Media Studies 10 Final

niche advertising

 focus on niche audiences desired by advertisers, spend less money to reach more receptive audiences

segment types

• Geographic (less useful in age of national brands)

• Demographic (categories like gender, age, education)

• Social class (psychology of upbringing)

• Geodemographic (neighborhood)

• Psychographic (personality characteristics, attitudes)

programmic interactive microtargeting

- Algorithm uses a database to buy ad space targeting you at a cost based on the data in your profile 

• AD METRICS: impressions (exposed to ad), click through (clicked on ad), conversion (purchased product)

• SOCIAL MEDIA: additional feedback inclusion reactions, comments, follows, hide ad turned “paid media” into “earned media”

data collection

-pre-internet data collection gathered publicly thru census data and surveys

- THEN: later through customer loyalty cards and credit cards

- BUT NOW: businesses collect and track users without visibility

- SUCH AS: search terms, “datamining” communications, “cookies” tracking sites visited, downloads/purchases, contact info, etc

PROFILE = a collection of data points on an individual consumer

DATABASES = constantly updated collections user profiles sortable by relevant info desired at a particular time

• First-party data = data collected by the site/platform

• Third-party data = data purchased from data brokers

interactive microtargeting benefits

• Increases amount of relevant info; decreases amount of irrelevant info

• Automated (no human surveillance)

interactive microtargeting concerns =

• Compiled without (or with little) user access 

• No way to guarantee accuracy

• Limits potential future choices

• No limit to duration (one’s history is never forgotten)

• Doesn’t distinguish between public and private 

• Vulnerable to hacking and data breaches

two understandings of the child audience

Media industry 

WHO: producers, distributors, advertisers, etc.

• Desirable and lucrative demographic 

• High media consumption 

• Consumerist

• Foster brand loyalty early on 

Protectionist

WHO: parents, watchdogs, educators, regulators

• Blank slates = children 

• Innocence, fragility 

• Lack taste distinction and ability to choose 

• Media consumption is a passive activity

children and TV - why?

• ASSUMPTION: consumption is passive (kids just sit there and watch anything) but consumption is always active because we are always interpreting the stuff we watch

• BUT; WHY do kids really engage with the TV they watch?

  • To see (depictions of) the world

  • For learning math, words, behaviors, etc.

  • SO: kids TV focuses educational curricula and/or social emotional curricula

children and TV - how?

ASSUMPTION: consumer media as adults do but without critical skills

BUT: HOW do kids really engage with the TV they watch?

• Direct participation (characters asking the kids to do something) = answering questions, repeatable songs, etc. 

• Problem solving = narratives require multiple views to grasp

• Repetition = learn to understand storytelling conventions

young people’s digital media (Horst & gaspard)

• Platforms: smartphone (and tablets) not young people’s most used form of media 

• Mobile access to the internet 

• Multifunctional tech convergence 

• Social engagement re: relationships, shared interests, identities

productive practices of consumption

• Interpretation

• Speculation

• Projection (into character/contestant/player, what would you do?)

• Discussion

utopian understandings of fandom

• High engagement with media passions (rewatching and re-reading, close scrutiny)

• Close scrutiny (analyzing foreshadowing, camera work, relations between characters) 

• Social practice (may engage online or at school, trying to get friends invested in it)

• Public display of passion (posters, memorabilia, put it in room, office, themselves, photos, memes, tweets, important to someone's life)

AND: they’re heightened examples of typical behaviors and pleasures

fandom online

• The internet makes it easier to engage in “fannish” behavior 

  • Information seeking has made it easier to engage in fannish behaviors (easier to access)

  • Consumption

  • “Backstage access”

  • Social media 

  • “Media appropriation” (figures, characters, worlds that fans use to create fan-authored content)

“media appropriation” (Dalelio)

• “Grassroots creativity” in fandoms

• Fans can analyze / build upon/ transform texts

• Can express critique and address underserved audiences 

• Networks of mentorship, collaboration, and audiences (edit each others work, share guidance, fans in the community contributing media to other fans in that community)

RESULT: cultural convergence = blurring “folk culture” of “media appropriation” and “mass culture where ppl “reclaim cultural ownership” (ex: Robinhood, not the property of one specific story, but his story is retold over and over again, whereas Wonderwoman’s legal property holder is the only one allowed to use her character)

cultural production versus intellectual policy (Jones)

• Cultural production can be unauthorized, violate IP laws 

BUT: IP holders tolerate “Media appropriation” to help fandoms flourish

• Fandom = niche market cultivated by the industry regardless of IP violations

GOAL: a large audience PLUS an active one

industrial utlity of fandom (Jones)

