Chapter Recap

This chapter provides an overview of the different ways researchers try to explain mass media activities and their effects on audiences and culture.

Chapter Objectives:

• Identify and explain what mass media research is.
• Recognize and discuss the mainstream approaches to mass media research.
• Recognize the shift from mainstream approaches to critical approaches.
• Recognize and discuss the critical approaches to mass media research.
• Recognize and discuss the cultural studies approaches to mass media research.
• Harness your media literacy skills to understand and evaluate the media’s presence and influence in your life.

The Nature of Mass Media Research

• Mass communication researchers have been grappling for decades with the most important social issues involving media. Knowledge of mass communication research traditions and discoveries is crucial to developing media literacy. (31)
• Research is the application of a systematic method to solve a problem or understand it better than in the past. (31)
• Mass media research, then, entails the use of systematic methods to understand or solve problems related to the mass media. It asks about the role mass media play in improving or degrading the relationships, values, and ideals of society and the people who make up that society. This chapter addresses society’s bottom line, not a company’s bottom line. (31)
• Early critical studies scholars explored the ideas behind a mass society. Did widespread media allow for a greater sense of community? Some scholars, such as Dewey, saw these media as enabling democratic participation and the formation of a common notion of society. (32-33)
• Others feared propaganda, or messages designed to change people’s attitudes and behaviors. (33-5)
• Interest moved to the role journalists played in their selection of news to cover. Lippmann raised the notion of “agenda setting,” the idea that media create “the ideas in our heads.” (33)
• The magic bullet or hypodermic needle approach suggested that propaganda affected everyone in the same way at the same time. This idea was quickly modified due to its oversimplification of audience responses. (34-35)
•  The Payne Fund studies employed a range of techniques to examine the question of the impact of violent films on young people. They found that youngsters’ reactions to movies were not uniform. Rather, they depended on key social and psychological differences among children. (35-36)
• In the 1940s, researchers put forth a new theory that  placed social relations—or the interactions among people—alongside individual social and psychological differences and the part those relations played in the way individuals interpreted media messages. (36)
• Paul Lazarsfeld and other Columbia sociologists developed the two-step flow model of media influence. This model states that media messages are diffused in two stages: (1) media content is picked up by people who use the media frequently and (2) these people act as opinion leaders when discussing that content with others. Those others are then influenced by the media in a way that is one step removed from the original content. (36-37 and Figure 2.3 on p. 37)
• Lazarsfeld and his associates developed the concept of an active audience, meaning that people are not simply passive receivers of media messages. (38)
• Another outgrowth of the Columbia School research is the uses and gratifications model, which examines how people use media products to meet their needs and interests. This model of analysis maintains that it is as important to know what people do with media as it is to know what media do to people. (38)
• Additional research approaches confirmed the limited effects of media on audiences:
• Further analysis (Carl Hovland’s naturalistic experiments summarized as The American Soldier) emerged from the Second World War era and showed that even materials specifically designed to persuade people would succeed only under limited circumstances and with only certain types of people. This area of inquiry is called limited effects research. (39)
• Findings indicate that, under normal circumstances, where all aspects of the communication environment could not be equal, the mass media’s ability to change people’s attitudes and behavior on controversial issues was minimal. (39-40)

Consolidating the Mainstream Approach

In the 1950s, researchers began building on previous findings. These later approaches can be divided into three areas of study: (1) opinion and behavior change, (2) what people learn from media, and (3) the motivations and applications of media use. (40-43)

• In terms of opinion and behavior change, researchers look at the effects of TV violence on children and of sexually explicit material for adults. Family, social setting, and personality have a bearing on the results. Heavy exposure may lead to desensitization. (40)
• In terms of what people learn from media, researchers have found that children can learn basic skills such as vocabulary. Media content, in theory, enables adults to participate in a democratic society; however, media content is also highly selective. Priming is the process through which the media affect how people evaluate media content. Not all people pay attention to media, nor does everyone have access to media content. This lack of access results in a knowledge gap, with those with access receiving information faster and earlier than other population segments. (40-43)
• In terms of the applications and motivations for people’s media use, researchers draw on uses and gratifications research and sometimes media effects to develop answers to the question, “Why do people enjoy programming like radio soap operas and quiz shows?” A serious answer arises with the digital divide, that is, a separation between those who have knowledge access and those who do not due to limited education or income. (43-45; see Figure 2.4 on p. 45)

The Rise of Critical Approaches

Although mainstream approaches to research have laid a strong foundation for communication research, some scholars recognize two persistent problems: (45)

•  One problem is the research stresses change rather than continuity. By stressing change over continuity, critics contend that much of mainstream research focuses on whether a change will occur as a result of media exposure, ignoring the possibility that the many important effects of the media have to do not with changing people but with encouraging them to continue certain actions or views on life. Although outlooks or behavior may not be changed by media content directly, they may be reinforced by it. (45-46)
• The other problem is its emphasis on the active audience member in the media environment, rather than the power of larger social forces controlling that media environment. By focusing so much on the role of the individual, mainstream researchers are accused of ignoring the impact of social power. What ought to be studied, critics say, is how powerful groups come to influence the most widespread media images in ways that help them stay in power. (46)
• “Critical theory” is the term used to describe these points of departure from mainstream media research. (47)
• The Frankfurt School of researchers focused on the cultural implications of Marxism, or the belief that the direction of history would eventually result in labor’s overthrow of capitalism and, in turn, the more equal distribution of resources in society. Scholars wrote about the corrosive impact of capitalism on culture, emphasizing the ability of the mass media to control people’s worldviews. (46-47)
• Co-optation is used to explain how capitalism takes potentially revolutionary ideas and tames them to express capitalist ideals. (47)
• Political economy theorists, in contrast, focus on the link between economics and culture. They ask when and how the economic structures of society and media systems reflect the political interests of society’s rich and powerful. Most critical work in this area focuses on how institutional and organizational relationships create requirements for media firms that lead them to create and circulate certain types of material over others. McChesney raised the issue of media conglomeration as an exacerbating and alarming trend. Concerns are raised over corporate ownership and suppression of certain topics of reporting. (47-48 and Figure 2.5 on p. 49)
• Some political economists who are concerned about the corrosive impact of U.S. media content on other cultures study cultural colonialism—the exercise of control over an area or people by a dominant power not so much through force of arms as by surrounding the weaker countries with cultural materials that reflect values and beliefs that support the interests of the dominant power. (48-49)
• Cultivation studies researchers focus less on industry relationships and more on information about the work that people pick up from media portrayals. It differs from mainstream research by taking the following approach: when media systematically portray certain populations in unfavorable ways, the ideas that mainstream audiences pick up about those people help certain groups in society keep power over the groups they denigrate. Further, George Gerbner argued that TV violence causes people to feel more strongly that the world is a scary, mean place. (49-50)

Cultural Studies

• Cultural studies scholars often start with the idea that media presents their audiences with technologies and texts and that audiences find meaning in them. These scholars examine what it means to “make meaning” of such technologies and texts and what consequences this has for audiences. (51)
• Approaches to cultural studies include:
• Historical, which ask questions about media and the past.
• Anthropological, which explore how people use media in different settings.
• Linguistic and literary, which incorporate multiple ways of reading media texts. Though complicated, the linguistic and literary approaches question where meaning is created in texts and understand that texts are polysemous, that is, open to multiple readings. (51-53)

Using Media Research to Develop Media Literacy Skills

• Media research relates closely to media literacy. The history of mass media research provides students with tools to figure out three key ideas a media-literate person must know: (53-57)
• Where you stand with respect to the effects of media on society. (54)
• How to make sense of discussions and arguments about media effects. (54)
• Part of becoming media literate involves taking an informed stand on why the media are important. New ideas on the subject are emerging constantly, and it helps to stay current with press coverage of media developments or academic journal articles in this area. (54)
• The five key considerations in making sense of media effects analysis are: (54-56)
• Are the questions the researcher is asking interesting and important?
• Into what research tradition does the study fall?
• How good is the research design?
• How convincing is the analysis?
• What do you wish the researchers would do next in their research?
• How to get involved in research that can be used to explore concerns you might have about mass media. (56-57)
• See Table 2.1 (p. 55-56) for an overview of the different theories used in media research. This table summarizes the key research efforts explained in this chapter.

Chapter Recap

This chapter provides an overview of how the media industries identify and address audiences; how they use genres to group content; and how they produce, distribute, exhibit, and finance content.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Recognize how mass media personnel consider the audience an integral part of business concerns.
2. Describe the primary genres of the materials created by various mass media industries.
3. Identify and discuss the process of producing, distributing, and exhibiting materials in mass media industries.
4. Explain the way media firms finance the production, distribution, and exhibition of media materials.
5. Harness your media literacy skills to evaluate what media forms mean to you as a media consumer.

Identifying an Audience for Mass Media Content

• Media practitioners carefully consider the following questions:
• How should we think about and define our audience?
• Will the material we create to attract that audience generate adequate revenues?
• Was our target audience attracted to our products? Why or why not? (62)
• Media firms think about members of their audience differently than the members think about themselves. Media professionals think of people primarily as consumers of media materials and other products.
• The goal of audience targeting is to deliver audiences to advertisers in order to generate adequate revenue for their media enterprise.
• They construct their audiences in four broad ways: demographics, psychographics, lifestyle categories, and behavioral information. (63-66)
• Demographic indicators include factors such as age, sex, income, occupation, ethnicity, and race.
• Psychographics group people by attitudes, personality types, or motivations. (see Figure 3.2)
• The lifestyle categories approach considers different activities that mark people as different from others.
• Behavioral information tracks user activity within a media firm’s cross-platform products (websites, apps, even physical locations).
• Companies combine these approaches to do personalized targeting, offering advertisers the ability to reach people who fit specific profiles.
• Figuring out whether the content that the company puts out is a success with the existing audience through an analysis of existing data can be simple or difficult, depending on the mass medium and the specific questions asked. (67-68)

Determining a Genre for Mass Media Content

• Media content is organized into five major categories, called genres, and includes entertainment, news, information, education, and advertising. (68)
• The entertainment genre follows a formula that includes a setting, typical characters, and patterns of action. The primary concern for creators of entertainment is audience enjoyment. (68)
• The entertainment genre can be further divided into festivals, dramas, gaming, and comedy. (68; see Figure 3.3 on p. 69)
• Genres also can be combined. A combination of two genres is called a hybrid. Dramedy, for example, mixes comedy and drama.
• The news genre involves telling stories about events happening in the world around us. Most news stories are grounded in objectivity, strive for accuracy, and are written by journalists. (71)
• News can be further divided into several subgenres, recognizable as hard news, investigative reports, editorials, and soft news. (73)
• The information genre relies on facts that reveal something about the world. Information includes content obtained through searching databases. (76-7)
• The education genre includes content crafted to teach people. Textbooks and instructional materials of all types fall into this category. (77-78)
• The advertisement genre includes messages aimed at directing favorable attention to goods and services and includes informational ads, hard-sell ads, and soft-sell ads. (78-79)
• A newcomer to a media industry needs to understand the various genres that characterize media content and the necessity of working within the formulaic limitations of the genres.

