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Learning Objectives
• Determine how switching costs influence the information economy.
• Summarize the tenets of the three major founding pieces of antitrust legislation.
• Determine how a company might use vertical integration.
The modern theory of the information economy was expressed in the 1998 publication of Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, written by Cal Shapiro, an economics professor at University of California, Berkeley, and Hal Varian, now chief economist at Google. Their fundamental argument was simple: “Technology changes. Economic laws do not.”Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1998).
While economic laws may not change, the fundamentals of the business of information are far different from the fundamentals of most traditional businesses. For example, the cost of producing a single sandwich is relatively consistent, per sandwich, with the cost of producing multiple sandwiches. As discussed in Section 13.1, information works differently. With a newspaper, the first copy costs are far higher than the marginal costs of secondary copies. The high first costs and low marginal costs of the information economy contribute very heavily to the potential for large corporations gaining dominance. The confluence of these two costs creates a potential economy of scale, favoring the larger of the competitors.
In addition, information is what economists refer to as an experience good, meaning that consumers must actually experience the good to judge its value. The problem with information is that the experience is the good; how do you know, for example, that a movie has high-quality acting and an interesting plot before you’ve watched it? The solution to this is branding, which was discussed in Chapter 12. Although it may be difficult to judge a movie before watching, knowing that a given film was made by a certain director or stars an actor you like increases its value. Marketers use movie trailers, press coverage, and other marketing tools to communicate this branding message in the hopes of convincing you to watch the films they are promoting.
Another important facet of information technology is the associated switching costs. When economists consider switching costs, they take into account the difference between the cost of one technology and the cost of another. If this difference is less than the cost it would take to switch—for information, the cost of moving all of the relevant data to the new technology—then it is deemed possible to switch. A classic example is moving a music collection from vinyl LPs to CDs. For a consumer to switch systems—that is, to buy a CD player and stereo—that person would also have to rebuild his or her entire music collection with the new format. Luckily for the CD player, the increase in convenience and quality was great enough that most consumers were inclined to switch technologies; however, as is apparent to anyone going to a thrift store or garage sale, old technologies are still being used because the information on the records was important enough for some people to keep them around.
Regulation of the Information Economy
Although Chapter 15 will discuss government regulation in greater depth, a basic understanding of the interaction between government and media over time is essential to understanding the modern information economy. Public policy and governmental intervention exacerbate an already complicated system of information economics, but for good reason—unlike typical goods and services, the information economy has many significant side effects. The consequences of one hamburger chain outcompeting or buying up all other hamburger chains would surely be fairly drastic for the hamburger-loving world, but not altogether disastrous; there would be only one type of hamburger, but there would still be many other types of fast food remaining. On the contrary, the consequences of monopolization by one media company could be alarming. Because distributed information can influence public policy and public opinion, those in charge of the government have an interest in ensuring fair distribution of that information. The bias toward free markets has been mitigated—even in the United States—when it comes to the information economy.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is largely responsible for this regulation. Established by the Communications Act of 1934, the FCC is charged with “regulating interstate and international communications” for nearly every medium except for print.Federal Communications Commission, “About the Federal Communications Commission,” http://www.fcc.gov/aboutus.html. The FCC also attempts to maintain a nonpartisan, or at least bipartisan, outlook, with a maximum of three of its five commissioners belonging to the same political party. Although the FCC controls many important things—making sure that electronic devices don’t emit radio waves that interfere with other important tools, for example—some of its most important and most contentious responsibilities relate to the media.
As the guardian of the public interest, the FCC has called for more competition among media companies; for example, the ongoing litigation of the merger between Comcast and NBC is not concerned with whether consumers will like streaming Hulu over the Internet, but rather whether one company should own both the content and the mode of distribution. The public good is not served if consumers’ ability to choose is taken away when a service provider like Comcast restricts access to only the content that the provider owns, especially if that service provider is the consumers’ only choice. In other words, the idea of public good is concerned not with the end result of competition, but with its process. The FCC protects consumers’ ability to choose from a wide variety of media products, and the competition among media producers hopefully results in better products for consumers. If the end result is that all customers choose Hulu anyway, either because it has the shows they like or because it offers the best video-streaming capability, then the process has worked to create the best possible model; there was a winner, and it was a fair fight.
A Brief History of Antitrust Legislation
The main tool that the government employs to keep healthy competition in the information marketplace is antitrust legislation. The seminal Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 helped establish modern U.S. antitrust legislation. Although originally intended to dissolve the monopolistic enterprises of late-19th-century industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, the law’s basic principles have applied to media companies as well. The antitrust office has also grown since the original Sherman Act; although the office of the attorney general originally brought antitrust lawsuits after the act’s passage, this responsbility shifted to its own Antitrust Division in 1933 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 outlined many propositions and goals that legislators deemed necessary to foster a competitive marketplace. For example, Chapter 1, Section 2, of the act states that “Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States … shall be deemed guilty of a felony.”Legal Information Institute, “Monopolizing trade a felony; penalty,” Cornell University Law School, January 5, 2009, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sec_15_00000002----000-.html. This establishment of monopolization as a felony was remarkable; before, free-market capitalism was the rule regardless of the public good, making the Sherman Antitrust Act an early proponent of the welfare of people at large.
