TR 2:25 p.m. Study Resource Material

Perspectives on Mass Communication (blog + class + text) 

Functions of the mass media:

• Surveillance

- To get information

-Ex. Checking the weather

• Interpretation

- Answers “so what?” of surveillance

-Ex. someones speculates upcoming events of sports team after a bad performance

• Linkage

- Primary Function of mass media

- Links message from source to receiver

-Ex. Someone receiving a message from an advertisement 

• Transmission of values

- Actions influenced by media

-Ex. Using an idea of a date that someone saw in a movie

• Entertainment

- Any form of pleasure from a media source

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Group: Ellie, Lauren, Sahara, Noah

Notes on Rules of Language for Intro to Media Industries Exam

Language is a tool with multiple functions:

•    establish identities

•    form relationships

•    comfort others

•    helps us to make sense of the world

•    primary means of connecting with others

Language: The ability to use symbols to represent ideas/objects we want to share with others. Not necessarily words (morse code, sign language, etc.)

·      Once we know the rules of language we no longer need to pay conscious attention to them

Symbols: Can be a written letter or character of the language (vocal sound, nonverbal cue)

Referents: What the symbol (or combination of symbols) refers to

Thoughts:  Abstract idea developed in our minds

All together these make The Triangle of Meaning

Inherited Communication: Genetic codes that tell us what to do

Learned Communication:  Experience, we learn what to expect

Phonemic rules: Relates to pronunciation and the basic sounds in the English language (44)

Semantic rules: The meanings associated sounds, words, or letters; the smallest sound being a morphene. This can be difficult to learn for those beginning to learn the language. Related to General Semantics, a field of com study on ridding misunderstandings between people

Structural/syntax rules: Basic grammar

Pragmatic rules: How the language is actually used, related to normative rules (what is considered appropriate, following societal norms).

The Speech Act Theory explains the pragmatic rules for accomplishing tasks (the intention being a question, request, etc.)

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Elements in communication:

Source:

• The source is the distributor of a message.

Encoding:

• Taking a thought and putting it into a symbol i.e. sounds, images, writing, etc...

Message:

• The message is the content of media itself.

Channel:

• A medium used to get a message across.

Decoding:

• Understanding the symbols used to convey a message.

Receiver:

• The audience receiving a message.

Feedback

• A response to a message
• Instantaneous feedback: Feedback as message is happening (social media).
• Delayed feedback: Feedback after a message is received (Nielsen ratings).

Noise

• Anything that intervenes with the receiver getting the message.

Forms of communication:

The Major Mass Media:

• The compilation of all things media
• Print
• News papers
• Magazines
• Books
• Electronic
• TV
• Radio
• Internet
• Movies
• Sound recording
• Videogames

Intrapersonal communication:

• Communication within oneself

Interpersonal communication:

• Communication from person to person

Small Group communication:

• Communication between small groups. (They tend to make better decisions)
• Groupthink
• The Ringelmann theory

Public communication:

• One person speaking to a group or crowd

Mass communication:

• The ability to communicate with several people, usually in numbers of the millions.

Common characteristics of traditional mass media outlets:

• Complex and formal
• Multiple gatekeepers
• Need vast cash to operate
• Exist to make a profit
• Highly competitive

Future of mass media (segmentation, convergence, disintermediation)

Segmentation:

• The concern that content has become too spread out. There isn’t one network for you to get all of the content you need, you now have to rely on different networks to give different kinds of content.

Convergence:

• The concern that all media is accessible from one device.

DIsintermediation:

• The concern of a lack of gatekeepers, allowing content to reach the masses without being monitored.