Mixing Genres in a Convergent Media System

• In all mass media industries, organizations carry out five primary activities: production, distribution, exhibition, audience research, and finance. (80, see Figure 3.6)
• Production for the mass media means the creation of materials (also called media content) for distribution through one or more mass media vehicles. (81)
• A mass media production firm, like The Washington Post Co., is a firm that creates materials for distribution through one or more mass media vehicles. (81)
• The production process typically requires the work of both administrative and creative personnel (either on-staff creative workers or freelance creative workers). (81)
• Talent guilds, such as the Writers Guild of America, negotiate labor agreements with major production firms. (82)
• Because the production process is so complex, the creative labor is typically a collaborative activity, and this positions a group or a company as the “author” of the material. (82 and Figure 3.7)
• Distribution is the delivery of the produced material to the point where it will be shown to its intended audience; distribution is an activity that takes place out of public view. (83)
• Without distribution, a production firm’s media product would literally go nowhere; some large media firms conduct distribution as well as production, whereas others rely on independent distribution firms to carry out this function. (83-84)
• A powerful distributor can ensure that the media products it carries will end up in the best locations of the best exhibitors and presented to the best audience; without distribution, production is of no use. (84)
• Exhibition is the activity of presenting mass media materials to audiences for viewing or purchase. (84)
• Shelf space is the amount of area or time available for presenting products to consumers. (84)
• Powerful distributors are able to negotiate the best space and the best time for the exhibition of their clients’ products. (85)
• Large media firms, like major book publishing companies, are in a position to negotiate with exhibitors for the best space or time and often provide trade incentives and cooperative advertising deals to gain influence with exhibitors. (86)
• In some media industries, major firms consolidate their marketplace strength by owning elements of all three functions, combining production, distribution, and exhibition under one corporate roof. This combination of all three functions is called vertical integration, an important strategy in the constant attempt to reduce risk. (86 and Figure 3.8 on p. 87)
• Financing mass media content can be divided into two categories: money to fund new production and money to pay for already completed products. (87)
• Funding new productions:
• Borrowing money from an organization, usually a bank. (87)
• Borrowing money (typically very large amounts) from an investment bank or syndicate that often specializes in loaning large sums to companies in particular industries. (88)
• Some media firms raise money by means of stock offerings that encourage investment in their operations. (88)
• Some media firms rely on venture capitalists that specialize in investing in startup or nonpublic (no stock offerings) firms. (88-89)
• Following an investment by venture capitalists, the potential profit of a media firm may become so great that it takes action to issue an initial public offering (IPO) of stock. (89)
• Funding when production is already complete. This concerns the generation of profits—the amount of money brought in by completed products (revenue) minus expenses.
• Direct sales, allowing the purchaser to buy, and therefore own, an item directly from a producer, distributor, or exhibitor. (89)
• License fees, allowing the purchaser to use an item, usually for a specified period of time and for specified purposes; the producer retains ultimate control of the item. (89)
• Rentals, allowing a consumer the right to read, view, or listen to an item for a specified period of time, after which the item is returned. (89)
• Usage fees based on the number of times that an item is employed (or used) by a consumer. (89)
• Subscriptions, or the amount of money charged for providing a media product or service on a regular basis. (89-90)
• Advertising, allowing a company to purchase space or time on mass media for the purpose of displaying an ad for a product or service. (90)
• An additional concern for media practitioners is government regulation. (see Chapter 5)

Media Literacy and the Business of Media (90-92)

• Knowing about the production, distribution, and exhibition processes helps one be a more aware consumer of mass media materials.  
• Knowing about the means through which media products are financed, a media-literate person can influence sources of production revenue.
• Knowing how media firms construct and target their intended audiences, a media-literate person can influence decisions that are potentially objectionable or arguably disruptive in some way.
• In other words, a media-literate person has some potential leverage over decisions made by media firms and their sources of financing. The crucial issues, of course, lie in first understanding how this complex system works and then developing effective communication strategies of your own in order to influence it.

Chapter Recap

This chapter explores how advertising, public relations, and marketing activities shape the activities of the media industries.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Describe the roles that advertising, public relations, and marketing communications play in the media system.
2. Describe the kinds of firms involved in these activities and what they do.
3. Analyze the process of producing and creating ads and public relations material.
4. Explain how advertising, public relations, and marketing communications relate to convergence and what that means for the media system.
5. Discuss debates between critics and defenders of these businesses regarding topics such as commercialism, hidden persuasion, and targeting communication.

The Advertising Industry

• Advertising is the activity of explicitly paying for media space or time in order to direct favorable attention to certain products or services. (96)
• Advertising pays for the time or space they receive, clearly states its presence, and involves persuasion.
• Advertising spending is a multibillion-dollar industry. (see Table 4.1, on p. 97)  
• Advertising agencies specialize in the creation of ads for placement on media. (98)
• Agency holding companies own multiple agencies. (98; see Table 4.2 for the top seven holding companies.)
• Advertising agencies can be divided along four dimensions: (1) business-to-business agencies versus consumer agencies, (2) general agencies versus specialty agencies, (3) traditional agencies versus direct-marketing agencies, and (4) agency networks versus stand-alone firms. (98-100, see Table 4.3 for the top ten agency networks)
• The three basic functions of an ad agency are (1) creative persuasion, (2) market research, and (3) media planning and buying. (100)
• Production in the advertising industry (100-103):
• Production activities are closely monitored by clients and most prominently involve creative personnel and market researchers, who help guide the creative work to reach the targeted market segment.
• Market research creates portraits of society and identifies potential market segments.
• The sales pitch is a message designed to show how a product can “solve a problem” for the identified target audience.
• Branding involves the creation of a specific image of a product that makes it stand out in the marketplace.
• Agencies position products by relating brands to the specific interests and lifestyle of the targeted segment.
• Distribution in the advertising industry (103-105):
• Media fragmentation has made the placement of ads an increasingly complex and challenging agency function.
• Agencies rely on audience research firms for the specific data used to target audiences and to place ads in an effective and efficient way.
• Research firms develop psychographic audience data that link demographic categories to personality traits of the targeted audience.
• Research firms also provide lifestyle information about particular audience segments.
• In-store media refers to the various ads that consumers see in retail stores.
• Media planners typically want to know the following: (1) What is an outlet’s reach with respect to the target audience and (2) how efficient is the outlet in reaching the target compared to other outlets? (This is where cost per thousand, or CPM, comes into the decision making.)
• Media planners are also concerned about the environment—or the media content--surrounding the ads they place.
• Exhibition in the advertising industry (105-107):
• The strategy of the advertising campaign determines how particular ads are exhibited to potential consumers.
• Advertising conglomerates have developed cross-platform deals to reach an increasingly segmented audience.
• Location-based advertising sends ads and coupons to consumers based on their geographic location.
• An agency’s research division typically evaluates the success of a campaign by several research means, including the click-though analysis of consumer behavior on the Internet.
• It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns.
• Threats to traditional advertising (107-109):
• Consumer resistance to ad exposure—and their use of new technologies to avoid ads altogether—is worrisome for the industry. Native advertisements are a growing form of ad placement which mimics the format and style of the media vehicle in which the ad is placed.
• Agencies are attempting to make ads more relevant to the targeted segments.
• Agencies are using product placement and viral marketing (buzz marketing, environmental marketing) to get around consumer resistance to ads.

What Is Public Relations?

• Publicity is the practice of getting companies, people, and products mentioned in the media in order to get people interested in them. Public relations activities seek to create positive attitudes toward these products and to counter any potentially negative attitudes. (109-110)
• Public relations departments are part of media industries and many other industries, as well as government groups and not-for-profit organizations. (111)
• Although advertising activities are more recognizable to audiences, public relations activities attempt to be subtler. Also, whereas advertising is paid for (in terms of ad space, commercial slots, etc.), public relations activities typically are not paid for (e.g., public relations firms do not pay a newspaper for printing their press release). (110)
• Public relations practitioners engage in three types of activities: media relations, internal relations, and external relations. Media relations involve any activities that deal with media (i.e., answering calls from reporters). Internal relations involve presenting the company image to people working in the company. External relations involve presenting the company image to those outside the company. (111)
• Public relations firms also are part of agency holding companies. (See Table 4.4 on p. 112)
• Global reach is important to agency holding companies. (112)
• Prominent public relations activities fall under corporate communications, financial communications, health care, public affairs, and crisis management. (112; see Table 4.5 on p. 113 for examples of these types of activities)
• Production in the public relations industry (114-115):
• The press release is the most basic product of public relations.
• It is very important for public relations specialists to understand the work routines and needs of media specialists in order to influence media content.
• Distribution in the public relations industry (115-116):
• Public relations distribution is achieved by locating proper media outlets for the materials provided by public relations specialists.
• A variety of media technologies are used for the distribution of public relations materials.
• Exhibition in the public relations industry (116-117):
• Media outlets benefit from the “information subsidies” provided by the public relations industry.
• The placement of public relations materials in media outlets does not guarantee that the subsequent stories will be beneficial for the public relations specialist’s client.

The Rise of Marketing Communications (117-120)

• Integrated marketing communications (IMC) attempts to combine the activities of advertising and public relations in order to benefit a client.
• Branded entertainment involves associating a company or product with media activities in ways that are not as obviously intrusive as advertisements.
• Event marketing involves creating compelling circumstances that command attention in ways that are relevant to the product or firm.
• Event sponsorship involves companies paying to be associated with particular activities that their target audiences enjoy or value.
• Product placement takes place when a firm manages to insert its brand in a positive way into fiction or nonfiction content.
• Direct marketing uses media vehicles created by the marketer to send persuasive messages. Database marketing involves the construction of lists of customers and potential customers, which can be used to determine what those people might purchase in the future.
• Relationship marketing involves a determination by the firm to maintain long-term contact with its customers.

Advertising, Public Relations, and Convergence (120-121)

• Advertising, public relations, and IMC have a substantial impact on the media. By bringing these activities together, companies can expand their reach in getting their messages out.

