How Do media professionals "Know" their audiences?

Media professionals know their audience through product research. The media professionals have to decide what they are going to produce based on their marketplace, audience, and in the structure in which they operate. They have to get to know their market through surveys and feedback, product sales, reviews, and ratings. However, the information we receive from media professionals is also based on their personal opinions and ideology. In fact, we may not be getting the whole truth because the media they produce is partially based on what they want us to know or what they think is the most important for us to know. Product research may be a lot easier for a local news channel that operates in New Jersey than a media agency which maintains itself in a global market.

Media professionals who produce globally distributed media texts have to get to know their audience once they have surpassed the restraints of organizational and external factors. Some organizational factors are the specific routines of production, ownership structure, editorial line while external factors are imposed on the organization by things such as the economic power of advertisers, the laws concerning libel or defamation, and the willingness of the economically powerful to co-operate in the production of the media texts. Product research on a global scale has surpassed simple surveys and ratings. Methods now include observation, participant observation, interviews, case studies, archival research, and detailed analyses of public and private documents. This is a job not just done by one person, but a group of people. Media professionals want people to "jump in" and do the research on an interpersonal level so that their product will be successful.

An example of globally distributed media is the movie High School Musical. It has become a worldwide phenomenon, although produced in the United States in English. The team of market researchers had to have asked themselves the question of how they could get the movie to sell worldwide. Product research on a global scale has gone passed knowing your audience. It has become the pushing and promotion of the product, through sources like iTunes (already used worldwide) at a target audience. People responded to this media because of the way it was advertised.

However, in some cases such as the news, it is easy to worry that we are not getting the whole truth. The critical theory of product research described in the book describes the extent to which media professionals knowingly engage in the production of dominant ideology in the support of the ruling class or other dominant social groups. Are they leaving people out? Are they only telling us what they want us to know? It is a scary thought, and as a people we need to realize that media professionals are trying to sell something. They are researching our wants and needs to promote a product they have to offer that will make them money. We need to analyze everything that we are given and not hold everything to be the truth.

Bitmap Versus Vector Quiz

"Money As Debt" Analysis

One word to describe the short documentary on the United State's monetary system is scary. I found "Money as Debt" to be very interesting, and it confirms the truth about the United States. The poor gets poorer and the rich gets richer. Since the downward spiral of the present economy crisis and with the upcoming election, the short film provides us with the notion that the economy could collapse on itself and that the only way to fix it would be a complete change of the monetary system.

One new monetary system is nationalizing banks and having no interest rates on things like loans and mortgages, like Canada does today. This would mean that the rich would have to give up some of their money in order to support the country. They would not be able to be greedy and create money based on credit so that they can receive a higher interest payment.

This film helped me to realize the dangers we all face if our national debt continues to rise. We may have no means of solving even bigger problems with the money shortages. It is scary to think that our economy may collapse entirely and that the means of living that we know would be shattered. I feel that politics need to change drastically without changing the democracy and freedoms that we as a people posses. I feel that some people are entitled to a lot less freedom. It is true when people say, "Whoever has the money makes the rules." It seems that is what our economy has come down to, and the government needs to step in and do what is in the best interest for our nation as a whole.

Disney Animation World Takeover

I chose Disney as the media conglomerate for my animation representation of media globalization. The background of the image is a world map. One by one, the mickey mouse logo, which represents Disney, appears all over the map, followed by the Walt Disney logo fading in. It represents Disney's world takeover of the media. Since its birth, Disney has always been one of the most prominent entertainment mediums in our society and beyond, providing us with theme parks, games, live events, cruise lines, television, movies, clothing, and memorabilia. My animation shows the power that Disney holds all over the world and how influential the company is to society.

Magazine Cover

I chose to re-make a cover of People Magazine's 'Most Beautiful People' issue. I didn't decide to do a parody of it, because I feel that the issue is a parody itself. The media picks and chooses who among Hollywood's elites are worthy of being called beautiful and defines beauty for society. This idea of media globalization is what allows these images to be so pertinent in our minds. We see these images over and over again so after a while we believe that what these magazines say is the truth. Meanwhile we need to reevaluate what they are telling us and realize that it is a small group of people presenting us with these images.