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Media timeline

There are eight milestones in communication evolution:

·             Language –

• Information was passed down through generations verbally
• Only what could be remembered could withstand time
• When mankind shifted to more agricultural societies, there needed to be more effective methods of record keeping

·             Writing –

• Sign writing VS phonetic writing
  • Graphic images were assigned to meanings (Egyptian hieroglyphics, Chinese pictographs)
  • Symbols were created that could be strung together to create words, sentences, and phrases (alphabet letters)
  • The Phoenicians created the first alphabet but the Romans are credited for our current 26 letter structure
• Clay VS paper
  • Egyptians wrote on woven papyrus
  • Greeks used parchment
  • Chinese used tree bark
• Writing created a social hierarchy of those who were literate and those who were not
• Laws could be facilitated easier
• Knowledge could be passed down through generations

·             Printing—

• Though early Asian variations of printing existed before 1453. Johann Gutenberg invented his movable metal type and revolutionize communication. Printing became cheap, quick, and error-free.

• Effects of the Gutenberg revolution   
  • helped standardize and popularize everyday languages, which led to the growth of nationalism in Europe in the middle ages
  • quick and easy access to information to a wider range of people
  • increase in literacy because more books were made
  • generated new schools of social and religious doctrines during the Reformation Era
  • accelerated publications of scientific research
  • published maps and geographical information to help early explorations
  • profound effect on the growth of accumulated knowledge
  • led to the current concept of “news”
• Technology and Cultural Change
  • Too much credit given to a specific technology, we risk viewing social development through the narrow lens of technological determinism.
  • moderate position might suggest that technology functions with various social, economic, and cultural forces to help bring about those changes
  • moveable type marked the start of what we generally define as mass communication, critical event in Western History     

·             Telegraph/telephone—

• Telegraph was the first device that made possible instantaneous point-to-point communication at huge distances
• Sent codes across wires using electric currents, specifically Morse Code
• Telephone came soon after, linking people by voice
• Quickly became a must-have in all homes due to ability to offer networking and private communications

·             Photography

• Two inventions were needed to make photography a reality:

. a way to focus light rays from a subject onto a surface

. a way to permanently store (and copy) those images

• In the 16th century artists discovered that they could project an inverted image of a subject in the end of a dark box through a pinhole at the other end of the box, a device called the camera obscura (dark chamber).
• Photography also affected art. Photography freed artists to interpret the world and events in new and unique ways.
• Enabled people to create a permanent record of their personal histories.
• Easy to publish photographs in magazines and newspapers, creating a new profession—photojournalism.
• Americans could now see, rather than have to read, newsworthy events.

Motion Pictures

• Only the large companies who could afford to produce feature length films survived
• Forever altered our concept of leisure time activities
• Mass culture of idolized film stars, movie images, and popularized portrayals of model “American” values and cultural icons was created.

·             Radio

• Radio transmitted messages through tower signals (radio waves)
• TV did the same, provided visuals
• One-way communication (viewers could not directly respond to content)
• Helped launch creation of “pop music” concept
• First medium aimed at children because of a viable commercial market
• Radio news was introduced in the 1930s-40s because of serious world events
• Became prime source for news

Television

• Started in the early 1950s
• Americans spent more and more time in front of a television set
• TV sets are in 99% of American homes

·             Digital media/handheld devices--

• Linked together using wireless technology
• Interconnection allows users to hook into the worldwide phone networks/Internet

• Allowed audiences to watch/listen away from home/work
• Allowed audiences to interact with each other
• “   “    “    “    “   “    “    respond to content provided by corporations/networks
• Allow for mobile parenting
• TIME SOFTENING (“I’m running late” “Oh ok”)
• Allowed audiences to organize illegal activities
• Distraction from everyday life (driving, face-to-face communication)

Cate Tauriello
Ithaca College '19
B.S. in Communications, Television-Radio
ctauriello1@ithaca.edu

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Why does media exist in the US? Media exists to make money

How is media different from other countries? Less restrictive because of freedom of the press

Networks: - they purchase programs from TV production houses to air on their affiliate stations, then sells commercial times and inserts those commercials into the programs they transmit to their affiliates.

    Parent Companies:
        ABC -> Disney
        NBC -> Universal

        CBS -> Paramount
        Fox -> 20th Century Fox
        CW -> Warner Bros
                    Sony

Affiliates: - promises to broadcast a network's programming line up; they receive direct payments from the networks along with some advertising spots to sell.