Media Literacy Issues Related to Advertising and Public Relations

• Three key issues related to advertising:
• Advertising and commercialism: The buying and selling of items is a highly valued activity, and sales pitches appear everywhere. These messages, some say, encourage people to buy more than they need and are part of a hidden curriculum that people unconsciously accept without thinking about it. Other critics claim this influence isn’t as strong as detractors claim. (121-122)
• Critics claim that advertising targeting children is unethical because some children are unable to process the messages, and the advertising causes disagreements between parents and children. (122)
• Critics claim that advertising and public relations activities produce excess waste and pollution. (122)
• Advertising, public relations, and IMC maintain complicated relationships with the idea of “truth,” because these industries must always present the best possible image . Critics claim that even when these industries’ messages tell the truth, they still possibly can deceive their audiences. (122-124)
• These industries turn to self-regulation to prevent government interference with their activities.
• Targeting becomes another troublesome activity presented by these industries because in their search for desired audiences, they send out too many messages, and thus have access to an enormous amount of personal information.
• Media firms can attract marketers by offering selectability, or reaching specific individuals with desired characteristics through targeted content; accountability to advertisers, or showing how individuals responded to ads; and interactivity, or cultivating a positive relationship with an individual. (125-126)
• Critics claim that although this targeting of content to narrower and narrower audience segments might be beneficial to individuals, it creates a culture of separation that prevents people from learning about others and the world around them. (126-127)

Chapter Recap

Government Regulation, Self-Regulation, and Ethics

This chapter provides an overview of the different ways that the government regulates media industries and the media industries regulate themselves, as well as the questions of ethics that arise in both cases.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Explain the reasons for and the theories underlying media regulation.
2. Identify and describe different types of media regulation.
3. Analyze the struggles between citizens and regulatory agencies in the search for information.
4. Discuss the ways in which media organizations self-regulate.
5. Identify and evaluate ethical dilemmas facing media practitioners today.
6. Harness your media literacy skills to comprehend how media regulation affects you as a consumer.

Why Do Media Firms Care About What Government Does?

Mass media regulation refers to the laws and guidelines that influence key media industry processes: production, distribution and exhibition. Three key arguments shape the media laws in the United States: how to define freedom of the press, what a good media system means, and how much government should guide it. (131)

• Even though the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says “Congress shall make no law” abridging “the freedom of speech, or of the press,” the reality of this situation is much more complicated and has often been raised in the U.S. Supreme Court. Questions center on determining which governmental body is making the law, what exactly defines “the press,” and what is meant by “abridging.” (132-134)
• The Supreme Court has often approved government restrictions to abridge speech or the press that place limits on the time, place, and manner of expression. (134) Such restrictions are legal if they:
• Are applicable to everyone,
• Are without political bias,
• Serve a significant governmental interest,
• Leave ample alternative ways for the communication to take place.

More Allowable Government Control Over Media Content

Government regulation of media falls into three categories: regulation of content before it is distributed, regulation of content after it is distributed, and economic regulation. (134)

• Prior restraint is involved in regulating content before it is distributed. (135)
• Several areas that warrant prior restraint include obscenity, military operations, and copyright.
• Obscenity means something that is offensive to standards of decency and modesty, although determining what is offensive and why is a challenging undertaking. (135-136)
• The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the government has a right to censorship via prior restraint when the national security of the United States is at risk, but the court has made it clear that national security is defined quite narrowly. (136-137) (see Table 5.1, p. 135, for other types of content for which the Supreme Court allows prior restraint)
• The regulation and control of media content prior to publication during wartime military operations have occurred since the Civil War.
• The military has developed strategies to control and shape wartime reporting, using pool reporting and embedded reporting.
• According to the U.S. Constitution, the purpose of copyright is “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.” (137)
• The hesitancy of government agencies to stop the press from circulating content through prior restraint does not apply to copyright violations. (138)
• The Copyright Act of 1976 lays out the basic rules of copyright law as they exist in the United States today. (138-139)
• Fair use regulations allow writers and academics to use small portions of copyrighted material without permission. (139)
• Fair use is typically supportive of nonprofit, educational uses of copyrighted material and of uses that do no harm to the original work or that significantly transform the original work, to include added interpretations, including parodies of the original work. (139-140)
• Regulation of content after it is distributed:
• Defamation is a highly disreputable or false statement about a living person or an organization that causes injury to the reputation that a substantial group of people hold for that person or entity. (140-141)
• Libel is a form of published defamation, including libel per se (so-called “red flag” words) and libel per quod (words that become libelous because of their context). (141, see Table 5.2 for a list of “red flag” words)
• Slander is a form of spoken defamation. (141)
• There are two categories of libel plaintiffs: public figures and private persons. (141-142)
• The U.S. Supreme Court has defined actual malice as reckless disregard for truth or knowledge of falsity; the court has defined simple malice as ill will toward another person. (142)
• The court has defined simple negligence as lack of reasonable care by media organizations. (142)
• Invasion of privacy activities include false light, appropriation, intrusion, and public disclosure. (Table 5.3, p. 143-144)
• An emerging area of regulation concerns collection of data about individuals for marketing purposes and the protection of their privacy. (144-146)
• Economic regulations are rules that determine how firms are allowed to compete with each other and affects the ways media organizations finance, produce, distribute, and exhibit their products. (146)
• Antitrust laws prevent one company from controlling an entire market, which is called a monopoly. A few companies controlling a market is called an oligopoly. (146)
• Antitrust policies are carried out through the passage of laws, the enforcement of laws, and federal court decisions. (146-147)
• Two government agencies are important in the regulating of the mass media: the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). (147; see Figure 5.1) These agencies are responsible for creating technical order, encouraging competition, and protecting consumers. (147-150)

Media Self-Regulation

Self-regulation regimes are codes created by companies that define ethical codes of conduct within them. (150)

• Although self-regulation pressures do come from the government, external pressures to self-regulate also come from members of the public, advocacy organizations, and advertisers. (151-152)
• Self-regulation practices include editorial standards, or written statements of policy and conduct, and ombudspersons, or those who act as intermediaries in conflict situations. (153)
• Professional codes of ethics are created by members of professions spelling out what practitioners should and should not do. Journalism reviews report on and analyze examples of questionable ethics in the news industry. (153)
• Content ratings and advisories offers guides for determining the age-appropriate nature of films, television shows, or video games. See Table 5.4 for video games (154), Table 5.5 for movies (155), and Table 5.6 for television shows (155).

The Role of Ethics

Ethics is a system of notions about right and wrong that guides a person’s actions. (156) Bob Steele, a faculty member with the Poynter Institute, suggests ten questions to ask yourself when considering ethical questions while working in media. (156-157)

• What do I know? What do I need to know?
• What are my ethical concerns?
• What is my journalistic (or informational, entertainment, advertising, or educational) purpose?
• What organizational policies and professional guidelines should I consider?
• How can I include other people, with different perspectives and diverse ideas, in the decision-making process?
• Who are the stakeholders—those affected by my decision? What are their motivations? Which are legitimate?
• What if the roles were reversed? How would I feel if I were in the shoes of one of the stakeholders?
• What are the possible consequences of my actions in the short term? In the long run?
• What are my alternatives to maximize my truth-telling responsibility and minimize harm?
• Can I clearly and fully justify my thinking and my decision to my colleagues? To the stakeholders? To the public?

Ethical duties are related to different constituencies, including self, audience, employer, profession, promise-holders, and society. (157) Ethical standards occur at three levels: person, professional, and societal. Values, ideals, and principles cut across these levels. (158)

Media Regulations and the Savvy Citizen

• Determination of what is ethical conduct cannot be resolved by government regulation. Media-savvy citizens need to understand when it is appropriate to ask the government to intervene on media concerns. (160)
• There are few easily agreed-upon media ethics due to the complex and varied media industry in the United States. (161)
• Even if you’re not a media practitioner, thinking seriously about the formal and informal controls on the media content you see and hear each day is crucial to your role as a critical consumer of media. (161)

Chapter Recap

The first five chapters of the book provided the foundations for thinking about different aspects of the media, including convergence, genres, structures and funding, and media regulations. Expanding on the ideas of convergence, this preface provides some key themes that underpin the different industries addressed in the following chapters. Many of these themes began before digital media and the Internet, but convergence has accelerated their growth and change.

The Spread of Digital Media

• Devices with computer processors allow access to digital media (text, audio, and visual materials.) Examples of these devices include laptop computers, tablets, and cellphones. (167)
• The Internet has accelerated the spread of convergence. (167)
• As much as the Internet has created opportunities for media, it also has created a lot more competition. With lower barriers to entry, almost anyone can create and distribute digital content. (167-168)

The Importance of Distribution Windows

• A distribution window is an exhibition point used to generate profits on media content, such as a movie theater, a retail store, or an online store. (168-169)
• Redistribution of the same material through different “windows” provides additional revenue opportunities. (169) See figure p.1 on p. 168.
• Convergence offers an even greater number of distribution windows than before. (169)

Audience Fragmentation and Segmentation

• Audience fragmentation, which began before the rise of digital media, refers to the splitting of audiences across the growing number of media outlets. (169)
• Channel fragmentation refers to this increase in mass media outlets, particularly during the last two decades. This was discussed in Chapter 1. (169-170; also 5-6)
• With the introduction of each new method of accessing content, the audience using that medium gets smaller—a process called audience erosion. (170)
• Audience segmentation refers to the ways in which media producers divide audience members into groups, and create media that target these groups. Targeting involves reaching for desired groups that the media company has identified. More desired audiences get more attention from the media as a result. (170-171) See figure P.2 on p. 171.  

Globalization

• Globalization is the movement of media content around the world. (171-172)
• Trying to reach global audiences is a way of making the potential audience larger and of possibly generating more profits. (172)
• Sending media content outside the United States poses a risk of global audiences not liking the content, so media companies might create divisions to address specific global audiences, or engage in co-productions, which are deals between two firms for funding and tailoring media material for international markets. (172-173)

Conglomeration

• A mass media conglomerate refers to a media company that holds stakes in several media industries. For example, Disney has its own television channels, film production facilities, radio network, publishing arm, recording division, and streaming channel. (173) See figure P.3 on p. 174. 
• These conglomerates used to treat each production arm separately, but now companies require them to work together to generate more revenue. (174-175)
• Vertical integration refers to one company owning all the means of media content creation from production through exhibition. This system used to be illegal, but recent laws have changed to allow it in some industries. (174)
• Horizontal integration is ownership of multiple parts of media content creation across multiple industries and the use of these outlets to ensure a profit across them. (174)
• Synergy refers to the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. In this case, media industries use their various outlets to maximize exposure, both nationally and globally, for their media products. (174)
• Media conglomerates also engage in joint ventures, the sharing of resources and revenues by two or more firms, to maximize economic gains or political influence. (175)

These five media trends will be key to the discussions of individual media industries in the following chapters.