• Fandom is an industrial construct and not a community

• The industry’s “adoring offspring” not its nemesis

• Based on consumption, not critique 

1. Transmedia Extension (bts specials, videos online)

2. Increased consumption (clothing, merch, tickets)

3. Brand Advocates (free promo on social media)

media mergers

RESPONSE: rather than compete, media companies merge through buyouts 

Media Conglomerate: company that owns several media divisions under a single corporation umbrella (Walt Disney

vertical integration

Production + national distribution + local exhibition within a single media division (making the thing, sending it across the country) (ex: comcast owns NBC, to universal productions) (ex: peacock owned by NBC, a subsidiary of Comcast, universal studios production)

• Keep profits in-house, decreased cost 

• Increased efficiency

Horizontal integration

owns many different media divisions

• Spread risk (diversify media operations so that an underperforming in one division doesn’t tank your profits, not putting one eggs in one basket)

Synergy

associated with branding/marketing, what drives media businesses to grow bigger? 

• Definition: Coordination across media divisions so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (1+1=3)

• Each corp decision works together to advance a multimedia brand (Walt Disney Company is both vertically and horizontally integrated, Ex: Moana 2, Walt disney production, walt disney records, disney publishing, attractions in disney land, traveling attractions, merch)

• Logic: company makes more money through content convergence across media than the decisions working separately to create their own brands) (benefits not just Walt Disney animations but many other walt disney corporations as well)

• BUT: synergistic “mismatches” lead to a loss of efficiency and drain on profits

conglomerate power critics

• Economic harms = oligopolies that favor their own interest/partnerships and make it difficult for outsider to compete 

• Political harms = antidemocratic because lobbying power and content influence 

RESULT 1: illusion of diversity (media grows but the # of speakers can shrink, only seems like we have a lot of choice but usually many companies are owned by the same corporation)

RESULT 2: “power is knowledge” (power to control circulation of ideas/ restrict access to other opinions/ storytelling forms)

free market defenders

• Media industry is dynamic and changing 

• Corps must grow or lose market share in abundant marketplace

• Corps absorb losses, afford innovation 

• Internet allows more production and sharing than ever

• Companies self-regulate content

self-regulation

• Industry polices itself to keep competitive position in the marketplace thru pressure from:

  • Lawmakers (threat of regulation)

  • Advocacy groups

  • Advertisers 

• Critics: this problematically equates capitalism with democracy

media globalization

• Instantaneous (crosses space + time)

• Interconnected (communication/relationships across cultures)

• Interdependent (global economies) 

BUT: globalization is uneven due to inequalities of power

rise of media globalization

• political = end of Cold War and opening up of new markets 

• Econ = deregulation, loosening ownership regulations and trade treaties

• Tech = satellite, digital networks

• Cultural = new migration patterns and movements of people

globalization of film

Small studios = increase # of films

• Major studios = create high-budget blockbusters

  • Maximizing the investment capital 

  • Economies of scale (easier to promote/distribute)

  • Free publicity as “media events”

  • Allows synergy and tie-ins

“5 key relationships to manage” (Song)

• High production values

• Plots appealing to many markets

• Values/ideologies safe for many markets

• Lack of cultural specificity 

• International celebrities/ multinational casts

importation

• US TV producers are in a position of power because their:

  • Primetime dramas are $$$ to produce and have wide appeal

  • Show’s performance in the US predicts international success 

  • OVERALL: advantage for buyer = cheaper, less risky than overall production

• BUT: US faces competition from international producers 

  • Home  = non-US media find more success in the US as niches

  • Abroad = US facing increasing competition from other markets

Co-production

Co-op between producers from different markets

• Advantages = shared costs(including for international sales), tailored to the cultural specificities of both, get tax credits/funding incentives from all countries

• Disadvantages = language and industrial differences create conflicts, ad/program structure, scheduling, etc, in the end, the needs of stronger partners usually win out

formatting (Esser)

 Format made for LOCAL market adapted to LOCAL contexts

• Importing premise to adapt to in local contexts 

• Sometimes producers produce multiple versions of shows for multiple areas 

  • Sometimes buyers create their own version 

• Format is attractive to programmers because they have proven appeal 

  • Esp with reality tv 

  • Love island usa and uk

four perspective on global media impact

-Cultural exchange - global flows (diff parts of media) are part of a “global village” where borders fall away and best storytelling/idea forms spread across nations

• Global media unites people 

-Cultural imperialism - global flows are part of “global pillage” 

