Media midterm

Culture

Forms and systems of expression that individuals, groups, and societies, use to make sense of daily life

Mass media

Industries that produce and distribute cultural products

Affordances

Features or capabibilites of a technology that help establish how we use it

Five historical eras

-Oral

-Written

-Print'

-Electronic

-Digital

Early development of writing

-Writing first emerged in 3000 BCE

-Greece didnt begin to shift to writing until after 1000 BCE

-Socrates worried writing would weaken peoples memories and stop discussion

-Developed more through maniscript culture of monks, philosphers, and scribes; which alloweed the catholic church to gain more political power

Inventor of printing press

Johannes Gutenberg

First printed book

Gutenberg bible

The printing press and mass production

-Mechanical duplication replaced tedious hand copying

-Rapid duplication produced multiple copies

-Copies were less expensive and thus affordable to more people

Social consequences of the printing press

-Resisistance to authority: Paved way for political and religious reform

-Spread of literacy: Encouraged education beyond upper class

-Focus on individualism: Nourishes idea of objective truth

Key contributions to communication made by the telegraph

-Seperated communication from transporatation

-Transformed information into a commodity

-Coordinated commercial and military operations

-Forerunner of electronic communications

Rise of corporate control in the electronic era

-inlcudes: Telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, and phonograph

-Building and maintaining national telecommunications and broadcasting networks required tons of money

-Centralized control of the tech and america lied within a few organizations

Mass nation

Society in which a large percentage of a diverse population takes in the same media

Consensus narrative

Stories that reflected certian values and assumptions about what the world is and should be like

Digital communication

Converts media content into combonations of ones and zeros that are then reassembled or decoded (binary code)

-started in 40s with transistor

Convergence 1

Technological merging of distinct and incompatable formats into one format, which can then be accessed by one device

Convergence 2

When media comapanies merge to better position themselves for a world where all media can be digital

Niche nation

Society in which people navigate a more varied and complex media landscape

-People watch and listen on their own timetables based on social media algorithms

Participatory culture

Relatively easy for people to create and share their own content and build connections with others.

-blurring line between media producer and consumer roles.

Masspersonal communication

Mixes and matches aspects of mass communication (one to many, public, impersonal, produced by media industries) and interpersonal communication (one-to-one, private, personal, produced outside of media industries)

Fragmentation

More access to media products that suit narrow tastes and interests

-fewer consensus narratives, more polarization (differing opinions)

Characterisitics of todays media enviroment

Media enviroment: Media as a habitat in which we conduct almost every aspect of our daily lives

-Facebook and Instagram are ecosystems that encourage us to keep up with friendships in a certian way and give opprotunity for survelience and data gathering

-Phones are how we navigate the media enviroment, managing our relationship to the world around us. E.X.: Maps.

-Rich media enviroments makes it easier to multitask, but creates new problems and new ways to interact.

Three roles people play in relation to media

-Media consumer: Watching Tv, playing video games, etc.

-Media producer: Posting on social media, streaming on Twitch, etc.

-Media citizen: Being a member of society saturated with media.

High culture

Associated with “good taste” EX: ballet, art, classic literature

Low culture

Associated with popular culture Ex: reality tv, pop music, etc.

Post modern era

1950s-now

-characterized by growing skeptism about expertise and the idea of progress

-growing political and cultural populism

-decline in traditional authority figures control over information

-more likely to reflect the norms and expectations of narrorwer social groups

Populism

A political approach that pits “ordinary” people aganist educated elites.

Five stages of critical process

Critical process: A series of steps to think critcally about media

• Description : Paying close attention, taking notes, and researching.

• Analysis: Discovering and focusing on significant patterns that emerge

• Interpretation: Asking and answering “What does this mean?” and “So what?”

• Evaluation: Arriving at a judgement about whether something is good, bad, or okay

• Engagement: Taking action that connects our critical perspective with our role as citizens and watchdogs

Internet

Vast network of fiber-optic lines, wireless conncections, and satelite systems that links digital devices to enormous data centers around the world

-2023= 5.3 billion internet users

-The internet competed with and absorbed previous tech and industries

Orgins of ARPAnet

-Created by the US Department of Defense during the Cold War to reroute messages so they would not be lost

-Use to strengthen research capacity and utilize supercomputers

-in 1969, linked supercomputers from Stanford, University of Cali - Santa Barbara, University of Cali - Berkley, and the University of Utah.

-Allowed supercomputers to join a network and speak to eachother due to protocols

-Able to grow to a more public system from a military project

Characteristics of a distributed network

-Resembles a net

-No nerve centers, if connection is broken, can be rerouted immediately.

Bulletin Board Services

Precursors to websites, where people with a shared interest could post info and become apart of a community

Microprocessors

Mini circuits that process and store digital electronic signals

-made computers small and more affordable

Fiber optic cables

Increased the amount of data networks could hold and the speed data could be transmitted

Orgins of World Wide Web

-Web 1.0- first web browsers, growth of internet service providers and search engines.