Chapter Recap

This chapter explores the Internet industry, which supports the explosive growth of convergence activities, and changing relationships between media and Internet industries and their audiences.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Discuss the history of the Internet and the devices that link to it.
2. Understand the Internet as a technology.
3. Describe the Internet industry, its relationship to convergence, and its impact on media organizations and their consumers.
4. Analyze concerns that observers hold about Internet privacy issues.

The Rise of the Internet

• The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that uses a standard set of commands to link billions of people worldwide. (177)
• Through the use of packets, these systems could maintain multiple data conversations at one time. (177-178)
• Hyperlinks connect documents and files through special coding that makes them “clickable.” (178)
• HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, defines the structures of web pages and allows their interconnection. (178)
• The Internet started within military and academic institutions and became more available for public use by the mid-1990s. (178)
• See Figure 6.2 for more history of the Internet’s development. (180-181)
• Internet use is very common among adults in general, though younger people are more typical users than older ones. Figure 6.1 breaks down the demographics of adults who do not use the Internet. (178)
• Table 6.2 provides statistics on the online platforms most popular with teens. (182)

Production, Distribution, and Exhibition on the Internet

• Unlike most other industries, the roles among production, distribution, and exhibition often blur online. Users and industries can take on multiple roles more easily than in other venues. (182-183)
• People often create content for places that they can’t control. (182)
• User-generated content (UGC) is made by people who often use the same website, such as someone making a video and uploading it to YouTube. (182)
• The parent sites will format the content and determine how (and if) other users receive it, serving in the role of producer and distributor. (182)
• Internet service providers (ISPs) allow audiences to access the Internet. ISPs take on the role of exhibitor. (183)
• Wi-Fi allows people to access the Internet without using a wire. (183; see Figure 6.4 on p. 184)
• Net neutrality refers to the idea that ISPs will not restrict people’s access to any specific website. Some companies and libraries will block certain sites that would waste time or embarrass employees. (184-185)
• The net neutrality controversy comes up with ISPs claiming that they want to charge some sites for exhibition due to their heavy bandwidth, but many argue that such a practice would affect society in negative ways. (185-186)

Social Media Sites and Search Engines

• Social media sites (also called social networking sites) allow people to interact with others around different types of content. Popular examples are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. (178)
• A search engine allows you to look for information on the Internet. Google is the most popular search engine. Web crawlers create an index of sites, and then algorithms, or mathematical rules, determine which results get returned to you. In Google, this is referred to as natural or organic search results. (186-187)
• Some search engines allow advertisers to pay to have their sites place higher in the search results when someone searches a keyword they have purchased.
• Social media sites and search engines are seeing ways to bring their services together through a social search, which allows people to search among their connections to find popular items. (187-188)

Funding Online Content

• Search engines and social media sites compete for advertising dollars, though there are other approaches to making money through websites. (188)
• Sites involved in image making get people to interact with their products, such as Jell-O. (188)
• Other companies sell subscriptions to content, such as magazines or media content. Some subscriptions are tiered (sometimes referred to as “freemium” pricing), and others are flat rate. Consumers are still resistant to subscriptions. (188-189)
• Advertising also generates revenues for sites, and some claim the advantage online is in reaching very specific audiences with customized messages. (189-190)
• Keyword advertising and contextual advertising offer ways to customize those messages. (189-190)
• Profiling refers to creating a description of an audience member in order to tailor specific messages to them. Information for these profiles comes from voluntary information you enter, including your e-mail address and your interest categories. It also comes from cookies, or small files that track your progress through a site. (190)
• Clickstreams refer to your mouse clicks through a site. (190)
• The companies then use these data to deliver specific messages to you; this is called behavioral targeting. (190)
• The process that brings millions of profiles together is called data mining. (190; see Figure 6.5, p. 191)
• An ad network connects different websites together in order to sell ads on them. (191)
• Ad exchanges are electronic auctions that publishers and ad networks use to offer advertisers the ability to reach specific types of people when they enter certain sites. (191-192)

“Web-Centered” and “App-Centered” Businesses

• Applications, or apps, bring material to audiences through the Internet, but not through the Web. Users access the content through the app instead of through a website. (192)
• Mobile applications, or mobile apps, work specifically on feature phones or smartphones. (192)
• Some publishers view mobile users as separate from web users, but some publishers do not and will create content for both computer-based and mobile-based systems. (193)
• Advertising is an important component of mobile apps and the mobile Web as ways to finance content production. (194)

Media Ethics: Confronting Internet Privacy

• Media critics worry about the protection of people’s privacy online. Part of this concern rests on the two-way function of the Internet. We might not want to share everything that we enter into a website registration form or other ordering form. (194-195)
• Although cookies don’t allow access to personally identifiable information, critics claim that companies still can get this information easily. (195)
• Media executives claim that they need this information in order to remain competitive for advertising and that people often provide this information willingly. (195-196)
• Privacy advocates suggest that an opt-in approach would work better, but marketers prefer the opt-out approach because of the difficulties in getting people to opt in. (196)
• The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires firms that use people’s data to disclose what they do with them and to get permission before collecting the data. This is seen as a model by some American data privacy advocates. (196)
• Privacy is not just web-based but is also on mobile phones and even television. (196)

Chapter Recap

Chapter 7 is the first chapter of the book to delve into the structures of the more traditional media industries and their reactions to the impact of convergence. Watch for the themes mentioned in the preface to Part II to connect across the following chapters. Each of these chapters will contain a timeline with several key themes related to the historical development of each medium.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Understand today’s books in terms of the development of books over the centuries.
2. Differentiate among the different types of books within the book publishing industry.
3. Explain the roles of production, distribution, and exhibition as they pertain to the book publishing industry.
4. Realize and evaluate the effects of new digital technologies on the book publishing industry.
5. Analyze ethical pitfalls present in the book publishing industry.

The History of the Book

• Although the growth of e-book readers has been strong and digital audiobook sales are growing, paper-based books are still the largest segment of book sales. (200)
• At its core, the history of the book is about humans trying to use technology to record and circulate ideas. (201)
• Three themes from the timeline (202-203, Figure 7.1) include:
• The modern book did not arrive in a flash as a result of one inventor’s grand change. (201)
• The book as a medium of communication developed as a result of social and legal responses to technology during different historical periods. (201-203)
• The book as a medium of communication existed long before the existence of the book industry. (203-204)

The Book Industry Today

• The book industry is growing and economically healthy.
• Books are currently divided into two categories:
• Educational and training books, marked by their use of pedagogy (particular teaching approaches), including learning objectives, chapter summaries, and questions for discussion (204-205). They include these three subcategories.
• K–12 books and materials created for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade.
• Higher education books that focus on teaching students through college and postcollege learning.
• Professional books that help continue the learning process beyond college.
• Consumer books, aimed at the general public. (197) They include these subcategories (205-206, see Table 7.1 for percentage of sales by type):
• Trade books are general-interest titles, including fiction and nonfiction; typically sold at retail bookstores and to libraries; divided into adult and juvenile.
• Mass market paperbacks are smaller than standard-size trade paperbacks and are sold at mass market outlets such as drug stores and supermarkets.
• Religious books are trade books that contain religious content; sold at religious bookstores and general bookstores.
• Professional books, as noted earlier, help professionals in their careers.
• Scholarly books are published by university presses for those working in research, higher education, government, or even corporate settings.

Book clubs are organizations through which individuals who have joined can select books from the club’s catalog and purchase them through the mail or via the club’s website; traditionally, they have operated on a negative-option plan, requiring consumers to cancel their memberships or otherwise receive “main selection” books on a monthly basis.

• Mail-order books are advertised on television and in mailings and require consumers to use an 800 phone number to order books with a credit card.
• Subscription reference books constitute various “great books” series, dictionaries, atlases, and encyclopedias, sold door-to-door or via direct mail; several volumes are sold at one time with a deferred payment schedule.

Variety and Specialization in Book Publishing

• Financing book publishing (207-210):
• The Census Bureau count of book publishing found 2,280, with only around 70 large enough to have 500+ employees. Most had one to four employees. (208)
• Small publishing houses can reap benefits of readers and revenue, such as Writers’ Coffee Shop, which published the Fifty Shades series. The series outpaced the selling of the Harry Potter titles. (208)
• Only a few publishers accounted for almost 90 percent of both paperback and hardcover best-seller lists in 2012: Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, and Macmillan. Several of these publishers are part of larger media conglomerates. (208-209)
• Book publishing is about finding, preparing, marketing, distributing, and exhibiting titles to particular audiences. (210)

Production in the Book Publishing Industry

• Production in trade publishing (210-211):
• The acquisitions editor recruits and signs new authors and titles.
• Authors may be paid a flat fee or may earn royalties from the sale of the book.
• Literary agents market manuscripts to editors, publishers, or other potential buyers.
• In the hardcover trade end of the industry, a bestseller achieves sales of 75,000 hardcover or 100,000 paperback copies; a blockbuster achieves sales of well over 100,000 copies.
• Production at a university press (211):
• Major success means selling several thousand copies (far fewer than in the hardcover trade area); success is often based on commanding respect from professors who tell their students and university libraries to buy copies.
• Editors rely on consultants who give them tips about young professors (potential writers) whose work seems promising; established professors can’t meet the entire demand for scholarly work.
• Academic conferences are typically used to publicize books; brochures are sent to scholars who specialize in a given topic.
• Book production in the electronic age (212-214):
• The biggest book publishers are active in creating books for the electronic market.
• Interest in devices known as e-readers has soared with the Kindle, Nook, and others.
• Sales of e-books took off, accounting for almost 50 percent of new best-seller sales. But e-books sales have dropped in recent years, with some pointing to pricing as the issue.
• Reducing the risks of failure during the production process:
• Three of these strategies include the following (214-216):
• Conducting prepublication research to see if audiences might be interested,
• Using authors with positive track records,  
• Offering advances on royalties, or a payment made before the book’s publication, based on what the publisher thinks the author will earn.

Distribution in the Book Industry

• The role of wholesalers in the distribution process: they purchase copies from publishers and then sell them to retailers (exhibitors) at a discount; wholesalers risk giving too much storage space to a title; publishers risk having unsold copies returned, so the publisher must be realistic about the print run (the number of copies printed). (217)
• Wholesalers use three indicators to assess a title’s popularity potential (218):
• The size of the print run,
• The content of reviews,
• The scope of the marketing plan (including the author’s book tour).

