.g., students, alumni, community, legislature, unions). Evaluate the relationships: use research to assess the quality of these relationships (ongoing process). Design policies for improvement: propose policies to strengthen relationships. Implement policies: execute initiatives to foster goodwill (e.g., scholarships, sponsorships). Pr in a democracy:- Misconceptions about PR include it is a one way street for institutions to communicate to the public. Good practices seek two way communication between and among all the people and institutions concerned with an issue. PR Society of America pointed out: PR is a means for the public to have its desires and interests felt by the institutions. Interprets and speaks for the public to organisations that may be unresponsive. PR is a means to achieve mutual adjustments between institutions and groups, establishing smoother relationships. PR is a safety valve for freedom. By providing means of working out accommodations, it makes arbitrary action or coercion less likely. PR is an essential element in the communication system that enable individuals to be informed on many aspects of subjects that affect their lives. PR people can help to activate the social conscience of the organisations for which they work. Origins of public relations:- Moguls in Trouble – many big companies found themselves in disfavour in the late 1800s for ignoring the public good to make profits. New York Central Railroad changing schedule. State govt setup agencies to regulate railroads. Federal govt established Interstate Commerce Commission to control freight and passenger rates. Govt begin insisting on safety standards. Labour unions formed. The Ideas of Ivy Lee:- 32  Coal mine operators, obsessed with profits and cared little about public sentiment or even the wellbeing of their employees. 150,000 miners strike in 1902. President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to take over the mines with Army troops. 1906, one operator heard about Ivy Lee, a young publicist in New York who had new ideas about winning public support. Turnabout press relations with news releases that they realised the public concerns on the mining regions and arranged to supply the press with all possible information. Meeting information was passed to reporters. Lee rewrote the rules on how corporations deal with their various publics. Converting Industry Toward Openness – Railroads secretive policies on business practices and accidents. Advises not to suppress news. Turning Negative News into Positive News – Investigation on International Harvester for monopolistic practices. The company not only welcome but also would facilitate an investigation. Also started a campaign pointing out their beneficence toward its employees. Putting Corporate Executives on Display – Ludlow Massacre in 1914, miners in Colorado went on strike and guards fired machine guns killing several men, women and children. Articles on the human side of John D. Rockefeller Jr. Under Lee s advice, he visited Colorado, talking to miners and meeting their families. Then put up a proposal for grievance procedure. Avoiding Puffery and Fluff – an age of puffed up advertising claims and fluffy rhetoric. However people soon saw through those hyperbolic boasts and lost faith. Vowed to be accurate in everything and proved whatever verification anyone requested. This practice remains until today. ’ PR on a New Scale:- World War I, did not begin as a popular cause with Americans. There were anti draft riots in many cities. This prompted President Woodrow Wilson to ask journalist George Creel to launch a major campaign to persuade Americans that the war was important to make the world safe for democracy. Within months Americans were financing the war by voluntarily buying government bonds. Same with World War II with Elmer Davis. Structure of Public Relations:- How PR is Organised: External Relations – involves communication with groups and people outside the organisation, including customers, dealers, suppliers, and community leaders. Usually responsible for encouraging employees to participate in civic activities. Other responsibilities include arranging promotional activities like exhibitions, trade shows, conferences, and tour. Internal Relations – involve developing optimal relations with employees, managers, unions, shareholders and other internal groups. In house newsletters, magazines and brochures. Media Relations – communication with large groups of people outside an organisation through mass media. Responds to news media queries, arranges news conferences, and issue news 33  releases. PR Agencies – bigger agencies offer full range of services on a global scale. Take on projects anywhere in the world either on their own or working with local agencies. Specialised agencies – focus on a narrow range of services. Clipping services cut out and provide the media items of interest to clients. Political campaign agencies, coaching corporate executives for news interviews, coordinate trade shows. Billed for services rendered. Some charges retainer fees. Expenses for projects are billed in addition. Public Relations Services:- Lobbying – representing clients to legislative bodies and government agencies. Political Comm – consultants advising candidates for public offices. Campaign management, survey research, publicity, media relations and image consulting. Image Consulting – groom corporate spokesperson to meet reporters one on one and go on talk shows. Financial PR – complex regulations governing the promotion of securities in corporate mergers, acquisitions and new issues and