-Intially developed as an easier way for physicits to create, post, and locate documents

-Developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990

-Invented HTML, a language that made it possible to link files to one another. Formed web pages, and then those pages stored together made a website.

HTML (Hypertext markup language)

Language for displaying text, images, and other multimedia that allows users to link files to one another

Web browsers

Software applications that help users navigate the web. Gave the web to mass audiences in 1993.

Broadband

Connections allowed for much faster download speeds

Dial-up internet service providers

Private companies that offer internet access to home users.

-intially accessed internet by landline telephone networks (dial-up) and modem

-AOL (the first)

-AT and T, Comcast, Verizon

Search engine

Offered automated route to finding content on the internet by allowing users to enter keywords

Social media platform

Semantic web

Allowed computers to examine web pages and databases and provide solutions to peoples needs.

Internet of Things

Intergrates internet into every part of our enviroment

Artificial Intellegence (AI)

Machine learning algorithms that teach themselves how to improve their performance

Concerns about AI

-Sometimes AI gets things wrong

-Can easily spread disinformation (Info made to mislead people)

-Foster cheating (in schoolwork)

-Undermines copyright (gets data and sources without permission)

-Replacing people with AI machines

Gatekeepers

Decide which messages get circulated, the internet reduces their influence

Misinformation

False or misleading information that is spread by people who believe it is true.

-Difficult to contain misinfo on internet

Disinformation

False or misleading info spread with malicious intent

-Also difficult to contain on internet

Filter bubbles

Social media creates online filter bubbles - spaces where we are exposed only to ideas that match our own beliefs

Confirmation bias

Favoring information that conforms to our preexisting beliefs over information that challenges them. Social media amplifies this.

Remix culture

People can communicate by mixing, editing, combining, manipulating, or repurposing existing texts using digital media.

-Expands users role beyond that of consumer

Right of fair use

Legal doctrine that permits people to use copyrighted material without permission without compromising its value

Deepfakes

Images that use digital editing to create fradulent content

5 major tech companies

• Apple

• Amazon

• Facebook

• Microsoft

• Google

Surveillance capitalism

Making money by controlling users personal data

-Google, Amazon, and Meta participate in it

Data mining

Tracking search histories, locations, browser settings, and other user information

Cookies

Computer files that automatically collect and transfer info between a website and a users browser

Addictive design

Principles that maximize user engagement on social media platforms. Infinite scroll, like buttons, etc.

Surveillance states

Societies in which governments conduct systematic mass surveillance on their populations

Universal access

The notion that every citizen, regardless of income or location, should have the opprotunity to use and benefit from technology

Digital divide

The growing contrast between those who can and cannot afford to purchase a computer and pay for internet services.

-Grey digital divide: Older people struggle with tech more

-5G could narrow the digital divide

-Digital divide even wider globally

What Edward-Leon Scott de Martinville did

• Conducted the first expirements in sound recording

• Mostly playing back human speech

• Hog hair as bristles at the end of a funnel that would catch sound and etch grooves into a black cylinder

Difference between Thomas Edisons phonograph and Emile Berliner’s gramophone

Phonograph: recorded sound on a metal cylinder wrapped in tin foil and later wax. Singers had to sing for each recording. First envisoned as an answering machine.

Gramophone: Played large, flat black disks. Made of zinc and coated in beeswax. Hand-powered turn table. Made mass production avaliable. Could have label.

33 1/3 RPM long playing record

in 1948 columbia created the 33 1/3 revelutions per minute long playing record. Had 20 minutes of music on each side, created room for multi-song records. Not like anything at the time.

RCA 45 rpm single

In 1949 RCA created a smaller 45 rpm record that had a quarter sized hole for jukeboxes with a single song on each side of the record. This boomed sales for songs heard on the jukebox.

Magnetic audiotape

Created in 1940s, it altered sound recording.

It made sound editing possible and multi-track mixing meaning instruments could be recorded seperately and then put together.

In 1963, the audiotape was placed in a cassette that made it easier for people to listen to music anywhere and home mixtapes.

Made releasing music cheaper

Stero sound

Permitted the recording of two seperate channels, or tracks of sound.

Analog recording

Captures fluctuations of sound waves and stores those signals in a records groove or a tapes magentized particles

Digital recording

Translates sound waves into binary on-off pulses and stores that information as numerical code

Compact discs (CDs)

Digitally recorded disc, produced at a lower cost than vinyl or audiocassettes.

Importance of MP3 format

MP3 allowed digital recordings to be compressed into smaller, more managable files

MP3 format in mid 1990s paved way for illegal and legal music downloading

-2001 supreme court said file swapping music was illegal

Cloud based streaming music services

No ownership of music, people are focused on access of music.

Access millions of songs with one subscription.

Spotify, Youtube music, Apple music, SoundCloud, etc.