Exhibition in the Book Publishing Industry

Many different kinds of bookstores exist, and the online presence of publishers, as well as electronic publishing, is changing the means of exhibition in the industry. (219)

• Exhibition of consumer books (219-220):
• Bookstore chains (brick-and-mortar stores) took over bookselling from independents in the mid-1990s.
• These chains are struggling in the face of Amazon.com and other online markets.
• In addition to promoting more awareness of books, lower prices at online outlets offer competition to physical stores.
• Exhibition in textbook publishing (220-221):
• The exhibition area for K–12 books is constituted by the evaluation boards that determine purchases; Texas and California are most influential in this process, because the selection process is centralized, and the states are very large.
• College-level textbooks are assigned by professors; new editions of college textbooks have two purposes:
• New editions have more up-to-date information.
• Publishers discourage used book sales in order to maintain profit; revised editions of popular textbooks keep publishers in business.
• Several states have passed laws that attempt to keep textbook prices as low as possible.
• Renting digital texts for a semester is a growing option for students.

Convergence and Conglomeration in the Book Industry

Book publishers are frequently part of larger media and other corporations. (221-222)

• A title that moves content across media boundaries is typically presold (the publisher expects it will sell well to specific audiences because it ties into material that is already popular with the target audience); book lovers are concerned about this process, because they fear it may drive out other titles from the marketplace. (222)
• The media-literate person may well ask these questions about the book industry:
• To what extent are the books that garner the most media attention today generated as a result of an author or character’s popularity in another medium? (222)
• Are we seeing an increase in cooperative activities between movie companies and book publishers owned by the same conglomerate? That is, are movie companies mostly using the publishers to sell books that publicize the movies, and are book companies trying to come up with titles that can become films? (222)

Ethical Issues in Book Production

Ethics issues in book production start with plagiarism, which involves using another person’s work without citing the original author. (222)

• Ethical issues for authors (223):
• For fiction writers, it involves taking passages without citing.
• For nonfiction authors, it involves making up “facts” or quotes.
• Ethical issues for editors and literary agents include stealing ideas from unknown authors and assigning better-known authors the job of turning the ideas into books; sometimes, unscrupulous agents charge authors fees to represent them but then don’t follow through. (223-224)

Chapter Recap

As with books, newspapers predate  the development of the newspaper industry. The newspaper industry has also faced serious challenges following convergence.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Describe key developments in U.S. newspaper history.
2. Explain the production, distribution, and exhibition processes of various types of news outlets.
3. Recognize and discuss the challenges faced by the newspaper industry today and some approaches to dealing with them.
4. Apply your media literacy skills and ethical compass to evaluate activities of the newspaper industry and their impact on your everyday life.

The Development of the Newspaper

• Newspapers are defined as printed products created on a regular basis (for example, weekly or daily) and released in multiple copies. (228)
• Three themes in the newspaper’s development (228-229, see Figure 8.1 for timeline):
• Like the modern book, the modern newspaper did not arrive in a flash as the result of one inventor’s grand change.
• The newspaper as a medium of communication developed as a result of social and legal responses to technology during different historical periods. For example, an adversarial press argued with the government, which didn’t always respond favorably.
• The newspaper as a medium of communication existed long before the existence of the newspaper industry.

An Overview of the Contemporary Newspaper Industry

The industry is divided into the publication of dailies and weeklies.

• Daily circulation has decreased, caused by the prominence of online news and an audience who doesn’t read print editions. (232-234)
• Daily newspaper chains don’t tend to have competition from other papers. They used to hold power in deciding advertising costs, but the growth of the Internet cut into those profits. Many struggled to stay afloat after accruing large debts they struggled to repay.
• In seeking specialized audiences, weekly newspapers have fared better. (234)
• They are often given out for free and place a large emphasis on arts and culture.
• They typically cover four areas: neighborhoods within cities, suburbs, rural areas, and groups of people divided among identity, occupation, or interests.
• Alternative weeklies target young, urban audiences, and shoppers aim at particular neighborhoods.
• Newspapers offer a variety among weekly and daily papers for addressing different audiences and professions, such as African Americans or lawyers. (234-235).

Financing the Newspaper Business

Papers generate revenues in two ways: advertising and circulation. Advertising is the dominant source of money. (236)
Advertisers evaluate purchasing ad space in newspapers by looking at the cost per thousand readers (CPM).

• Types of ads include the following (237-238, see Figure 8.2 for sources of advertising revenue):
• Retail ads serve local businesses and are the most lucrative.
• Classified ads are short announcements for products or services and are the second most lucrative.
• National ads come from large companies not located in the local area; cooperative ads are co-sponsored by a national company and a local retail outlet.
• Freestanding inserts (FSIs) advertise particular products and services; they’re added to the newspaper and distributed with it.
• Circulation generates less revenue than advertising, yet circulation numbers are important to advertising for determining the cost, appeal, and CPM. (238-239)
• Concerns with circulation include whether young people will stop reading the printed edition and whether audiences will pay enough for a digital edition for the newspapers to survive. In addition, more and more advertisers are moving their content online where they can reach young audiences themselves. (239-240)

Production in the Newspaper Industry

• The publisher is in charge of a newspaper’s operation, and policies are implemented by the editor and managing editor. (240-244, see Figure 8.3 for a newspaper content creation flowchart)
• The advertising–editorial ratio, which sets the daily “news hole,” is determined by the publisher.
• Reporters include general assignment reporters, beat reporters, and freelancers; news reports also come from wire services, including the Associated Press, and from syndicates (companies that sell a variety of newspaper content).
• Reporters work on a deadline, or a time by which their stories must be submitted. Copy editors check and edit submitted stories.  
• With print, deadlines were set by the press run times. Online news has made deadlines “24/7” with reporters expected to update stories as they happen.
• Online news requirements for reporters often include preparing photo or video versions of stories and writing blog postings or other updates on social media.  
• Increasingly, newspaper websites encourage their readers to engage with the news through commenting on stories, liking or sharing stories, or contacting reporters directly.
• Pagination is the ability to display and compose completed pages, with pictures and graphics on screen; digital technology allows editors to submit images to plates in the printing operation. (244)

Distribution and the Newspaper Industry

• Newspaper distribution means bringing the finished issue—either print or digital—to the point of exhibition. (244)
• In determining where to market the newspaper, newspapers consider:
• The location of consumers that major advertisers would like to reach,
• The location of present and future printing plants,
• The competition of other papers,
• The loyalty to the paper, if any, that people in different areas seem to have. (245)
• An alternative practice is to buy newspapers in several communities and then offer space to advertisers through the group of them. The papers save money by combining staffs and draw on existing reader loyalty. (245)

Exhibition in the Newspaper Industry

• Exhibition options include websites, newspaper vending machines, homes, and businesses. (246)
• Total market coverage (TCM) refers to reaching nearly all the households in a newspaper’s market area. Newspapers could claim that in the past, but they can’t anymore. (246)
• Direct mail firms and marriage mail outfits compete with newspapers and offer TMC. (246)

A Key Industry Issue: Building Readership

• The recent downturn in readership trends has newspaper publishers and editors concerned, and they are looking for ways to build readership using analog and digital strategies. (247)
• Analog strategies (print) involve the print edition and include colorful layouts, appealing sections, and emphasis on local issues. (247-248)
• Digital strategies include podcasts, mobile feeds, and online advertising, though the advertising doesn’t bring in enough revenue to support the paper.
• Some papers use paywalls to generate revenues as well. These have been, for the most part, insufficient ways to generate revenue through circulation. (249)

The Future of Newspapers Versus the Future of Journalism

• The newspaper industry is still searching for a viable business model.
• Increasing numbers of local communities are without a local newspaper outlet.
• Some argue that society would suffer without newspapers, and that argument might guilt some people into offering support to journalistic enterprises.
• Others say the best forms of journalism do not necessarily come from traditional newspaper companies. Investigative journalism nonprofits are filling an important role. (249-251)

Ethics and New Models of Journalism

• Some claim that competition within journalism is unethical and destructive to the profession. They cite in particular two activities that devalue the work of journalism:
• Sites that use newspapers’ work without paying,
• Content farms that develop quick content on trending topics in order to draw web traffic. (251-253)

Chapter Recap

Like books and newspapers, magazines existed before the magazine industry. Today’s magazine industry faces challenges similar to those discussed with the newspaper industry: how to attract advertiser support and how to adapt to new media platforms.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Connect the importance of understanding magazine history to understanding magazines today.
2. Describe the physical and digital production, distribution, and exhibition of different types of magazines.
3. Explain the view that magazines are brands that need to follow their readers across a variety of converging platforms.
4. Analyze ethical issues regarding the influence advertising has on magazine content.

The Development of Magazines

• The term “magazine” derives from the French term meaning “storehouse.” (257)
• The history of the magazine includes three key themes (257-260):
• The modern magazine did not arrive in a flash as the result of one inventor’s grand change.
• The magazine as a medium of communication developed as a result of social and legal responses to technology during different historical periods.
• The magazine as a medium of communication existed long before the existence of magazines today.

An Overview of the Modern Magazine Industry

• Despite their immense variety, all magazines share two traits: they are collections of articles and are released on a regular schedule (although digital versions may include continual updates). (261)
• The five major types of magazines include the following (262-266):
• Business-to-business magazines (trade magazines) target a particular profession or industry. The Standard Rate and Data Service directory divides these specializations into more than 200 categories.
• Consumer magazines reach a variety of audiences whose members buy and consume products and services advertised within them. (See Table 9.1 for circulation figures for magazines on various platforms.)
• Literary reviews and academic journals reach targeted audiences in academia, politics, or business. These are generally nonprofit, funded by associations or foundations, not advertising.
• Newsletters reach small numbers of readers and include specialized information for people in a variety of businesses or other areas of professional life.
• Comic books tell stories through pictures and words. They differ from graphic novels, which are longer and have more developed narratives.