stock splits. Fund Raising – fund raising and membership drives. Contingency Planning – designing programs to address problems that can be expected to occur. E.g crisis management. Polling – public opinion sampling. Conduct surveys themselves or contract with companies that specialises in surveying. Events Coordination – product announcements, news conferences, convention planning. Some agencies have their own artistic and AV production talent to produce all necessary promotional materials. Chapter 10: Media ethics The Difficulty of Ethics:- Prescriptive Ethics Codes Earliest adopted in 1923. Canons of Journalism of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Advertising, broadcast, public relations practitioners also have codes. Moral choices exist in the prescriptions of these codes. These are known as prescriptive ethics. The difficulty of ethics becomes clear when a mass communicator is confronted with a conflict between moral responsibilities different concepts. Respect for privacy – respect for the dignity, privacy, rights and well being of people. – Public interest overrode privacy in 1988 when presidential candidate Gary Hart had a woman friend in 34  his townhouse. Commitment to timeliness – timely and accurate. However virtue of accuracy is jeopardized when reporters rush to air stories. It takes time to confirm details and be accurate. Delay stories works against timeliness. Being fair – dealing fairly with both clients and the general public. – persuasive message prepared on behalf of a client is not always the same message that would be prepared on behalf of the general public. Conflict in Duties:- Ethics codes are well intended, usually helpful guides, but they are simplistic when it comes to knotty moral questions. Duty to self – self preservation is a basic human instinct, but is a photojournalist shirking a duty to subscribers by avoiding a dangerous conflict zone? Editors going for a world wide movie premier with full expanses paid by the studio. Can a reporter write fairly after being wined and dined? Duty to audience – a reporter covering a divorce case involving one spouse chasing the other with an axe. Though no one was injured but it turned into a human comedy. The comedic details was so good the editor put the story on page 1. (Why did the reporter think he had a right to make fun of the couple?) Duty to employer – does the idea of pursuing and telling the truth when a reporter discovers dubious business deals involving the parent corporation? Duty to profession – at what point does an ethically motivated advertising agency person blow the whistle on misleading claims by other advertising people? Duty to society – does ideology affect a media worker s sense of duty to society? Media Ethics:- Media ethics is complicated by the different performance standards that mass media operators establish for themselves. This is further complicated by the range of expectations in the mass ’ audience. One size does not fit all. Audience expectation – audience brings a range of ethics expectations to media relations. A book publisher s fantasy science fiction imprint, readers have far different expectations than they do with other books. News releases that PR people produce are expected, by their nature to be from a client s perspective, which doesn t always coincide with the perspective expected of a news reporter. ’ Process vs Outcome:- Various approaches to ethics fall into two broad categories: deontological ethics and teleological ’ ethics. Deontological say people need to follow good rules. Teleologists judge morality not by ’ the rules but by the consequences of decisions. Deontological Ethics – duty is at the heart. Holds that people act morally when they follow good rules. Some of the approaches: Theory of divine command – holds that proper moral decisions come from obeying the commands of God, with blind trust that the consequences will be good. 35  Theory of divine right of kings – sees virtue in allegiance to a divinely anointed monarch. Theory of secular command – non religious variation that stresses allegiance to a dictator or other political leader from whom the people take cues when making moral decisions. Libertarian theory – stresses laissez faire (minimal interference) approach to ethics. Give free rein to the human ability to think through problems, and people almost always will make morally right decisions. Categorical imperative theory – holds that virtue results when people identify and apply universal principles. Teleological Ethics:- Concerned with consequences of actions Pragmatic theory – encourages people to look at human experience to determine the probably consequences of an action and then decide its desirability. Utilitarian theory – favours ethics actions that benefit more people than they damage – the greatest good for the greatest number. Social responsibility theory – judges actions by the good effect they have on society. Misrepresentation:- A case of representing fiction as truth. Janet Cooke s “Jimmy s World”. There are misrepresentations, however that are not as clearly unacceptable. Much debated are the following: Staging news – to attract favourable attention to their clients, PR people organise media events. These are designed to be irresistible to journalists. Rallies and demonstrations on topical issues for instance. ’ ’ Recreations – reality programs using re-enactments. Woman taking a hammer to her husband, a faceless actor grabbing a tin of kerosene to blow up his son. Helps people to understand the situation. Selective editing – making decisions with the goal of distorting. 36