Evolution of sound recording sales

ASCAP (American society of composers, authors, and publishers)

-Created in 1914 to collect fees for music publishers and writers

-Created because radio was streaming free music, plummiting record sales.

-1925 ASCAP established fees for radio streaming published music, radio rebelled by creating own music.

-1950s, radio and records came together when TV got popular, Radio could stream music for free. Record sales grew from free promotion of music and people came back to radio. (hit song radio)

-2012 radios free ride came to an end and had to pay royalties for playing music on radio.

Pop music

Music that appeals either to a wide cross section of the public or the sizeable subdivisons within the larger public.

-blues, country, salsa, jazz, reggae, punk, dance, etc.

Tin Pan Alley

Area in New York where music publishing was centered.

Gained popularity bc sheet music was sold here.

Used to describe the sound of the tunes, pans clanging together.

Birth of Jazz

-New Orleans in the 20th century

-Integrated diverse music styles: African rhythms, blues, and gospel

-Developed through ragtime, swing, and big band music

-Improvisational

-Mostly instrumental

-Louis Armstrong, Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington

Early pop vocalists

-Products of Vaudeville Circuit

-Rudy Vallee, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra

-Had a teen audience, first of many

Rock and Roll

Music merging black sounds of rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues gutiar with white influences of country, pop, and folk vocals.

Rock and roll blurred boundries

-Between high and low culture, merged rock and roll and classical music. With lyrics and how artists should perform. Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley

-Masculinity and Feminity: Present as androgenous, Elvis. Little Richard dress more with feminity so women wouldnt make him a sex symbol.

-North and South, took elements of different genres from north and south and brought them together, rock was popular everywhere

-Sacred and secular: Adults were scared of the blurring lines and claimed rock and roll artists were playing devils music. Many artists had ties to religion though and even had some religion in their music. -Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Bands of British invasion

Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Whos, etc.

Soul and Motown

Merging of R&B, gospel, pop, and early rock and roll.

Powerful vocals, emotional lyrics from american black expierence

Motown: an independent record label created by Berry Gordy.

-The Tempations, Jackson 5, The Surpremes, Martha and the Vandellas.

Folk music

Songs performed by untrained musicans and passed down mainly through oral traditions

-inspires protest, sound of social activism

-Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie

Folk rock

Folk merged with amplified music.

Bob Dylan fronted the beginnings of folk rock, with finger pointing - music that addressed the social circumstances of the day. This led to more protest within the 1960s

Punk rock

Challenged orthodoxy and commercialism of the record business

-1970s

-Rock controlled by record labels

-Return to basics of rock and roll: simple chord structures, catchy melodies, and socially challengeing lyrics, also brought back more expirementation.

-Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads.

-Broke down sexist walls in rock

Grunge

Messy gutiar sound and apperance

-1980s

-Typically associated with indie

-Nirvana, Green Day, Pearl Jam

Hip-Hop

Black urban culture that includes rapping, cutting by deejays, break-dancing, street-clothing, poetry slams, and graffiti art.

-Driven by a democratic, nonprofessional spirit

-Inspo from blues, R&B, soul, and rock and roll.

-combines singing and rapping with musical elements of rock, soul, R&B, and even gospel.

Oligopoly

Business situation in which a few firms control most of an industrys production and distribution resources

Major record labels

Universal music group, Warner music group, Sony Music entertainment

Indies

Independent production houses that record music and appear to be less commercial

-can have business relationships with labels

Artist direct

Artists who bypass all label representation, including indies, and sell their music directly to their audience, usually through streaming services

A&R (artist and repertoire) agents

talent scouts who discover, develop, and sometimes manage artists

Master recording royalties

The music label gets a bulk of the profits from a recording, but pays the artist a small percentage of profits (royalties)

-Can get an advance upfront payment that gets paid back through royalities

Public performance royalites

Royalties paid out when music live or recorded is played publicly on radio, on tv, through streaming, or in stores, resturants, or even arenas.

-ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC collect royalities and pay the songwriters and publishers.

Mechanical royalties

Paid automatically to songwriters and publishers when music is sold or streamed, royalty rate in 9.1 cents per song.

Sychronization royalties

Are for use in film, tv shows, or commercial. Directors or producers must get permission (A sync license) and pay a negotiated rate before they can use the music.

Contributions of Morse

-Telegraph: precursor of radio technology

-Morse code: series of dots and dashes that stood for letters in the alphabet (1861)

Contributions of Maxwell

Electromagnetic waves (1860s): Invisible electronic impulses similar to visable light

Radio waves: Electricity, magnetism, light, and heat radiate in space in the electro-magnetic spectrum at the speed of light. Could be used to transmit signals point to point.

Contributions of Marconi

Wireless telegraphy: Form of voiceless point-to-point communciation

Contributions of Tesla

-Invented wireless system in 1892

-Deemed inventor of radio in 1943

Contributions of de Forest

-Developed Audion vaccum tube - amplification of wireless signal