Two additional pieces of legislation, the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1911 and the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950, refined the Sherman Antitrust Act in order to make the system of antitrust suits work more effectively. For instance, the Clayton Act makes it unlawful for one company to “acquire … the whole or any part of the stock” of another company when the result would encourage the development of a monopoly.Legal Information Institute, “Acquisition by one corporation of stock of another,” Cornell University Law School, January 5, 2009, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sec_15_00000018----000-.html. More than just busting trusts, the Clayton Act thus seeks to stop anticompetitive practices before they take hold. The Celler-Kefauver Act made it more difficult for corporations to get around antitrust legislation; while the Clayton Act allowed the government to regulate the purchase of a competitor’s stock, the Celler-Kefauver Act extended this to include the competitor’s assets.
Deregulation and the Telecommunications Act of 1996
Although the early part of the 20th century seemed to be devoted to breaking up trusts and keeping monopolies in check, the media—particularly in the latter part of the century—was still able to move steadily toward conglomeration (companies joining together to form a larger, more diversified corporations). Widespread deregulation (the removal of legal regulations on an industry) took place during the 1980s, in large part through the efforts of free-market economists who argued that deregulation would foster more competition in the information marketplace. However, possibly due in large part to the media economy’s focus on economies of scale, this was not the case in practice. Companies became increasingly conglomerated, and corporations such as Comcast and Time Warner came to dominate the marketplace. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 helped solidify this trend. Although touted as a way to let “any communications business compete in any market against any other” and to foster competition, this act in practice sped up the conglomeration of media.Federal Communications Commission, “FCC — Telecommunications Act of 1996,” November 15, 2008, http://www.fcc.gov/telecom.html.
Media Conglomerates and Vertical Integration
The extension of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 of corporate abilities to vertically integrate was a primary driving factor behind this increased conglomeraton. Vertical integration has proven particulary useful for media companies due to their high first costs and low marginal costs. For example, a television company that both produces and distributes content can run the same program on two different channels for nearly the same cost as only broadcasting it on one. Because of the localized nature of broadcast media, two broadcast television channels will likely reach different geographical areas. This results in cost savings for the company, but also somewhat decreases local diversity in media broadcasting.
In fact, the Telecommunications Act made some changes in authority for these local markets. The concept of Section 253 is that no state may prohibit “the ability of any entity to provide any interstate or intrastate telecommunications service.”Federal Communications Commission, “Telecommunications Act of 1996, Section 253 (a),” January 3, 1996, http://www.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.pdf. Thus, since state and local governments cannot prohibit any company from entering into a marketplace, there are checks on the amount of a local market that any one company can reach. In addition, the Telecommunications Act capped the share of U.S. television audience for any one company at 35 percent. However, the passage of additional legislation in 1999 allowing any one company to own two television stations in a single market greatly diluted the effect of this initial ruling. Although CBS, NBC, and ABC may be declining in popularity, they “still offer the only means of reaching a genuinely mass television audience” in the country.Gillian Doyle, Understanding Media Economics (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002).
Corporate Advantages of Vertical Integration
Almost all of the major media players in today’s market practice extensive vertical integration through either administrative management or content integration. Administrative management refers to the potential for divisions of a single company to share the same higher-level management structure, which presents opportunities for increased operational efficiency. For example, Disney manages theme parks and movie studios. Although these two industries are not very closely connected through content, both are large, multinational ventures. Placing both of these divisions under a single corporation allows them to share certain structural similarities, accounting practices, and any other administrative resources that may be helpful across multiple industries.
Content integration—an important practice for media industries—is the ability of these companies to use the same content across multiple platforms. Disney’s theme parks would lose much of their charm and meaning without Mickey Mouse and Cinderella’s castle; the integration of these two industries—Disney’s theme parks and Disney’s animated characters—proves profitable for both. Behind the scenes, Disney is also able to reap some excellent benefits from their consolidation. For example, Disney could release a movie through its studio, and then immediately book the stars on news programs that air on Disney-owned broadcast television network ABC. Beyond just the ABC broadcast network, Disney also has many cable channels that it can use to directly market its movies and products to the targeted demographics. Unlike a competitor that might be wary of promoting a Disney movie, Disney’s ownership of many different media outlets allows it to single-handedly reach a large audience.
Ethical Issues of Vertical Integration
However, this high level of vertical integration raises several ethical concerns. In the above situation, for example, Disney could entice reviewers on its television outlets to give positive reviews to a Disney studio movie. Therefore, this potential for misused trust and erroneous information could be harmful.
In many ways, the conglomeration of media companies takes place behind the scenes, with only a minority of consumers aware of vertically intergrated holdings. Media companies often try to foster a sense of independence from a larger corporation. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule; the NBC sitcom 30 Rock often delves into the troubles of running a satirical sketch-comedy show (a parody of NBC’s Saturday Night Live) under the ownership of GE, NBC’s real-life owner.
The Issues of the Internet
Although media companies are steadily turning into larger businesses than ever before, many of them have nevertheless fallen on hard times. The instant, free content of the Internet is largely blamed for this decline. From the shift of classified advertising from newspapers to free online services to the decline in physical music sales in favor of digital downloads, the Internet has transformed traditional media economics.
One of the main issues with an unregulated Internet is that it allows digital files to be replicated and sent anywhere else in the world. Large music companies, which traditionally made almost all of their money from selling physical music formats such as vinyl records or compact discs, find themselves at a disadvantage. Consumers can share and distribute music files to anyone, and Internet service providers are exempted from liability under the DMCA. With providers freed of liability and media consumption a driving factor in the rise of high-speed Internet services, ISPs have no incentive to deter illegal sharing along with legal downloads.