Studios: Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, 20th Century Fox Pictures, Warner Bros, Sony...

Syndicators: - an exclusive agent who represents a producer's show to all the TV stations that are constantly shopping around for a product. Receives money via barter sales or they could get a cut of the station license fee

Advertisers: - advertising income finances broadcast media content and supports the commercial broadcast industry.  

*most expensive parts of day for advertising are prime time and fringe

Systems

Commercial: - relies solely on advertising
Cable/Satellite: - combination of subscription fees and advertising
Public: - relies on funding from CPB, viewers like you and contributions from foundations

Nielsen Media Research: provides TV ratings

- Share = only TVs that are on (percentage of TVs on)
- Rating = all households with TV (percentage of households)

PRICES for commercials during these shows:

top overall show: sunday night football ->$637,000

top cable show: the walking dead -> $502,000

top comedy: Big Bang Theory ->$290,000

top broadcast show: Empire ->$522,000

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Advertising Overview and AppInventor

Steps to an Advertising Campaign:

1. Choosing the marketing strategy: This means to position your product. For example if your product was iced tea, your area of competition would be other soft drinks. 
2. Selecting Main Appeal or Theme: Something to identify your product by like a mascot, jingle, etc. Something to make your product more appealing.
3. Translating Theme to Various Media: There are 6 ways to translate your theme: TV commercial, radio commercial, colored ad, black and white ad, a billboard, or online. 
4. Producing the Ads: Radio ads are often created with scripts, sound effects, music, and professional voice talent. Television ad production starts with a storyboard, a series of drawings depicting key scenes of the planned ad and are usually shown to the client before any actual production begins. Television ads are the most expensive ads to produce, a 30-second commercial can easily cost more than $400,000.
5. Buying space/time for ads: Agencies buying commercials they deem most cost effective for their product. 
6. Executing and Evaluation the Campaign: To deliver your plan to the client and see how effective the ads were on the sales of the product. 

AppInventor

Designer 

Palette: Initial screen of app inventor where various elements of an app are found. You can design what the app will look like.

Viewer: How the app will look on the phone.

Components: things we’ve added

Properties: Where we change how things look and sound like on the app.

Blocks

Built in drawers, for all coding the first must be event handlers, then the inside must be setters and getters.

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Golden Age for Women in TV

2013-2014 only 15.1 percent of executive producer credits went to women, down from 18.6 percent in 2011-2012

Number of women in TV has basically flatlined since 2001

TV vs Internet: Who Will Win?

• As content is turning to the internet, advertising is following
  • as audiences migrate away from live television, Netflix and Amazon are training viewers to expect entertainment without the interruption of ads.
  • Consumers have constant access to the internet, not to their televisions
• Other opinions state that moving towards the internet is a trend that will die out

TV 2015- The Future in Questions

- Deals with the future of the TV industry such as what the viewers find what is good for them, ways to find televison shows that matches their interest.

-Its harder to get people to pay for something to watch tv when they pay nothing to watch what their getting.

TV 2015- 5 Lessons Learned from Premiere Week

• “The Big Four's primetime ratings among adults 18-to-49 dropped 13 percent, year to year.”
  • “Schedules still matter,” the time slot a show is in affects the amount of viewers it gets, the shows it follows also have an affect
  • “Awareness won’t always help reboots,” just because a show is a reboot doesn’t mean it will be successful
  • Social media attention does not relate to number of shows
  • It takes about 30 days to get a full picture of the success of a show, the executives are looking for “growth potential more than anything else.” Same day ratings mean little.

TV vs Film, Part I

• expresses the threats of the film industry with the use of video streaming and on demand and other media distribution
• Concern of loss of subscribers from the cable network

TV vs Film, Part II  

- Television is torching film at major media companies

-”For television, the increase in the number of cable networks and video streaming services has created fresh opportunities to leverage hit programming through syndication.”

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