Financing Magazine Publishing

• Magazines bring in money through advertising and through readers’ subscriptions (266-268, see Table 9.2 for the top ten magazine advertisers). Circulation declines make advertisers cautious about spending to reach audiences in magazines.
• The audiences for controlled circulation magazines are determined by publishers. They target specific audiences of interest to advertisers, which fund the publication. (267)
• Custom magazines are both consumer magazines and controlled circulation magazines with the goal of reaching customers. (267)
• Paid-circulation magazines are financed by subscription.
• Advertisers considering space in these magazines look at their circulation, or the number of units made available or sold during a publication cycle. (268)
• Magazines also will offer media kits to help entice advertisers. (268)
• These kits will highlight the market segments that the magazine can reach. (268-269)

Digital Circulation

• Subscriptions to digital editions of magazines, intended to help boost the traditional print versions’ readership, have been disappointing. (269)
• Most magazine executives feel an online presence, such as a website or a tablet format edition, is a necessity in this age of convergence. (269)
• These editions use interactive features to draw and keep audiences. (269)
• Magazine media kits will differentiate the audiences for different versions of the publication to help advertisers select ad placement options. (270)

Production in the Magazine Industry

Production in the magazine industry has five goals:

• Drawing an attractive audience: magazines attempt to reach upscale readers (and others of potential interest to advertisers) and develop content with such readers in mind. (272)
• Drawing a loyal audience: magazines attempt to build brand loyalty among their readers, so the readers become engaged with the content and presumably with the ads. (272)
• Creating a conducive environment: magazines generate content that is conducive to the presentation of the ads that are published. (272-273)
• Setting an efficient price: magazines are able to provide special editions that reach specific and lucrative audiences, even though the cost per thousand (CPM) for such special audiences may be higher than for nonspecially targeted editions. (273)
• Producing the magazine as a branded event, bringing together the magazine’s image across multiple media platforms. This includes “brand extensions” such as conferences, education programs, etc. (273-274)

Distribution in the Magazine Industry

Magazine distribution refers to the channels through which the magazine reaches its exhibition point, either in print or online. (274)

• Subscription and single-copy sales are the traditional methods of distribution. (275)
• The print magazine distribution system involves a distributor, a wholesaler, and a retailer. (275)
• Digital magazine distribution occurs through websites or apps. (275-276)

Exhibition in the Magazine Industry

• Although publishers don’t face too much inference with online exhibitors, print exhibition is much more competitive. (277)
• Most rack space goes to larger circulation magazines, and thus smaller magazines struggle to get a slot. (277)
• Larger companies will pay retail stores slotting fees to ensure their products get prominent placement. (277)
• Single-copy exhibition displays in stores are supplied by only two wholesalers. (277)
• Single-copy sales are on the decline, which creates a problem for magazines that use single-copy sales to get subscriptions. (277)

Media Ethics and the Magazine Industry

• Advertising is at the center of complaints about the magazine industry. In particular, critics worry about advertiser influence on magazine content. (278)
• Some industry executives find the relationship between advertisers and content both beneficial and inevitable. (278)
• Some magazines, such as Time, have policies that keep content and advertisers separate. (278)
• The labeling of advertising that does not clearly look different from editorial content must not be labeled “advertisement” as a way to protect consumers. (278)
• Other magazines are more fluid in their integration of advertisers’ products and messages within their content, particularly in online editions. (279-280)
• Media literacy asks whether this blurring of the line is unethical or beneficial. (280-281)

Chapter Recap

Like many other industries, the recording industry has been strongly affected by digital technologies, but the industry remains vocal in its claims of the devastating effects of piracy and video streaming services, which make money from advertising on music but which provide little compensation to music publishers or copyright holders.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Sketch the history of the recording industry.
2. Describe the enormous changes taking place in the industry as a result of digital technologies and convergence.
3. Explain how a recording is developed, from the time an artist creates a song to the time the recording ends up in your collection.
4. Explain the ways in which artists and recording companies make money.
5. Decide where you stand on the major ethical issues facing the recording industry today.

The Rise of Records

• During the last century people’s experiences with music shifted from performance to consumption, from playing instruments to listening to recordings. (286)
• Three themes emerge in the history of sound recording (see Figure 10.1 for a timeline of music industry history):
• Sound (or audio) recordings did not arrive as a result of one inventor’s grand change. (286)
• Audio recording as a medium of communication developed as a result of social and legal responses to technology during different periods. (287)
• The recording industry developed and changed as a result of struggles to control audio recordings and how they reach an audience. (288-290)

An Overview of the Modern Recording Industry

• Ownership is international: the major players are the largest media conglomerates operating globally. (290-291)
• The three largest recording companies are Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group. (291)
• Though global companies, such businesses look for local and regional talent, as that is where the money seems to be. (291)
• Production is dispersed: There are thousands of smaller, independent record companies, and digital technology makes it easy for new players to jump in. Independents (indies) are now the fourth largest distributor of recorded music in the United States, after Sony. (291)
• Distribution is concentrated: The three major recording companies base their clout on domination of distribution worldwide. (291-292; see Table 10.1 for global revenues)
• Multiple factors determine whether people buy music. Men and women are equally likely. Caucasian people also are more likely, whereas Asians, African Americans, and Latinos are less likely. Those ages 55 and older are less likely to buy than those younger, particularly with digital purchases of music. (293)
• The turn toward digital and away from physical music products has grown since 2011, the year more digital recordings than physical were sold. Now physical represents just 18 percent of industry sales. (293; see Table 10.2 for a breakdown of digital and physical sales in the United States.)
• Singles versus albums:
• Singles are important for radio airplay, but companies and artists make their money from album sales. A single refers to one to two songs, whereas an album is a collection of songs. (293)
• Subscription and ad-supported streaming firms, such as Pandora, cut further into individual purchases of music. (294)
• Diverse music genres (294-296):
• Multiple types of recorded music genres are now available worldwide. In 2017, for the first time, R&B/hip-hop overtook rock music as the most popular genre. (294; see Table 10.3 for share of total volume by genre for audio consumption by format)
• Billboard now differentiates between songs streamed by paying subscribers and those streamed on ad-supported sites when reporting music consumption data. (295)

Production and the Recording Industry

• Artists and labels seek each other out, but the industry is still a tough one to break into. (296-297)
• A label is a division of a recording firm that releases a certain type of music and reflects a certain “personality” or image. (297)
• An A&R (artist and repertoire) person has the responsibility of locating and signing new talent for record labels. (297-298)
• Groups typically hire managers to coordinate their development. (298)
• Artists may belong to the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) or the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). (298)
• The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) collect royalties for the various uses of recorded music. The royalties are a source of income for artists and are of two types (299):
• Performance royalties are paid to the composer, publishers, and labels when material is used in front of audiences.
• Mechanical royalties are collected as a result of the sale of physical media (e.g., CDs) or digital downloads (songs, albums, ringtones.)
• A producer is the person who keeps projects on budget, produces the record and handles details such as booking studio musicians and clearing copyrights. They are compensated on a royalty basis (about 2 to 4 percent of total retail sales). (299)
• Compensating artists (299-300):
• Studio musicians who help make an album are typically paid by the hour, beginning at union scale.
• The major artists are paid in royalties.
• Overall, making money in music is not easy, and the amount earned depends on the music format.

Distribution in the Recording Industry

• Distribution is the key to success in the recorded music industry; major labels send their releases directly to retail outlets, but much of the distribution is handled by wholesalers who move products to various outlets; the wholesalers work with both the majors and the independents. (301-304)
• The major labels create buzz about an impending release, and this gives them an advantage with wholesalers and retailers. (303)
• Independent, self-produced artists get to keep more money from their sales but are less likely to get their albums into stores. (302)
• Promotion has the goal of generating audience excitement around a recording artist; convergence allows these industries to push this promotion across different media outlets. (303-304)
• The recording industry and the radio industry (304-305):
• Radio stations rely on record companies for products; record companies rely on radio for airplay that stimulates record sales.
• Radio programmers tend to be very conservative in their music selections, and they may add only one new release to their playlists per week; the competition is daunting to get a new release on air.
• The Broadcast Data System tracks every song played on radio stations; SoundScan records sales at retail outlets; trade publications track airplay and sales. These lists help radio programmers make airplay decisions.
• Music promotion techniques (305):
• Music promoters are constantly contacting program directors to influence the airplay of releases.
• Payola is an illegal payment of money to a program director or DJ for the on-air use of a release; this is regarded as bribery.
• Video, television, and movie promotions (305-306):
• Cross-platform distributor VEVO brings music videos to different platforms for Sony and Universal.
• Various cable TV channels and Internet websites have emerged as important promotion avenues for recorded music.
• TV series and movies are also used to highlight recorded music, especially the work of new artists.
• Concert tours (306-307):
• Tours generate a lot of money and afford the opportunity to promote the artist’s albums in a variety of media along the way.
• A local promoter may be involved in setting up a particular date and venue as one part of the tour.
• Live Nation is a promotion company that helps with making arrangements and sharing the financial risks.
• The majors are starting to see that more money comes in through concerts than record sales.

Exhibition in the Recording Industry

• Exhibition is divided into two broad categories: digital downloads and physical sales (307-310)
• Subscription services such as Spotify have seen sharp sales growth. (308)
• Digital downloads occur through such programs as iTunes, but it is not as robust a sales point as it was. (308-309)
• Physical sales still occur, but are declining. (309-310)
• Independent music stores are slightly growing on the sales of vinyl records. (309)

Ethical Issues in the Recording Industry

• There are divided ethical views about song lyrics.  (310-311)
• Rap lyrics in particular come under fire, with some advocates calling for their cleanup, and others asking for warning labels. Others claim that rappers are artists and are seeking free expression. (311)

Chapter Recap

Digital sources of music, including MP3s and online streaming services, have deeply affected terrestrial radio, which attempts to compensate through targeting specific audience segments and joining online activities.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Sketch the history of the radio industry.
2. Explain the relationship between advertising and programming.
3. Detail the role of market research in the radio industry.
4. Examine critically the issues surrounding the consolidation of radio station ownership.
5. Discuss ways in which new digital technologies are challenging traditional radio.

The Rise of Radio

Three themes emerge in the history of radio (see Figure 11.1 for a timeline of radio’s history):

• Radio as we know it did not arrive in a flash as a result of one inventor’s grand change. (316)
• Radio as a medium of communication developed as a result of social, legal, and organizational responses to technology during different periods. (317-318)
• Technology was particularly important to radio’s development. A patent trust was developed so that companies could share the patents and keep other companies out of the industry. (317)
• U.S. courts broke the patent trust as a monopoly, paving the way for advertiser support, networks, and federal regulatory bodies to serve the “public interest.” (317)
• The radio industry developed and changed as a result of struggles to control audio channels and their relations to audiences. (320)
• Audio channels were broadcast through AM (amplitude modulation) and FM (frequency modulation). (320)

An Overview of the Terrestrial Radio Industry

• Despite competition for audiences and advertisers, the number of radio stations has grown. However, ownership of stations in and around big cities has grown concentrated. (321)
• Nielsen, the company that measures radio audiences, says more Americans tune into AM/FM radio than watch TV or use digital devices. Radio’s strength is its portability. But at-home listening is in decline. (322)
• The demographics of radio listeners are changing. (see Figure 11.2)
• The industry can be divided into AM and FM stations and into commercial and noncommercial stations, each of them with characteristic formats. (323-324)
• Radio market size (see Table 11.1):
• Market size tends to determine the number of stations available to consumers. (324)
• Program format segmentation has accompanied audience segmentation. (325)