Digital Downloads and DRM
Although music companies have had some success selling music through digital outlets, they have not been pioneers in online music sales. Rather, technology companies such as Apple and Amazon.com, sensing a large market for digital downloads coupled with a sleek delivery system, have led the way. Already accustomed to downloading MP3s, consumers readily adopted the model. However, record companies believed that the lack of digital rights management (DRM) protection offered by MP3s represnted a major downside.
Apple provided a way to strike a compromise between accessibility and rights control. Having already captured much of the personal digital audio player market with the iPodthat uses other Apple products, Apple has also long prided itself on creating highly integrated systems of both software and hardware. Because so many people were already using the iPod, Apple had a huge potential market for a music store even if it offered DRM-locked tracks that would only play on Apple devices. This inflexibility even offered a small benefit for consumers; Apple succeeded in convincing companies to price their digital downloads lower than CDs.
This compromise may have sold a lot of iPods and MP3s, but it did not satisfy the record companies. When consumers started to download one hit single for 99 cents—rather than buying the whole album for \$15 on CD—the music industry felt the pain. Still, huge monetary advances in digital music have taken place. Between 2004 and 2008, digital music sales increased from \$187 million to \$1.8 billion.
Piracy
The music industry has wasted no amount of firepower to blame piracy for the decline in album sales: “There’s no minimizing the impact of illegal file-sharing. It robs songwriters and recording artists of their livelihoods, and it ultimately undermines the future of music itself,” said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America.Cary Sherman, “File-Sharing Is Illegal. Period,” USA Today, September 18, 2003. However, economists see the truth of the matter as significantly more ambiguous. Analyzing over 10,000 weeks of data distributed over many albums, a pair of economists at the Harvard Business School and University of North Carolina found that “Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero.”Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf, “The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis,” Journal of Political Economy 115, no. 1 (February 2007): 1–42. Either way, two things are clear: Consumers are willing to pay for digital music, and digital downloads are on the market to stay for the foreseeable future.
Key Takeaways
• Switching costs and economies of scale play major roles in the information economy. The former helps determine whether a new technological format will take hold, and the latter encourages the growth of large media conglomerates.
• The three founding pieces of antitrust legislation were the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), which laid the foundation of antitrust legislation; the Clayton Antitrust Act (1911), which allowed the government to regulate purchase of a company’s stock; and the Celler-Kefauver Act (1950), which allowed the government to regulate the purchase of another company’s assets.
• Vertical integration occurs when a company controls all aspects of an industry: procuring raw materials, manufacturing, and delivering. Media companies benefit from vertical integration, but the practice raises numerous ethical issues.
Exercise \(1\)
Visit the Columbia Journalism Review’s “Who Owns What?” web page at http://www.cjr.org/resources/index.php. Choose a company from the drop-down menu. Make a chart of all the company’s different media outlets and complete the following activities:
1. Choose two subsidiaries of the parent company and discuss how they might be able to use vertical integration to their advantage.
2. How might the larger corporation be using an economy of scale?
3. How might the company be attempting to lessen switching costs? For example, does the company offer the same content on multiple platforms in order to reach customers who may have only one of these platforms? Give an example.
4. How might the three founding pieces of antitrust legislation affect the company’s decisions? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/13%3A_Economics_of_Mass_Media/13.05%3A_Information_Economy.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Identify three ways that technology has helped speed globalization.
• Explain how media outlets employ globalization to their advantage.
• Describe some advances that can be made in foreign markets.
The media industry is, in many ways, perfect for globalization, or the spread of global trade without regard for traditional political borders. As discussed earlier, the low marginal costs of media mean that reaching a wider market creates much larger profit margins for media companies. Because information is not a physical good, shipping costs are generally inconsequential. Finally, the global reach of media allows it to be relevant in many different countries.
However, some have argued that media is actually a partial cause of globalization, rather than just another globalized industry. Media is largely a cultural product, and the transfer of such a product is likely to have an influence on the recipient’s culture. Increasingly, technology has also been propelling globalization. Technology allows for quick communication, fast and coordinated transport, and efficient mass marketing, all of which have allowed globalization—especially globalized media—to take hold.
Globalized Culture, Globalized Markets
Much globalized media content comes from the West, particularly from the United States. Driven by advertising, U.S. culture and media have a strong consumerist bent (meaning that the ever-increasing consumption of goods is encouraged as a economic virtue), thereby possibly causing foreign cultures to increasingly develop consumerist ideals. Therefore, the globalization of media could not only provide content to a foreign country but may also create demand for U.S. products. Some believe that this will “contribute to a one-way transmission of ideas and values that result in the displacement of indigenous cultures.”Josefina M. C. Santos, “Globalisation and Tradition: Paradoxes in Philippine Television and Culture,” Media Development, no. 3 (2001): 43–48.
Globalization as a world economic trend generally refers to the lowering of economic trade borders, but it has much to do with culture as well. Just as transfer of industry and technology often encourages outside influence through the influx of foreign money into the economy, the transfer of culture opens up these same markets. As globalization takes hold and a particular community becomes more like the United States economically, this community may also come to adopt and personalize U.S. cultural values. The outcome of this spread can be homogenization (the local culture becomes more like the culture of the United States) or heterogenization (aspects of U.S. culture come to exist alongside local culture, causing the culture to become more diverse), or even both, depending on the specific situation.Terhi Rantanen, The Media and Globalization (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005).