• Global media = one way flow from US/West to the rest 

• No real exchange of ideas // unequal position of influence 

• Local media suppressed or imitates US media

- Cultural nationalism -  local cultures need to be protected through regulation 

• Must be reasserted through government funding &/or restrictions/quota 

  • Canada takes on nationalistic stance

- Cultural hybridity - global flows are a recombination of cultures 

• Recombinant genres/styles that can’t be traced to single culture, creating diversity and difference 

  • Ex: Content platforms (like netflix) can be hybrid 

  • Adaptations (live TV formats)

    • Producing own localized version 

  • Original works (like kpop) 

    • Hybrid combo of pop music and korean

multiple proximities (La Pastina & Straubhaar)

Cultural specificity of domestic media fosters “primary cultural proximity” w/ the national 

• Can manifest w/ Language 

• Media reflects common experiences understood, recognized, and shared by national audience 

• Values

• Cultural forms

• people can feel “secondary cultural proximities" to other nations/experiences through media imports 

  • Appealing to additional proximities (religion, region, localism, migration history) 

  • Audiences from one country find media imports from other countries appealing bc they have similar/shared cultural specificity

    • Someone feel connection to japanese anime, chinese sci fi, scandinavian pop 

    • Connected to uk after watching red right and royal blue 

    • Consume media and feel connected to that place

representations of technology

ex: the smartphone (first experience was through the people around you that already possessed it, but also through how the phone was represented through the media)

• People learn about new technologies through mediated representation:

  • Nonfiction (focusing on what the tech is)

  • Fiction (focusing on what the tech means)

AND: these help shape discourses on tech and society

technological determinism

discourse that tech is the primary driver of change in society 

• What technology is doing to us (here’s this new tech, how does it impact us as a society?) AKA technology transforms society, how it changes us

• AND: this view may be either utopian or dystopian (ex: Plato described invention of alphabet as a threat to oral communication and memory, because of smartphones people have become less present/more distracted)

“the medium is the message” (McLuhan)

The sensory experiences of new media shape our thinking

• Sensory extensions afforded by medium are more important than the content

• Ex: electric light (a medium without a message) - doesn’t have a message in and of itself but can be used in either a positive or negative way

tech guided by human stakeholder (Newman)

1. invention/development - (hardware/software workers shape the process due to their own interests/goals 

2. Distribution (business models) - how it gets released, how its marketed and for what purpose

3. Government regulation - by issuing patents through the US trade office, laws governing surveillance etc

4. Domestication - users themselves us the tech and integrate into our lives, tech must meet people's wants and needs at a particular time in order to be widely adopted 

• FIRST: new technologies met with a combination of fascination and fear

• THEN: technologies become “invisible” as they get integrated into our lives

development of new techs (Newman)

Technologies have affordances that influence but don’t determine use

• Be predictable (people sharing photos and texts)

• Be unexpected (the popularity of GIFs and memes, the flashlight app)

• Affirm prev practices (staying connected with friends/ family, using phones as a radio)

• Disrupt prev practices (dating apps, social media)

AND: techs coexist, integrate with each other and evolve

components of mobile gaming (Steirer & Barnes)

Gameplay accessibility (story and gaming mechanics)

• Software accessibility (avail through a variety of devices)

• Everyday ubiquity (encourages daily play) (shorter period of time required to have a short game)

• Variable monetization (esp. “Free to play” with ads and/or in-app microtransactions) 

AND: reduced barriers to entry for developers (easier to get into the business, try new things, lower startup costs)

game and player space

• Gameplay simultaneous exists in two spaces 

  • Game space (the world of the game, the setting, how it is played, whether it’s played on computer or phone, where you interact with the game)

  • Player space (environment where person is actually playing the game, in their bed at home, on the bus while commuting, on the couch at a friends house)

 console games & spatial convergence

 Focus on immersive play and the game space (Xbox, PS4, PC)

• Triple A blockbuster games 

• GOAL: fully absorb your attention (not for mobile devices, built to encourage players to forget about the player space, hours passed, absorbed in action and narrative of the game)

• VR is this taken to the next level

• RESULT: “avatarial introjection” of identity in game space 

  • Avatar as “me”, “I’, “mine”

  • Status and nice things for avatar (emotionally invested in your character, nice things for status and pride)

  • Feeling a personal connection to other characters in the game (other players or NPCs, feel a kinship beyond collaborative play)

video game realism

Realism is a means of fostering deeper immersion (how the game is meant to feel and look realistic)

• 1st person (you as the character, the screen as your eyes, banal experience)

• Photorealistic representation 

• Mimetic play (swinging a controller, reaching out with it, swinging Wii remote as a bat) and “force feedback” feel of game controllers (controller buzzes when you fire something or you hit something)

• Degree of interactivity (including freedom to explore the world, lots of places to explore)

