Chapter 12 - Advertising

Advertising has probably been around since the beginning of trade, just not in the way we recognize it. After the American Civil War it became an industry. Advertising can have benefits and disadvantages. For example, it is criticized as it is intrusive, deceptive and exploits children. However it is beneficial because it supports our economic system (as mentioned earlier, it financially funds all media) and is education. Departments that can be found in advertising agencies are; administration, account management, creative, media, market research, and public relations. There are many ways to measures an ads effectiveness such as copy testing, consumer juries, forced exposure, recognition tests, recall testing and awareness tests. Advertisements can be found everywhere and anywhere there is commerce.

Chapter 11 - Public Relations

There are four stages that sum up the history of Public Relations; early public relations, the propaganda-publicity stage, early two way communication stage, and the advanced two way communication stage. There are five reasons which have developed Public Relations into what it is now; advances in technology, growth of middle class, growth of organizations, better research tools, and professionalization. While advertising focuses on the organization's communication strategies to get the audience, PR focuses on the management functions. Convergence in the form of video news releases and viral marketing along with other aspects have reshaped PR.

Chapter 10 - The Internet

The concept of the Internet was developed by the U.S. military to keep in contact with troops abroad. However, the "computer" in which the Internet started in were very powerful machines and nothing like the ones we know today. Bill Gates developed the personal computer along with a team including Steve Jobs. The most used thing on the Internet is the World Wide Web which relies on a system of hosts to bring users onto a website. In the 1960's a public intellect, Marshall McLuhan, talked about the global village and how soon the world will become a world without boarders and that media will be an extension of individuals' bodies. Which is true, the Internet has compressed the idea of time and space. The internet is a weapon of the people for the people where freedom of expression is taken to another level with no one there to really regulate it. This has lead to governments censorship over pornography, protection of copyrights and threats to identity. Another problem the Internet has created is, there used to be a economic gap in societies, and now there is a technological/informational gap as well. The Internet has reshaped all of existing media which has made the world an interconnected place.

Chapter 8 - Television

Paul Nipkow invented the first device to transmit images. After that John Baird added to it so it would be able to send images long distance. In the 1920's, Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth contributed by developing an electronic scanning technology which allowed for the public to receive television by 1939. In the 1950's it was reported that quiz shows would fix the outcome due to advertisers and producers wanting a specific winner. This lead to spot commercial sales, instead of selling blocks of time, an advertisement agency would have to buy a 60-second spot to enhance the diversity. Because of an actress named Lucille Ball, and her demands as to how she wanted her show I Love Lucy to be produced, film reruns were possible, the television industry moved to Hollywood, and weekly series could now be produced. McCarthyism also changed the television industry. With the Red Scare (being afraid of communists) Senator Joseph McCarthy was telling a lot of lies but then got caught. This incident was the first time people saw how television can be their eyes and ears. Cable was then discovered in 1948, which allowed for more channels to be transmitted. With the advancement of technology, things such as VCR and DVD and the Internet make it possible to have interactive television.

Chapter 7 - Radio, Recording and Popular Music

With the foundation that Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse Code, Guglielmo Marconi, Reginald Fessenden, Lee DeFrost, Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner were able to all contribute individually to making radio as we know it today. Throughout the first half of the 1900's, many Radio Acts were put in place which eventually lead to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate the radio industry. In the 1920's, before the television was popular, it was known as the golden age for radio where advertising became a big part of its structure. After its deregulation, 60% of the world's recorded music market is controlled by 4 major companies.

Chapter 6 - Film

Movies became popular at the beginning of the 20th century, which at first were dominated by big studios but as soon as the talkies came which allowed for different genres the fighting and rising of other studios came about. With the expansion came the three components of the film industry which are; production, distribution and exhibition. These exponents are controlled by studios which come in one of three forms; major, corporate independent and independent studios. Due to conglomerates, we now have something called "blockbusters" which is a measure of what movie is successful and what is not. Convergence is also effecting movies as people can get free movies online instead of buying DVDs or going to the theatre. Advertising in movies is a lot like books, product placement is key to it.

Chapter 5 - Magazines

The beginning of magazines was very entertaining for the British and American elites. Due to improved transportation, reduced postal costs, increased literacy the mass circulation of magazines was possible after the Civil War in the USA. After the television was brought about  magazines had to change it up and become more specialized to attract readers. Subscription, single-copy sales, and controlled circulation are the forms of magazines distribution. Of course, when internet came about and convergence did its magic, there are now few magazines that are flourishing online. However on the upside, it is cheaper to have an online magazines as printing is extremely expensive.

Chapter 4 - Newspapers

Unlike books, Newspapers were the first medium to rely on advertisement revenues for financial support. Newspapers have also been around since the Ancient Greeks, but in a much simpler form called Acta Diurna, which was a page hung up on a "bulletin board" for the whole town to see. Like books, Newspapers were and still are a way to empower society, it was specifically in the heart of the American Revolution as the protection of the press was included in peoples freedom of speech. Newspapers first targeted the elite but through the penny press started to target a mass audience. Even though nowadays the amount of people who read newspapers have decreased tremendously, it is still a source of advertising. Because of this, joint operating agreements (JOA), falling papers merge with successful ones but keep their administration and reporting departments separate to continue in the business. Due to all the conglomerates, traditional ethnic journalistic values are being broken as journalists cannot write freely and must censor themselves so they do not agitate a big company. Due to convergence, there are more and more online newspapers which come for a cheaper price than physical newspapers. The unanswered question is will newspapers lose their business completely? We still do not know.

Chapter 3 - Books

Credits go to Gutenburg and his printing press for allowing the mass production of printing to take place. This allowed for books to be the first mass medium, in specific the bible. After the mass production of the Bible, other books were printed and distributed which increased the number of literate individuals.They are a powerful cultural force as they are agents of social and cultural change, important cultural repositories, windows on the past, a source of entertainment and a much personal activity than other mediums. Because of these reasons books are often targeted to be censored. However aliteracy, when people are able to but choose not to read, does the censoring on behalf of the government. Convergence, the process where two mediums are combined together to make one medium, has allowed for new authors to get their work out there through e-publishing such as e-books. Since books are one of the mediums where advertisement has extremely limited place for it, product placement in books is the main type of advertising.

Chapter 2 - Convergence and the Reshaping of Mass Communication

The system in which mass media operates has been constantly changing ever since the 1830's. The mediums associated with it have been increasing - newspapers then came magazines, motion pictures, radio, television and finally the Internet. Before the internet all the mediums complemented each other and prospered side by side. Due to the Internet's impact, the media has faced significant changes   in the forms of concentration of ownership, audience fragmentation, hyper-commercialization and convergence. The process of mass communication has also changed due to the fact that people are increasingly developing media literacy skills. Individuals are now the content producer and receiver as Charles Bigelow said "our society is changing from consumers to creators. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) helps with this as it allows the audience to create their own profiles and put any content they want. Because of the internet and wireless satellite transactions in general, the feedback process has changed and there is immediate, detailed feedback which was not possible before.

Chapter 1 - Mass Communication, Culture, and Media Literacy

Mass communication is creating shared media from a mass media producer to their audience. Mass media is defined as the transmission of a message from a source to a receiver through a medium. This message is encoded (through signs, symbols, dialogue) by a sender and decoded (interpreted) by a receiver. Throughout history media has been transferred from word of mouth and has evolved into newspapers, radio and now with the internet has allowed us to combine two forms of mediums into one, this is known as convergence. Examples of convergence would be e-books, online newspapers, and the list goes on and on. This creates a pop culture that is shared all around the world as the internet allows for this process to become instantaneous and viewed anywhere.