Making sense of this range of possibilities can be difficult, but it helps to realize that a mix of many different factors is involved. Because of cultural differences, globalization of media follows a model unlike that of the globalization of other products. On the most basic level, much of media is language and culture based and, as such, does not necessarily translate well to foreign countries. Thus, media globalization often occurs on a more structural level, following broader “ways of organizing and creating media.”Mirza Jan. “Globalization of Media: Key Issues and Dimensions,” European Journal of Scientific Research 29, no. 1 (2009): 66–75. In this sense, a media company can have many different culturally specific brands and still maintain an economically globalized corporate structure.
Vertical Integraton and Globalization
Because globalization has as much to do with the corporate structure of a media company as with the products that a media company produces, vertical integration in multinational media companies becomes a necessary aspect of studying globalized media. Many large media companies practice vertical integration: Newspaper chains take care of their own reporting, printing, and distribution; television companies control their own production and broadcasting; and even small film studios often have parent companies that handle international distribution.
A media company often benefits greatly from vertical integration and globalization. Because of the proliferation of U.S. culture abroad, media outlets are able to use many of the same distribution structures with few changes. Because media rely on the speedy ability to react to current events and trends, a vertically integrated company can do all of this in a globalized rather than a localized marketplace; different branches of the company are readily able to handle different markets. Further, production values for single-country distribution are basically the same as those for multiple countries, so vertical integration allows, for example, a single film studio to make higher-budget movies than it may otherwise be able to produce without a distribution company that has as a global reach.
Foreign Markets and Titanic
Worth considering is the reciprocal influence of foreign culture on American culture. Certainly, American culture is increasingly exported around the world thanks to globalization, and many U.S. media outlets count strongly on their ability to sell their product in foreign markets. But what Americans consider their own culture has in fact been tailored to the tastes not only of U.S. citizens but also to those of worldwide audiences. The profit potential of foreign markets is enormous: If a movie does well abroad, for example, it might make up for a weak stateside showing, and may even drive interest in the movie in the United States.
One prime example of this phenomenon of global culture and marketing is James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic. One of the most expensive movies ever produced up to that point, with an official budget of around \$200 million, Titanic was not anticipated to perform particularly well at the U.S. box office. Rather, predictions of foreign box-office receipts allowed the movie to be made. Of the total box-office receipts of Titanic, only about one-third came from the domestic market. Although Titanic became the highest-grossing film up to that point, it grossed just \$140 million more domestically than Star Wars did 20 years earlier.Box Office Mojo, “All Time Domestic Box Office Results,” http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm. The difference was in the foreign market. While Star Wars made about the same amount—\$300 million—in both the domestic and foreign markets, Titanic grossed \$1.2 billion in foreign box-office receipts. In all, the movie came close to hitting the \$2 billion mark, and now sits in the No. 2 position behind Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster, Avatar.
One reason that U.S. studios can make these kinds of arrangements is their well-developed ties with the worldwide movie industry. Hollywood studios have agreements with theaters all over the world to show their films. By contrast, the foreign market for French films is not nearly as established, as the industry tends to be partially subsidized by the French government. Theaters showing Hollywood studio films in France funnel portions of their box-office receipts to fund French films. However, Hollywood has lobbied the World Trade Organization—a largely pro-globalization group that pushes for fewer market restrictions—to rule that this French subsidy is an unfair restriction on trade.Roman Terrill, “Globalization in the 1990s,” University of Iowa Center for International Finance and Development, 1999, www.uiowa.edu/ifdebook/ebook2/contents/part3-I.shtml#B.
In many ways, globalization presents legitimate concerns about the endangerment of indigenous culture. Yet simple concerns over the transfer of culture are not the only or even the biggest worries caused by the spread of American culture and values.
Key Takeaways
• Technology allows for quick communication, transport, and mass marketing, greatly contributing to a globalized marketplace.
• Media economies of scale achieve much larger profit margins by using digital technology to sell information instantly over a global market.
• Foreign markets offer excellent profit potential as they contribute to media companies’ economies of scale. The addition of new audiences and consumer markets may help a company build a global following in the long run.
Exercise \(1\)
Think of a U.S. product that is available throughout the world, such as an athletic brand like Nike or a food product like Pepsi or Coca-Cola. Now go online to the different country-specific branches of the company’s website.
1. What differences are there?
2. How might the company be attempting to tailor its globalized product to a specific culture?
3. What advances into the foreign market does this use of the Internet allow the company to make?
4. What advantages does this globalization of its products give the company?
5. In what other ways has technology helped speed this globalization? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/13%3A_Economics_of_Mass_Media/13.06%3A_Globalization_of_Media.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Describe how hegemony applies to different aspects of global culture.
• Identify the attributes of McDonaldization.
• Analyze the ways that local cultures respond to outside forces.
Cultural imperialism was around long before the United States became a world power. In its broadest strokes, imperialism describes the ways that one nation asserts its power over another. Just as imperial Britain economically ruled the American colonists, so did Britain strongly influence the culture of the colonies. The culture was still a mix of nationalities—many Dutch and Germans settled as well—but the ruling majority of ex-Britons led British culture to generally take over.
Today, cultural imperialism tends to describe the United States’ role as a cultural superpower throughout the world. American movie studios are generally much more successful than their foreign counterparts not only because of their business models but also because the concept of Hollywood has become one of the modern worldwide movie business’s defining traits. Multinational, nongovernmental corporations can now drive global culture. This is neither entirely good nor entirely bad. On one hand, foreign cultural institutions can adopt successful American business models, and corporations are largely willing to do whatever makes them the most money in a particular market—whether that means giving local people a shot at making movies, or making multicultural films such as 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire. However, cultural imperialism has potential negative effects as well. From a spread of Western ideals of beauty to the possible decline of local cultures around the world, cultural imperialism can have a quick and devastating effect.
