Class Review and Response: Conglomeration Pros and Cons

     Conglomeration, which is when one big company buys may small companies in order to become even larger and wealthier. All you hear these days seems to have to do with one of those huge companies, like Disney. This is because of conglomeration. In class we had a big visual map displaying which mega companies owned which smaller company, and none of us could think of a single well-known American company that was not actually owned by a larger company. 

     There are several pros and cons to conglomeration, which I will discuss briefly.

Pros: Why is Conglomeration Good?

     Conglomeration makes a lot of money, for one thing. This is, of course, the main reason for doing it. It's also much more efficient, and gets rid of redundancy.

Cons: Why is Conglomeration Bad?

     Conglomeration causes a loss in jobs when one company buys another. The main problem, however, is that it gets rid of diversity. Whereas previously there would be a large variety of merchandise, news, media, etc., after conglomeration, the many companies owned by the mega corporation are all doing something similar. Conglomeration causes a monopoly.

Class Review and Response: Internet and Music

 In class recently, we discussed how the introduction of recordings changed the music industry. We talked about how, before recordings, music was used to spread news and information. It could only be heard live, could not be distributed, and was spread from person to person. Because of this method of spreading the music, it was often distorted. Inventions such as the phonogram and gramophone introduced recordings. We discussed this thoroughly in class, but what other technology, primarily the internet, has had an effect on music?

Internet
     The internet became a whole new way to share information and media. With these new methods of exchanging information, music and music distribution were changed greatly. Below are various websites and services that had an effect.

Legal Digital Downloads (iTunes, etc.)
      iTunes and other digital download services provided an all new way to access music. Now, you don't have to purchase a whole album; you can download as much or as little as you want for a low price, directly onto your phone or MP3 player, from your home.

Illegal Digital Download (Music Sharing Sites)
      Of course, the internet isn't all necessarily good. The internet also provides a way to share and access a variety of music for free downloading. It is illegal, but is widely used nonetheless.

YouTube
     YouTube is a way to listen to music as well as multitudes of other videos. It created an easy way to see official music videos, lyric videos, and new artists. With YouTube, aspiring artists don't have to have a record deal to gain fame. Many people are well known just from homemade videos of themselves covering a popular song. They receive fame in the form of millions of views and payment from advertisements.

Classmate Response: Florida Boy Finds Ancient Canoe While Scuba Diving

      Skye Spalding's blog recently had a post critiquing an article about a seven year old boy who found a canoe. Skye does well in pointing out that the article isn't completely newsworthy, saying that it doesn't impact a lot of people for a long period of time. After reading the article, I definitely saw her point. While it was sort of interesting, it didn't have any information that would affect many people. If the canoe was anything that potentially significant historically, it would have been important. However, it was just a plain canoe. The only thing of interest was that it is being tested to see what type of wood it is made from and how old it is. Whatever information is determined will still not have any lasting effect. Skye showed this very well. I did have one critique, which is that she failed to include the link to the original story in her blog post. The link is, however, in the comments of that post.

Media Critique: I'd Tell You to Get to the Point but There isn't One

     I was looking through different news websites and found this article about smartphone shipments and couldn't resist the opportunity to write a media critique on the article.

Smartphone Shipments to Surpass One Billion for First Time By Jennifer Booton 

     I felt that this "news" article deserved a critique because it ignores both one yardstick of journalism and one basic principle, both having to do with the same main problem. That problem is:

     What is the point of this article?

     Exactly. There isn't one. It probably won't come as a surprise to you that this article was brought to you by Fox News.

     Anyway, one of the yardsticks of journalism, titled "Newsworthiness", makes it clear that any and all stories should have a "direct and lasting...informational impact on a wide audience". This just means that any article that you are thinking about writing should only take up your time and energy if it will actually affect a large amount of people over a long period of time. Otherwise, the so-called "news" is just pointless. This article just has a few random statistics that someone somewhere might possibly find vaguely interesting, but has no effect on anyone for any length of time, let alone six or more months.

     Related to that yardstick of journalism, this story completely ignores the basic principle of journalism that we know as "Make the Important Interesting". The main idea of this principle is to make important things seem interesting, rather than making interesting things that have no effect on anyone outside of the event seem important. This article clearly does the latter, making an interesting story into something more important than it is. There's still a problem in saying that, however, because this article is neither interesting, nor important. Nobody cares, and nobody needs to know this.