(The top one is the original; the bottom one is mine)

Media Globalization and Resistance

Media globalization is characterized by the emergence and continued domination of the global media industry by a small number of transnational media conglomerates, the use of these media conglomerates of new information and communication technologies, and the deregulated enviornment in which these organizations operate. Furthermore the media is homogenized and standardized in certain products and distribution by the global media industries. There is also an uneven flow of information and communication products within the global system and the different levels of of access that citizens have to the global networks. The promotion of the idealogy of consumerism also characterizes media globalization. (Thompson 1995) This idea of media globalization is promoted by new technology and access to the global media.

The yes men is a media resistance group which impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them and focus on leaders who put sales and profit above moral values. They made a mockery of McDonalds and Dow Jones by impersenating their business leaders to make a point of the crimes they have comitted against the world with the help of the media. Whether or not they are resistant to media, they use media to get their message across, as do the "retaggers" who grafitti companies in their area with the company's name because they feel that they are polluting the world with their advertising methods. They are also using media to get their message across. Nontheless, people see grafitti differently than a billboard or a commercial on television.

These people are against the big businesses which we all have heard of. They feel that they infect the public's minds and limit the information that we receive. Since the world is dominated by media conglomerates, I feel that the information we receive is very limited. However, since the internet, we can double check information and choose a point which we feel is most valid.

To the left, I posted the yes men videos, using youtube.

"Blog Quiz" Media Globalization

The main features of media globalization explain how this change has affected our everyday lives at a global and individual level. The first feature of media globalization is that the media industry has been continually dominated by a small number of mega media conglomerates. An example from the mass media would be Disney, Viacom and Time Warner Inc. These media organizations control the media industry and feed their consumers information that they feel is important or newsworthy. The book uses these examples explaining, "The structure of ownership of media organizations has become increasingly concentrated." (pg 55) I feel concerned that we are only receiving concentrated information. If there is something that these companies do not want the world to know, they have the power to limit the viewer or reader's knowledge on some happenings of the world. Another example of this is with the emergence of technology in China, the Chinese government made a deal with Google so that its citizens could not research the Tienanmen Square massacre. Why should people be limited to information when there are so many forms of it in our society today. If United States students wanted to research the Tienanmen Square event, we could research newspaper databases, encyclopedias, and the Internet. This makes the globalization of media in many ways a positive thing.

Another feature of media globalization is the aspect which says that there is a greater amount of homogenization and standardization in certain media products produced and distributed. An example of this is the iPod. The iPod has become so globalized that no one is buying any other brand of MP3 player although they have the same capabilities. Apple has become a name brand, selling because of their excellent marketing strategies. The only product that even comes close to competing with Apple's iPod is a recently new product called the Zune. It presents a design similar to an iPod with the same features, but is less expensive for more gigabytes (storage space).

The promotion of the ideology of consumerism which is bound up with the capitalism project is the last feature of media globalization. Consumerism has become the force behind the United States' and many other nation's economies. Consumerism on a local scale hardly exists and we are purchasing products from worldwide companies, such as Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Coke, and Apple. The force behind these companies' sales is the media. The advertising and marketing that goes into the products campaign. A child would be able to tell you that Wal-Mart's slogan is "Save money. Live better," or that Ronald McDonald is McDonald's spokesperson along with their slogan, "Put a smile on." The problem that arises with this aspect of media globalization is that small businesses hardly have a chance against these conglomerate organizations. They cannot afford to pay the media conglomerates for advertising methods which could boost their sales. This often leads to them closing their businesses and working for a large company instead of expanding the diversity of the economy. The media also promotes the ideas in the western world that material goods are necessary to live a normal life and fit in with social norms. They present this idea to us in television shows, music, movies, and commercials. CW11's television series Gossip Girl portrays high school girls who live a privileged life on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In one episode, the main character, Serena was wearing boots priced at $50,000 and in every episode she is carrying a different handbag worth no less than $2,000. The television show Sex & the City, although aimed at older viewers, promotes the same message to women. Although this is the extreme side of advertising through a television series, it shows how these shows make many women feel inadequate so they increase their spending on things that they don't need, but things that they want. Vogue and Seventeen magazine enforce these ideals. This has become the basis for American women's consumerism because of the media.