Cultural Hegemony
To begin discussing the topic of cultural imperialism, it is important to look at the ideas of one of its founding theorists, Antonio Gramsci. Strongly influenced by the theories and writings of Karl Marx, Italian philosopher and critic Gramsci originated the idea of cultural hegemony to describe the power of one group over another. Unlike Marx, who believed that the workers of the world would eventually unite and overthrow capitalism, Gramsci instead argued that culture and the media exert such a powerful influence on society that they can actually influence workers to buy into a system that is not economically advantageous to them. This argument that media can influence culture and politics is typified in the notion of the American Dream. In this rags-to-riches tale, hard work and talent can lead to a successful life no matter where one starts. Of course, there is some truth to this, but it is by far the exception rather than the rule.
Marx’s ideas remained at the heart of Gramsci’s beliefs. According to Gramsci’s notion, the hegemons of capitalism—those who control the capital—can assert economic power, while the hegemons of culture can assert cultural power. This concept of culture is rooted in Marxist class struggle, in which one group is dominated by another and conflict arises. Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony is pertinent in the modern day not because of the likelihood of a local property-owning class oppressing the poor, but because of concern that rising globalization will permit one culture to so completely assert its power that it drives out all competitors.
Spreading American Tastes Through McDonaldization
A key danger of cultural imperialism is the possibility that American tastes will crowd out local cultures around the globe. The McDonaldization of the globe applies not just to its namesake, McDonald’s, with its franchises in seemingly every country, but to any industry that applies the technique of McDonald’s on a large scale. Coined by George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society (1993), the concept is rooted in the process of rationalization. With McDonaldization, four aspects of the business are taken to the extreme: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. These four things are four of the main aspects of free markets. Applying the concepts of an optimized financial market to cultural and human items such as food, McDonaldization enforces general standards and consistency throughout a global industry.
Unsurprisingly, McDonald’s is the prime example of this concept. Although the fast-food restaurant is somewhat different in every country—for example, Indian restaurants offer a pork-free, beef-free menu to accommodate regional religious practices—the same fundamental principles apply in a culturally specific way. The branding of the company is the same wherever it is; the “I’m lovin’ it” slogan is inescapable, and the Golden Arches are, according to Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, “more widely recognized than the Christian cross.”Schlosser, Eric, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 4. Yet, more importantly, the business model of McDonald’s stays relatively the same from country to country. Although culturally specific variations exist, any McDonald’s in a particular area has basically the same menu as any other. In other words, wherever a consumer is likely to travel within a reasonable range, the menu options and the resulting product remain consistent.
McDonaldizing Media
Media works in an uncannily similar way to fast food. Just as the automation of fast food—from freeze-dried french fries to prewrapped salads—attempts to lower a product’s marginal costs, thus increasing profits, media outlets seek to achieve a certain degree of consistency that allows them to broadcast and sell the same product throughout the world with minimal changes. The idea that media actually spreads a culture, however, is controversial. In his book Cultural Imperialism, John Tomlinson argues that exported American culture is not necessarily imperialist because it does not push a cultural agenda; it seeks to make money from whatever cultural elements it can throughout the world. According to Tomlinson, “no one really disputes the dominant presence of Western multinational, and particularly American, media in the world: what is doubted is the cultural implications of this presence.”John Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction (London: Continuum, 2001).
There are, of course, by-products of American cultural exports throughout the world. American cultural mores, such as the Western standard of beauty, have increasingly made it into global media. As early as 1987, Nicholas Kristof wrote in The New York Times about a young Chinese woman who was planning to have an operation to make her eyes look rounder, more like the eyes of Caucasian women. Western styles—“newfangled delights like nylon stockings, pierced ears and eye shadow”—also began to replace the austere blue tunics of Mao-era China. The pervasiveness of cultural influence is difficult to track, however, as the young Chinese woman says that she wanted to have the surgery not because of Western looks but because “she thinks they are pretty.”Nicholas D. Kristof, “In China, Beauty Is a Big Western Nose,” New York Times, April 29, 1987, http://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/29/garden/in-china-beauty-is-a-big-western-nose.html.
Cultural Imperialism, Resentment, and Terrorism
Not everyone views the spread of American tastes as a negative occurence. During the early 21st century, much of the United States’ foreign policy stemmed from the idea that spreading freedom, democracy, and free-market capitalism through cultural influence around the world could cause hostile countries such as Iraq to adopt American ways of living and join the United States in the fight against global terrorism and tyranny. Although this plan did not succeed as hoped, it raises the question of whether Americans should truly be concerned about spreading their cultural system if they believe that it is an ideal one.
Speaking after the attacks of September 11, 2001, then-President George W. Bush presented two simple ideas to the U.S. populace: “They [terrorists] hate our freedoms,” and “Go shopping.”President George W. Bush, address on terrorism before a joint meeting of Congress, New York Times, September 21, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/us/nation-challenged-president-bush-s-address-terrorism-before-joint-meeting.html. These twin ideals of personal freedom and economic activity are often held up as the prime exports of American culture. However, the idea that other local beliefs need to change may threaten people of other cultures.