     Normally I wouldn't be this hard on (or sarcastic toward) an article, except for the fact that this absolutely irrelevant and pointless article was on the top of Fox News' United States front page.

     I kid you not. Was there anything in this article that was even remotely newsworthy, let alone enough for it to be one of the first things you see when you go to the U.S. news.

     I can't honestly say I'm surprised. After all, this is coming from the same organization that had this beauty:

Fox News: The most important news that is always relevant always and is definitely not pointless ever.

So it seems that the struggle against bad journalism continues.

Class Review and Response: Why Are Newspapers Still Around?

     With newer innovations such as the radio, TV, and the good old internet, you would think that newspapers would be an idea of the past. Yet still, newspapers are everywhere and well-known. So the question is, why aren't they long gone? There are several reasons for this, which we discussed in class, and I will describe below.

Diversity
     Newspapers also offer a wide variety of material, including news, sports, comics, crossword puzzles, and a lot more, all collected in one publication. There's something for everyone!

Non-Linear
     You can read newspapers at your own pace, and you can skip to the parts that interest you without having to sit through parts that you don't.

Affordable
     Newspapers are far cheaper and therefore much more accessible than internet and computers, or cable and televisions.

Depth
     Each story goes into greater detail than if you were just listening on the radio or watching TV. Aside from the internet, newspapers have the most detail for each story or article.

Credibility
     Because journalist's number one priority and main duty is to tell the truth, you can always trust newspapers to be credible and truthful. While not everything on the internet is true, newspapers are rarely incorrect.

Easy and Low Tech
     The only technology used in newspapers is literacy. You don't need any knowledge, training, etc. outside of being able to read in order to read newspapers.

Physicality
     Saving what I believe to be the most important for last, the physicality of newspapers is a key part of why newspapers are still used. With newspapers, you can take it with you to read on your own time, wherever you are. You can save it for years, preserved and laminated for future use. You can share news much easier from person to person this way, unlike with newer technology. It can be kept for long periods of time.

Classmate Response: Rape Culture

     Stephanie Little recently made a media critique regarding rape and rape culture in the media. In this post, she goes into detail about the media's view on rape by providing examples of stories such as that of the Steubenville rape case. Stephanie's article is spot on, calling the media out on their failure to keep up with their promises as journalists. She emphasizes the principle of journalism that states that loyalty is first to the citizens, and the yardstick of journalism that states that reporters get multiple perspectives so as to give accurate and fair information. Referring to these rules, she explains how the media and our society have failed at following those rules, as shown in the events in Steubenville. While I'd already heard about this event, Stephanie pointed out not only the absolute idiocy of it, but also the ways the media failed as journalists to cover the situation accurately and fairly.
     To accompany this response, I'm including this amazing video having to do with rape. Although it isn't about entirely the same thing, it does have to do with the media only finding and showing one perspective, the "fairness" yardstick.

  "Do not confuse one story for all stories. Do not stare at a red dot and say the whole painting is just one color."

Class Review and Response: Magazine Innovations

          Magazines weren't always the glamorous, glossy-paged things filled with celebrities and fashion that they are now. While the very creatively titled General Magazine back in 1741 and the Saturday Evening Post in 1821 were not what we are used to today, but these early magazines did bring many innovations that are still used now.

National Media
     Magazines were the first ever national media. This created the idea that one media could be spread and used nationally.

Investigative Reporting
     Also known as "muckraking", investigative reporting was an all new way of going about reporting that included the reporter scraping through personal information with the goal of finding some sort of scandal or story. It is a strong aspect of watchdog journalism that both serves the people and makes lots of money.

This is an example of photojournalism; you can

clearly see what's going on without an article to

explain it. Instead of just being an illustration, the

picture in itself is the story. [X]

    Photojournalism
          Magazines introduced the idea of using a picture and caption rather than an entire article to tell a story. National geographic was the first group to really get involved in using photojournalism. Now, many people, including newspapers, use photojournalism.

     Personality Profiles
          Personality profiles are detailed profiles about someone. They are formed through not only talking to the person, but also to others who know them. This offers multiple perspectives when trying to go in depth.