Production in the Radio Industry

• A radio station’s format is governed by four parameters: the style of music the station plays, the time period of the music’s release, the music’s activity level (its dynamic impact), and the music’s sophistication (simplicity vs. complexity). (325-327, see Table 11.2 for a listing of top formats among stations)
• There are numerous program formats, sometimes determined with the help of a format consultant. (See https://newsgeneration.com/broadcast-resources/guide-to-radio-station-formats/ for a guide to radio formats.)
• The term narrowcasting refers to radio’s ever more specific targeting of audience segments. (327)
• Radio programmers try to determine the listening patterns of their audiences to effectively segment them. Consultants help stations develop personalities that listeners can readily recognize by means of so-called interstitials (jingles, speech patterns, etc.). (328)
• The general manager is in charge of the station’s entire operation, and the program director is in charge of maintaining the station’s format or sound; on-air talents work within the format and have several responsibilities during a typical on-air shift. (328-329)
• In order to maintain the integrity of the station format, DJs pull music from the station’s established playlist, formulated from audience research involving burn music tests and focus groups. (330-331)
• Stations use a so-called “format clock” or “format wheel” (a circular chart) to help on-air personnel maintain the requirements of the format (331; see Figure 11.6, p. 332)
• Morning and afternoon drive times are the periods of the day when most stations have their largest audiences and when the advertising rates are highest. (332)

Distribution in the Radio Industry

• Networks and syndicators provide programming geared for specific formats and aimed at specific audience targets. (333)
• Format networks provide a subscribing station with all of its programming, and automatic technology keeps the station on the air and running; such stations have little or no local programming. (333-334)
• Syndicated programming comes to stations often without costs. Instead, a barter allows the program to air and the syndicator gets to keep several minutes to sell advertising. (334)

Exhibition in the Radio Industry

• In radio, the exhibition point is the moment at which the program is broadcast. (335)
• There are several different kinds of advertising in radio: spot advertising with messages from major national advertisers, network advertising from the networks, local advertising from local businesses, digital advertising from a station’s website and/or app, and off-air revenue such as staged concerts. Local advertising, in particular, plays an important role in generating revenues for local stations. (335)
• Advertisers rely on research companies for information about radio station audiences; research is based on keeping listening diaries, portable people meters, streaming audio measurement, and focus groups. (336-337)
• Promotions such as contests or events are used to highlight advertisers and provide responses from listeners to advertisers. (338)
• Poor ratings often lead to changes in personnel and sometimes result in format changes, even though this is a risky move. (338-339)

Radio and the New Digital World

• Terrestrial radio has seen plummeting profits as audiences turn to other digital sources of music. (339)
• Satellite radio requires a special receiver. Sirius XM Radio provides subscription-based programming. (See Figure 11.7 on p. 340; 339-340)
• Online radio, also called audio streaming, uses the technologies at the core of the Internet. Two types include streaming by category or interest and streaming on demand. (341-342)

Traditional Radio’s Responses to Digital Music

• Although digital options do cut into terrestrial radio’s industry, some people see power in the curation function of traditional radio, meaning that radio still tells people about new music. (343)
• HD, or hybrid digital/analog radio, expands the number of stations available on a given frequency. (343)
• But digital options also allow and encourage curation among friends and other listeners. (343)
• One advantage is that most cars still come with radios, although connectivity in vehicles to mobile devices may prove challenging to terrestrial radio. (343)
• Terrestrial stations also join the online activities, including site streams, listener incentives, and other features. (343-344)

Media Ethics and the Construction of Radio Audiences

Three questions to ask about audience research (345-346):

• How do the methods used in audience research affect the kinds of facts collected about the people who use a medium?
• How do these facts, in turn, lead to certain ideas or pictures of those people?
• How do these ideas and pictures affect the extent to which, and the way in which, advertisers want to spend money to reach them?

Chapter Recap

In the hands of a small number of distributors, the global reach of today’s movie industry raises questions about its influence and impacts on cultural diversity and local cultures.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Explain the history of movies in the United States and how it affects the industry today.
2. Analyze the production, distribution, and exhibition processes for theatrical motion pictures in the United States and recognize the major players in each realm.
3. Describe how movies are financed and how they make money through various exhibition arrangements.
4. Analyze the relationship between movie distributors and theaters.
5. Explain the impact of new technologies and globalization on the movie industry.
6. Consider the impact of American movie culture on world culture.

The Rise of Motion Pictures

Three themes emerge when we consider the development of motion pictures: (see the timeline)

• The movies as we know them did not arrive in a flash as a result of one inventor’s grand change. (351-353)
• The movie as a medium of communication developed as a result of social, legal, and organizational responses to technology during different periods. (353-354)
• The movie industry developed and changed as a result of struggles to control its distribution to audiences. (354-355)

An Overview of the Modern Motion Picture Industry

• Virtually all theatrical films (feature films) made in the United States are now made available in a variety of nontheatrical locations, although their release still typically begins with theatrical showings and places importance on the box office receipts. (356-358)
• Spending on moviegoing has gone up fairly consistently (as have ticket prices). (356)
• People aged 25 to 39 buy the highest percentage of movie tickets.  (356, see Table 12.1 for a breakdown of ticket purchasing by age)
• Blockbusters are films that make more than $200 million in their U.S. theatrical release. (356-357, see Table 12.2 for 2017’s top 25 films in terms of box office)
• The international market for movies has become crucial to making profits on movies and have grown faster than U.S. box office revenues. (358)
• Exhibition is characterized by multiplexes (eight to fifteen screens) and megaplexes (more than sixteen screens). (358)

Production in the Motion Picture Industry

• The major studios remain very powerful in Hollywood, but they produce only one-third or less of the films on which their names are attached. Most films are produced by other companies—the majors act as distributors. (358)
• Film production firms come up with the material and the personnel to make the movie; film distribution firms find theaters and other outlets in which to show the films. (358)
• Independent producers also create titles that the majors pick up for distribution. (359)
• See Figure 12.2 for more about the process of making a movie. (360)
• Concepts coming from any number of places are turned into treatments and scripts, sometimes offered by a little-known writer on spec to a producer, who may turn it into a film; they also are presented in a pitch. Books are a major source of film concepts that may get the “green light.” (361)
• Foreign distribution has become a major source of revenue for Hollywood, explaining why action films are potentially so profitable. (361)
• Co-production agreements between countries help smooth the reception of movies in diverse populations. These are often problematic. (362)
• Signing a star to appear in a film sometimes involves the producer entering into back-end deals or offering percentages of the gross in negotiation with the star’s talent agent. (362)
• Producers must also meet the standards set by various unions and guilds. (362-363)
• A film is often chosen based on the available financing for its budget; so-called genre films are typically low budget. Different types of films are distributed in different ways. (363)
• Independent production companies (those not owned by a studio) often have very close ties to a studio’s distribution division. Selling the distribution rights to a film can help bring in money. (363-364)
• A good way to develop an understanding of the complexities of film production is to simply watch the credits at the end of a film. (see Figure 12.3, p. 365)
• A film line producer has the important function of making sure that the necessary equipment and personnel are where they need to be during the production phase. (366)
• One crucial element in the production process (as well as in the early stages of development when a producer may be looking for investors) is a contractual deal with a completion bond company, a specialized insurance firm that guarantees the film will actually be made, even if it runs over budget. (366)

Theatrical Distribution in the Movie Industry

Major distribution firms have two mandates: to get the films they distribute into theaters and to market these films effectively to target audiences. Major distributors distribute their own work and the work of others. (366-369)

• A film’s release date is an important part of the distribution strategy and uses two main strategies: wide release (including saturation releases) and limited release. (367-368)
• The marketing of films involves title testing and audience previewing of preliminary versions called rough cuts, sometimes resulting in significant changes to a film before it goes into distribution. (368)
• Publicity might involve appearances on talk shows, press conferences, a big premiere, and other activities. Word of mouth also sells the films among groups of friends. (369)
• Most movies make their greatest profit in the first few weeks of distribution, and tracking studies are used to understand how well (or poorly) the film is doing at any given time. (369)
• Marketing amounts to about half of the film’s negative cost (the total cost of making and editing the film). (369)

Theatrical Exhibition in the Motion Picture Industry

• The six largest theater chains control 56 percent of the screens on which films are shown in the United States. (370)
• Tension exists between distributors and exhibitors over the selection of films and the kind of deal that will make it possible for both parts of the industry to make a profit, the details of which are worked out in complex exhibition license agreements. (370-372)
• The financial arrangement typically involves a percentage of the ticket sales for the distributor or a percentage above-the-nut (the cost of doing business) for the exhibitor. (371)
• Digital and 3D screens, involving the distribution of films to theaters via satellite instead of sending reels of film, are now in nearly all U.S. movie theaters. (372)

Convergence and Nontheatrical Distribution and Exhibition in the Motion Picture Industry

• Money doesn’t just come from theatrical showings; “post-theatrical” sales, it also comes from television, streaming services, and DVD sales. (372)
• Sell-through outlets let customers buy videos and not just rent them. (373)
• Rental outlets allow people to rent the title on a pay-per-day basis. Although these used to be available in stores, Netflix now offers through-the-mail rentals, and Redbox offers rentals through vending machines. (373)
• The industry also has shifted to digital marketing and to online and mobile downloads. Social sites help spread word-of-mouth support for films. (373-373)
•  Video games are often inspired by popular movies and provide interest in renting or purchasing the original film. (373)

The Shift to Online and Mobile Downloads

• Evidence of digital convergence in the motion picture industry can be seen in the variety of platforms to which films are made available to consumers. (374)
• Downloads can be replayed and migrated from one device to another. On-demand movies allow viewing on a variety of devices, but only for a set amount of time. (374)
• See Table 12.2 for a sample breakdown of total film revenue by revenue type. (375)

The Problem of Piracy

• Film piracy, the unauthorized duplication of films for profit, is a major industry problem. Technologies allowing people to stream premium video channels without paying are also a concern. (376-377)

Media Ethics and the Motion Picture Industry

• The movie industry remains a central element within American and global culture and is dominated by a handful of major distributors. (377)
• All of the major studios and distributors are tied to the major media conglomerates that use their Hollywood assets in concert with other parts of their operations. (377)
• Critics of the Hollywood system sometimes argue that its industrial practices narrow the range of cultural diversity in films and that the enormous influence of U.S. distributors results in cultural colonialism in countries with smaller economies. (377-380)

Chapter Recap

Digital technologies have changed the ways in which we “watch television.” At the same time, advertisers are trying to find ways to address audiences through tighter and tighter targeting of their messages through different devices and platforms.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Compare and contrast broadcast, cable, satellite, and over-the-top (OTT) television.
2. Explain the role of advertisers in these four forms of television.
3. Name and describe the different types of cable, satellite, and OTT services.
4. Identify the ways in which broadcasters, cable companies, satellite, and OTT companies produce, distribute, and exhibit programming.
5. Describe the issues facing the TV industry and society in a rapidly changing TV world.