Freedom, Democracy, and Rock ’n’ Roll
The spread of culture works in mysterious ways. Hollywood probably does not actually have a master plan to export the American way of life around the globe and displace local culture, just as American music may not necessarily be a progenitor of democratic government and economic cooperation. Rather, local cultures respond to the outside culture of U.S. media and democracy in many different ways. First of all, media are often often much more flexible than believed; the successful exportation of the film Titanic was not an accident in which everyone in the world suddenly wanted to experience movies like an American. Rather, the film’s producers had judged that it would succeed on a world stage just as on a domestic stage. Therefore, in some ways U.S. media have become more widespread, and also more worldwide in focus. It could even be argued that American cultural exports promote intercultural understanding; after all, to sell to a culture, a business must first understand that culture.
By contrast, some local cultures around the world have taken to Western-style business models so greatly that they have created their own hybrid cultures. One well-known example of this is India’s Bollywood film industry. Combining traditional Indian music and dance with American-style filmmaking, Bollywood studios release around 700 major films each year, three times the rate of the major Hollywood studios. India’s largest film industry mixes melodrama with musical interludes, lip-synced by actors but sung by pop stars. These pop songs are disseminated well before a movie’s release, both to build up hype and to enter multiple media markets. Although similar marketing tactics have been employed in the United States, Bollywood seems to have mastered the art of cross-media integration. The music and dance numbers are essentially cinematic forms of music videos, both promoting the soundtrack and adding variety to the film. The numbers also feature many different Indian national languages and a hybrid of Western dance music and Indian classical singing, a certain departure from conventional Western media.Richard Corliss, “Hooray for Bollywood!” Time, September 16, 1996, www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985129,00.html.
While cultural imperialism might cause resentment in many parts of the world, the idea that local cultures are helpless under the crushing power of American cultural imposition is clearly too simplistic to hold water. Instead, local cultures seem to adopt American-style media models, changing their methods to fit the corporate structures rather than just the aesthetics of U.S. media. These two economic and cultural aspects are clearly intertwined, but the idea of a foreign power unilaterally crushing a native culture does not seem to be entirely true.
Key Takeaways
• Cultural hegemony refers to the power of the dominant culture to overshadow and even overtake local cultures.
• McDonaldization is characterized by efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. These four attributes—more than any specific cultural ideas—are the primary features of globalized American businesses.
• Local cultures can respond to outside forces in many ways. In some circumstances, there may be a backlash against what can be seen as a hostile culture. However, cultures such as India have adopted American cultural and economic ideas to create a hybrid of foreign business models and local cultures.
Exercise \(1\)
Please respond to the following short-answer writing prompts. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.
1. Pick a media company that interests you, such as a magazine, a television station, or a record label. In what ways has this company undergone the process of McDonaldization throughout its history? Has this process made the company more efficient? How so? What, if anything, has been lost because of this process? Why?
2. In what ways does the United States act as a cultural hegemon?
3. How do local cultures respond to the influence of foreign culture? What are some examples of local cultures resisting the influence of foreign culture? What are some examples where local cultures have embraced foreign culture?
End-of-chapter assessment
Review Questions
1. Questions for Section 13.1
1. What are the three basic business models of media?
2. Using the models you listed above, classify the following media industries: book publishing, television broadcasting, and live-event ticketing.
3. What are the two ways that media companies make money?
2. Questions for Section 13.2
1. What is synergy, and how can media companies use it?
2. Explain the purpose and influence of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
3. Questions for Section 13.3
1. What is the effect of digital communication in developing countries?
2. How are citizens of developed countries who lack useful Internet access affected?
3. What is the digital divide, and who is trying to close it? How?
4. Questions for Section 13.4
1. How does the information economy differ from the traditional economy?
2. What are switching costs?
3. How does vertical integration relate to globalized media?
5. Questions for Section 13.5
1. What effects has technology had on international economics?
2. What is globalization, and how does it affect the media?
3. How do the media increase profit margins in foreign countries?
6. Questions for Section 13.6
1. What is hegemony?
2. What are the main traits of media McDonaldization?
3. Name a positive and a negative way in which culture may respond to an outside force.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. How do vertical integration, first copy costs, and the information economy relate to one another?
2. How does the digital divide affect developed and developing countries differently? What predictions can you make about its effects in the future?
3. How has the Internet changed the value of experience goods?
4. Is the application of antitrust legislation to media companies positive or negative? How does having a larger, more efficient media company help society? How does it damage society?
5. What is the effect of globalized media on world cultures? Do you think that the current trends will continue, or do you see local cultures reasserting their power? Give examples.
Career Connection
Media now rely heavily on synergy, or cross-platform media distribution. Because of this, one of the industry’s quickly expanding career fields employs people who manage the online outlets of a more traditional media outlet such as radio or television. Although such jobs used to require extensive technological knowledge, modern online project managers, online media editors, and web producers spend much of their time determining how best to display the content online.
In this activity, you will research a media outlet and then answer questions about the choices that the web producer, editor, or manager made regarding its content. Some possible websites to research include the following:
Now answer the following questions regarding the site that you picked:
1. What sort of multimedia content does the site use that might relate to its main product?
2. Is there anything that might not relate to its main product? What might its purpose be?
3. How do the editorial decisions of the site reflect the influence of the Internet?
4. Are there any online-only content sections of the site? How might these relate to the corporation’s main purpose? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/13%3A_Economics_of_Mass_Media/13.07%3A_Cultural_Imperialism.txt |
• 14.1: Introduction
The U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees Americans freedom of the press, which many would agree is an important ingredient in upholding democratic principles. Freedom from government censorship allows the news media to keep citizens informed about the state of their society.