• Unpredictable encounters (including multiplayer environments)

AND: standards of realism keep changing (what seemed realistic in previous years feels cartoony now

participatory culture (Dalelio)

Social Media: networking, connectivity, engagement (followers, reactions, commenting) 

• User-generated content : platforms users make its content (content not created by the platforms themselves, instead created by the everyday users)

  • Creates increased diversity, diverse in why it is being created (commercial or non-commercial aka made just for fun)

• The gift economy: non-monetary exchange (why do people post pictures on insta or make memes? Participate in communities, earn social capital)

• Active audiences: mainstreaming of fan behaviors (facilitates all forms of increased engagement and depth, making stuff, pursuing passions)

• Engaged citizens: politics and activism (movements, Q & A’s)

promise of participatory culture -

Access to production + free storage/display platforms + peer-to-peer sharing tools (makes it easier to create content, house content, and make content easily shareable)

• Demystifies the media making process (come to understand that anyone can make media content)

• Less reliant on traditional media for entertainment and amusement (can instead get info from the internet and what is created and shared)

Democratization of authorship, info, and culture (can be positive like citizens trying to bring people to justice or negative with fake news and conspiracies)

costs of participatory culture

Framed as fun but it’s a form of work under corp. platforms 

• Users are unwaged// mandatory content licensing (not important for user but super important for companies to see users commenting, liking, and having their attention)

Influencers

Entrepreneurial professionalized-amateur content producers (start off with no real training or guidance but eventually gain skills that help them)

• Top influencers may rival celebrities and studios, subscribers show the approval of content

• Author consistent, pop content (in views and subscriptions) 

• Often intimacy, accessibility, and relatability emphasized DIY aesthetic

Influencer authenticity (RHTA)

Audiences form bonds with the influencer thru relatable and consistent authenticity 

• Can be personal value BUT ALSO an economic necessity since it’s based on advertorial experts who “share authentic information” 

SO: authenticity must be constantly performed 

• Includes short-term loss of turning down “inauthentic” brands to maintain long-term credibility

college infleuncers (RHTA)

don’t mean influencers in college, but instead people helping college students throughout college academically or socially)

• “Academically successful student” identity and brand credibility to share advice

• Working with brands

• Brands = sometimes students, sometimes just young people (brands looking to promote spending in college or on educational resources)

• “Authenticity over income” and what a “good student” posts/endorses

• Intersections of authenticity and studenthood

• Academic knowledge “provided a critical lens through which to make sense of their influencer work and to evaluate the content they produce”

• Authentic + realistic, regarding struggle/pressure with affective strategies 

• Role = transitional before non-influencer career

Surveillance

to see without being seen or to be seen without seeing the watcher (today less about tracking people in real time and more are collecting their personal traces)

Personal traces - the “footsteps” people leave behind (surveillance cameras, browsing histories, etc.)

Privacy (Marwick)

a value, but also a legal construction of a "reasonable right to privacy”

• Not an intrinsic right: claimants must prove financial and or reputational impact

• 4 rights offering protection, focus on the intrusion of seclusion

Networked privacy (Marwick)

privacy a structural problem, not an individual one

• Info is networked: collected, shared, and sold

• & loss of “contextual integrity” of why we shared it where, when, and to whom

Networked privacy = “the desire to maintain agency over info within the social and tech nets in which such info is disclosed, given meaning, and shared” reformed thorough:

• Legislation = comprehensive legislation on what’s collected and shared 

• Social attitudes = push for structural reform 

• Tech = develop “smaller, more privacy protective platforms” based on segmentation, not network effect

sensor society (Andrejevic and Burdon)

Sense what we are doing and where we are when we are doing that, can track what we are up to, detect and record events

1. Techs are sensors tracking events & states

   1. Always on (our person)

   2. Passive interactivity 

2. New form of data collection and storage (for powerful institutions) 

   1. Immediate needs + info for future analysis 

   2. Specific individuals + larger usage patterns 

AND: current privacy laws unequipped to handle such pervasive, undirected use

state surveillance

(government as an organization, sum of elected officials)

GOAL: monitor potential crimes (+ dissidents and critics in authoritarian governments)

peer surveillance

 Surveillance is a condition to be courted (WE want attention) 

• We fight the noise of the internet for visibility 

• We determine the disclosure based on the platform (different personas on different social medias)

• Discursive frameworks of perspectives and vocabs

  • Can be vulnerable, so its based on trust of privacy

  • People can easily share content (misrepresented or not) to different audiences 

  • Feeling of violation of privacy with little control

SO: managing our privacy/audiences online can be fraught and time-consuming