The Rise of Television

Three themes emerge in the historical developments of television (see Figure 13.1 for a timeline of television history):

• Television as we know it did not arrive in a flash as a result of one inventor’s grand change. (384)
• Television broadcasting is the electronic scanning and transmission of image and sound, which, when received, is reconverted into visual images. (384-385)
• Television as a medium of communication developed as a result of social, legal, and organizational responses to technology during different periods. (385)
• Motion picture executives saw television as competition and refused to deal with the major television networks.
• Early television shows were broadcast live. I Love Lucy was the first show to be recorded on film and then syndicated. (388)
• The television industry developed and changed as a result of struggles to control its channels to audiences. See the timeline for milestones in this struggle. (389)
• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulated which channels would be available in different parts of the country and the amount and kinds of programming received.

An Overview of the Television Industry

The contemporary industry can be divided into three increasingly converging parts (390):

• Television broadcasting,
• Subscription cable and satellite services,
• Online and mobile platforms.

• Television broadcasting consists of over-the-air signals. (391)
• Stations are either commercial (i.e., advertising supported) or noncommercial (i.e., supported in other ways). The FCC allocates the frequencies. (see Table 13.1 for the top and bottom five TV markets) (391)
• TV broadcasting is dominated by the Big Four commercial networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC), which are all vertically integrated and operate owned-and-operated (O&O) stations, as well as provide program feeds to their many network-affiliated stations. (391-392)
• TV broadcasting is further divided into station groups and the so-called “independents,” which are not affiliated with a network. (392-393)
• Cable, telco, and satellite services are collectively called multichannel subscription video programming distributors (MVPDs). (see Table 13.2 for the top ten MVPD systems owners) (393-394)
• Cable television systems are typically owned by a multiple system owner (MSO) and provide a multitude of cable networks and premium subscription networks. (394)
• Telcos refer to the traditional telephone companies, such as Verizon and AT&T, that offer multichannel services. (394)
• Satellite television comes from a satellite orbiting the earth. Direct broadcast satellite technology allows subscribers to receive programming direct from the communication satellites. (394-395)
• Online and mobile platforms provide ways of streaming online content both at home and wherever a broadband signal allows. Though pirating does occur, the industry sees advantages to making this content available online. (395)
• It is difficult to determine the “return on investment” for streaming video distributors (e.g. Netflix), as they don’t report expenses for specific programs or audience numbers. (396)

Production in the Television Industry

• In cable television, the major kind of production is the lineup of channels, determined by the technological limitations of the system, the amount of money a network demands from exhibitors, and whether the exhibitor owns a piece of the network. (396)
• Each cable network engages in a form of production that creates a format, the entire flow of programming on a cable network. (396-397)
• Cable networks charge license fees that allow cable operators to carry their programming. (397-398)
• The cable TV industry offers different levels of programming called tiering. Various subscription tiers include basic cable, expanded (or enhanced) basic, digital cable, premium channels, pay-per-view (PPV), and video on demand (VOD). (see Table 13.3 for information about pricing) (398-399)
• Producing broadcast channel lineups now occurs in digital form. HDTV allows a higher-quality signal, which some stations use, or they divide the signal through channel multiplexing or multichannel broadcasting to generate more ad revenue. (399-400)
• Producing online/mobile lineups is more thematic or type-based. (400-409)
• Subscription video on demand (SVOD) provides access to movies and TV series for a fee. Some offer “slim bundles” offering smaller numbers of linear TV channels for a lower cost. (400)
• Over-the-top television refers to viewers’ use of Internet services to watch broadcast television while avoiding cable, satellite, or other subscription fees. Cutting the cord refers to those who cancel those subscriptions. Cord shavers reduce their level of services but still keep some. (400-401)
• Local or network programmers typically consider four factors when deciding on their intended audience targets: the competition, the available pool of viewers, the interests of sponsors, and the costs of relevant programming. (401)
• The Nielsen Media Research company dominates the television audience ratings business and uses people meters and viewer diaries to estimate the size of television audiences. (402)
• Ratings measurements taken during periods called sweeps—conducted in the months of February, May, July, and November—are crucial to the success of television programs because they help determine advertising rates. (403)
• Nonlinear viewing is becoming an important cross-platform rating measure.
• Programmers develop schedules for different day parts, including the most important day part: prime time. (405)
• The basic building block of a television schedule is the program series, usually a weekly program that attracts predictable audiences based on its regular availability. (405)
• Scheduling techniques include establishing strong lead-in and lead-out programs, encouraging audiences to sample a new series scheduled in between, a position called the hammock. (406)
• A position in the schedule is called a program time slot, and programmers use the strategy of counterprogramming when determining which shows go into which time slots. Counterprogramming is the practice of scheduling a program that does not directly compete for the same target audiences that competing programs seek. (406)
• A program idea typically emerges as a pitch made by producers to programmers. This is followed by a treatment, the establishment of the program’s format, and concept testing. This leads to the production of a pilot episode and the test viewing of the pilot in a preview theater. (406-409)

Distribution in the Television Industry

• Television networks distribute programming to their various affiliated stations throughout the country. (409)
• When programming appears online, networks don’t necessarily receive the license fees but instead a percentage of ad revenues. (409)
• Independent stations are non-network affiliates that rely on the production of their own programming or on syndication to fill their schedules. (409)
• Stripping refers to a five-day-a-week placement of a show. (410)
• Off-network syndication is an important part of television distribution and involves the reuse of network series by local stations. (410)
• Cable and satellite networks also make use of off-network syndication to fill their schedules. (410-411)
• See Table 13.4 for the top fifteen syndicated shows.
• So-called out-of-home or captive audience locations (waiting rooms, airport waiting areas, etc.) also constitute an increasingly important outlet for programs distributed by networks and cable services. (411)
• International distribution is a lucrative part of the television business. (411)
• Streaming television online faces some resistance from viewers as the industry tries to figure out how to get people to watch commercials. (412)

Exhibition in the Television Industry

• Broadcast television stations face even more competition than in the past. (413)
• Whereas broadcasters are limited to advertising and retransmission revenues, other providers have access to ad and subscription revenues. (413)
• Recently, more people are dropping their cable subscriptions and opting for streaming devices and services instead. As this number grows, satellite firms will lose (cable is cheaper), and the system of charging subscribers for a wide range of channels few visit will be undermined. (413-414)

Media Ethics: Converging Screens, Social Television, and the Issue of Personalization

• “Watching television” now means more than watching the actual device. (414)
• People might even use multiple screens to watch, using one to watch the program and others to research and discuss the show with others; this is called social television. (414-415)
• Advertisers are intrigued by social television and are looking for ways to customize advertising messages through these means by gathering data and sending back relevant commercial messages. They call this “addressable television.” (415)
• These messages might be customized to different audience demographics and other criteria, according to the data gathered. Whereas one person might see a luxury car ad, another might see a budget car ad. (415)
• Should audiences have a say in whether advertisers engage in these practices or not? (415-416)

Chapter Recap

Video games are immensely popular among a variety of audiences, including older adults and women, and like other media discussed in this book, they are appearing across devices and platforms.

Chapter Objectives:

1. Sketch the development of video games.
2. Describe video game genres.
3. Review the production, distribution, and exhibition of video games.
4. Chart major social controversies surrounding video games.

The Rise of the Video Game Industry

Three themes emerge within the historical development of the video game industry. Though a chapter entirely dedicated video games might seem unusual, as an industry they fit within the patterns seen in previous chapters, especially convergence. (419, see Figure 14.1 for a timeline of video game developments)

• The video game did not arrive in a flash as a result of one inventor’s grand change. (421)
• The pinball machine was the first step and could be found at entertainment arcades. (421-422)
• The video game as a medium of communication developed as a result of social and legal responses to technology during different periods. (422)
• The Internet brought bulletin boards, multiuser dungeons (MUDs), and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). (422)
• The video game industry developed and changed as a result of struggles to control its channels to audiences. (423)
• The industry has seen concentration and growth in software companies and in console manufacturers. (423)
• Controversy around game content, especially violence and stereotyping, has led to self-regulation. (423)

The Contemporary Shape of the Video Game Industry

• According to the Entertainment Software Association, 64 percent of Americans have played video games. About 45 percent of players are female and 55 percent male, breaking the stereotype of teenage boys being the primary audience for the games. (424)
• Purchasers of games feel they get more value for their money compared to DVDs, movies, music, and streaming services. (424)
• Video game hardware refers to the devices on which video games are played; these include gaming consoles, desktop or laptop computers, interactive television connections, handheld systems, and mobile devices. (425)
• Some websites will draw casual gamers, whereas others might play social games with their friends. (426)
• MMORPG publishers host virtual worlds and store information about the players (who use avatars). (426)
• Handheld game devices, once a rising market, have fallen in sales as mobile devices are being used for game play. (426)
• Interactive television is a growing area of game delivery and play. Telcos charge customers beyond basic fees to access playing areas. (426)
• Video game publishers coordinate the production of video games. Like publishers in other industries, they take care to produce titles they think will draw audiences and sales. (428)
• Console manufacturers have publishing divisions that create games exclusive for their consoles. (428-429)
• Third-party publishers, like Electronic Arts, create games that work on multiple platforms. (429)
• The video game industry also categorizes games very specifically. Video games are quite expensive to make, and it has become more and more “hit driven” since the 2000s. (429-431)
• Software genres for video games include action games, adventure games, casual games, simulation games, strategy games, sports games, and edutainment. (431-433)
• Because of games’ popularity among women and older adults, advertisers have taken an interest in video games. They primarily use two techniques: creating custom games and embedding ads in games. (433-435)
• Rewarded ads have players watch a short video ad in return for enhanced game play.
• Dynamic in-game advertising changes ads on the fly based on player age and geographic location. (435)

Distribution and Exhibition of Video Games

• Games reach audiences through cable streaming, Internet downloading, and discs or cartridges. The physical media can be purchased through brick-and-mortar retail stores or online from outlets such as Amazon.com. (435)

Video Games and Convergence

• Convergence enables game play across devices, enables promotion of games across media, and enables synergy through licensing fees as games become franchises, such as Tomb Raider. (436-437)

Media Ethics: Confronting Key Issues

• Similar to other industries explored in this book, ethics questions come into play with video games. These issues include (1) concerns over content, such as violence and the hypersexualization of women; (2) privacy, such as how much data video games gather, how they use them, and how they secure them; and (3) self-regulation, which intersects with both content rating and privacy principles. (437-444, see Table 14.1 for ESRB’s ratings of top video games)