• 14.2: Ethical Issues in Mass Media
In the competitive and rapidly changing world of mass-media communications, media professionals—overcome by deadlines, bottom-line imperatives, and corporate interests—can lose sight of the ethical implications of their work. However, as entertainment law specialist Sherri Burr points out, “Because network television is an audiovisual medium that is piped free into ninety-nine percent of American homes, it is one of the most important vehicles for depicting cultural images to our population.
• 14.3: News Media and Ethics
Now more than ever, with the presence of online news sources, news delivery is expected to be instantaneous, and journalists and news agencies face pressure to release stories rapidly to keep up with competing media sources. With this added pressure, standards of accuracy and fairness become more difficult to uphold. What wins when ethical responsibility and bottom-line concerns are at odds?
• 14.4: Ethical Considerations of the Online World
Online media has developed rapidly, with technology advancing at a rate that often surpasses the ability of legislation and policy to keep up with it. As a result, issues like individuals’ rights to privacy, copyright protections, and fair use restrictions have become the subject of numerous court cases and public debates as lawmakers, judges, and civil liberties organizations struggle to define the limits of technology and the access it provides to previously restricted information. In the foll
14: Ethics of Mass Media
The U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees Americans freedom of the press, which many would agree is an important ingredient in upholding democratic principles. Freedom from government censorship allows the news media to keep citizens informed about the state of their society. But when does the press take this freedom from censorship and restriction too far? The death of Princess Diana in 1997 brought fierce criticism against the paparazzi, and tabloid reporting in general, when it was found that the princess’s car had been pursued by paparazzi vehicles before the crash that caused her death. In June 2011, Tori Spelling crashed after being chased by paparazzi. She was pregnant at the time and feared for her unborn child. In July 2011, paparazzi were detained for chasing Paris Jackson (Michael Jackson’s daughter). Despite these incidents, the public’s interest in celebrity gossip has not diminished; rather, the growth of online news sources has led to a proliferation of celebrity gossip websites.
A potential concern regarding this trend is that tabloid-style gossip is not confined to public figures in the entertainment industry; it can have far-reaching consequences. As noted in Chapter 2, the firing of General Stanley McChrystal from his post as commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan in June 2010 was nearly the direct result of an article in Rolling Stone, in which he made less-than-flattering comments about Vice President Joe Biden.Michael Hastings, “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone, June 25, 2010, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236. McChrystal himself did not directly criticize the president or the administration’s policies; instead, his views were inferred from comments made by his aides.MSNBC, “Obama, McCain, Kerry Comment on McChrystal,” June 22, 2010, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37850711/ns/us_news-military/. However, this was sufficient to cost him his job. In recent years, tabloid reporting has become increasingly invasive and sometimes dangerous.
Should the government begin placing stronger regulations on tabloid reporting as privacy advocates have argued? The Constitution, after all, while guaranteeing freedom of the press, also has been interpreted as guaranteeing individuals certain rights to privacy, and most journalists would agree that standards of ethical journalism include efforts to protect these rights. However, some paparazzi photographers and celebrity journalists disregard journalistic codes of ethics in their efforts to get a story.Patrick J. Alach, “Paparazzi and Privacy,” Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review 28, no. 3 (2008): 205. Many argue that because celebrities are “public figures,” the same privacy rights that protect the general public don’t apply. Us Weekly’s editor in chief, Janice Min, has argued, “A celebrity is like an elected official. If you’re getting paid \$20 million a movie, you have to rely on public goodwill to stay in office. You have to accept the fact that you’re a public commodity.”Donna Freydkin, “Celebrities Fight for Privacy,” USA Today, July 6, 2004, http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-07-06-celeb-privacy_x.htm. Harvey Levin, editor in chief for the popular celebrity gossip blog TMZ, would agree. When discussing invasions into the private lives of stars like Britney Spears, Levin proclaimed that “Britney is gold; she is crack to our readers. Her life is a complete train-wreck and I thank God for her every day.”New York Times, “TMZ Productions,” Times Topics, July 7, 2009, http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/tmz_productions/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=tmz&st=cse.
On the other side of the debate, many argue that the public-figure limitation should be balanced with the consideration of a story’s newsworthiness. As law professor Patrick J. Alack has argued, “If ‘social value’ is what constitutes newsworthiness, it is hard to imagine a more perverse concept of social value that incorporates … Paris Hilton’s late-night dining preferences or Lindsay Lohan’s driving habits.”Patrick J. Alach, “Paparazzi and Privacy,” Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review 28, no. 3 (2008): 237.
TMZ, a website that publishes celebrity news in real time, was launched in 2005, and since its creation the site has received numerous criticisms from more prestigious news sources like The Washington Post and ABC News. Yet Thane Burnett, reporter for The Toronto Sun, admits that “despite the sideways glances, mainstream news services prowl TMZ’s site for coverage.”Thane Burnett, “Caught on Camera,” Toronto Sun, May 12, 2009, www.torontosun.com/entertainment/celebrities/2009/05/12/9429036-sun.html. With the immediacy of Internet news coverage, mainstream media outlets face increasing pressure to release major news while it is still fresh. That pressure is compounded by celebrity gossip sites like TMZ that may resort to unorthodox methods to gather information; the shelf life of breaking news is growing increasingly shorter. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/14%3A_Ethics_of_Mass_Media/14.01%3A_Introduction.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Explain the importance of racial and gender diversity in mass media.
• Identify the ethical concerns associated with race and gender stereotypes.
• List some common concerns about sexual content in the media.
In the competitive and rapidly changing world of mass-media communications, media professionals—overcome by deadlines, bottom-line imperatives, and corporate interests—can easily lose sight of the ethical implications of their work. However, as entertainment law specialist Sherri Burr points out, “Because network television is an audiovisual medium that is piped free into ninety-nine percent of American homes, it is one of the most important vehicles for depicting cultural images to our population.”Sherri Burr, “Television and Societal Effects: An Analysis of Media Images of African-Americans in Historical Context,” Journal of Gender, Race and Justice 4 (2001): 159. Considering the profound influence mass media like television have on cultural perceptions and attitudes, it is important for the creators of media content to grapple with ethical issues.
Stereotypes, Prescribed Roles, and Public Perception
The U.S. population is becoming increasingly diverse. According to U.S. Census statistics from 2010, 27.6 percent of the population identifies its race as non-white.U.S. Census Bureau, “2010 Census Data,” 2010.census.gov/2010census/data/. Yet in network television broadcasts, major publications, and other forms of mass media and entertainment, minorities are often either absent or presented as heavily stereotyped, two-dimensional characters. Rarely are minorities depicted as complex characters with the full range of human emotions, motivations, and behaviors. Meanwhile, the stereotyping of women, gays and lesbians, and individuals with disabilities in mass media has also been a source of concern.
The word stereotype originated in the printing industry as a method of making identical copies, and the practice of stereotyping people is much the same: a system of identically replicating an image of an “other.” As related in Chapter 8 about D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, a film that relied on racial stereotypes to portray Southern whites as victims in the American Civil War, stereotypes—especially those disseminated through mass media—become a form of social control, shaping collective perceptions and individual identities. In American mass media, the white man is still shown as the standard: the central figure of television narratives and the dominant perspective on everything from trends, to current events, to politics. White maleness becomes an invisible category because it gives the impression of being the norm.Joanna Hearne, “Hollywood Whiteness and Stereotypes,” Film Reference, http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Race-and-Ethnicity-HOLLYWOOD-WHITENESS-AND-STEREOTYPES.html.
Minority Exclusion and Stereotypes
In the fall of 1999, when the major television networks released their schedules for the upcoming programming season, a startling trend became clear. Of the 26 newly released television programs, none depicted an African American in a leading role, and even the secondary roles on these shows included almost no racial minorities. In response to this ommission, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), an advocacy group for Hispanic Americans, organized protests and boycotts. Pressured—and embarrassed—into action, the executives from the major networks made a fast dash to add racial minorities to their prime-time shows, not only among actors, but also among producers, writers, and directors. Four of the networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox—added a vice president of diversity position to help oversee the networks’ progress toward creating more diverse programming.Leonard M. Baynes, “White Out: The Absence and Stereotyping of People of Color by the Broadcast Networks in Prime Time Entertainment Programming,” Arizona Law Review 45 (2003): 293.
Despite these changes and greater public attention regarding diversity issues, minority underrepresentation is still an issue in all areas of mass media. In fact, the trend in recent years has been regressive. In a recent study, the NAACP reported that the number of minority actors on network television has actually decreased, from 333 during the 2002–2003 season to 307 four years later.WWAY, “NAACP Not Pleased With the Diversity on Television,” January 12, 2009, www.wwaytv3.com/naacp_not_pleased_diversity_television/01/2009. Racial minorities are often absent, peripheral, or take on stereotyped roles in film, television, print media, advertising, and even in video games. Additionally, according to a 2002 study by the University of California, Los Angeles, the problem is not only a visible one, but also one that extends behind the scenes. The study found that minorities are even more underrepresented in creative and decision-making positions than they are on screen.Media Awareness Network, “Ethnic and Visible Minorities in Entertainment Media,” 2010, www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/ethnics_and_minorities/minorities_entertainment.cfm. This lack of representation among producers, writers, and directors often directly affects the way minorities are portrayed in film and television, leading to racial stereotypes.
Though advocacy groups like the NCLR and the NAACP have often been at the forefront of protests against minority stereotypes in the media, experts are quick to point out that the issue is one everyone should be concerned about. As media ethicist Leonard M. Baynes argues, “Since we live in a relatively segregated country…broadcast television and its images and representations are very important because television can be the common meeting ground for all Americans.”Leonard M. Baynes, “White Out: The Absence and Stereotyping of People of Color by the Broadcast Networks in Prime Time Entertainment Programming,” Arizona Law Review 45 (2003): 293. There are clear correlations between mass media portrayals of minority groups and public perceptions. In 1999, after hundreds of complaints by African Americans that they were unable to get taxis to pick them up, the city of New York launched a crackdown, threatening to revoke the licenses of cab drivers who refused to stop for African American customers. When interviewed by reporters, many cab drivers blamed their actions on fears they would be robbed or asked to drive to dangerous neighborhoods.Sherri Burr, “Television and Societal Effects: An Analysis of Media Images of African-Americans in Historical Context,” Journal of Gender, Race and Justice 4 (2001): 159.
Racial stereotypes are not only an issue in entertainment media; they also find their way into news reporting, which is a form of storytelling. Journalists, editors, and reporters are still predominately white. According to a 2000 survey, only 11.6 percent of newsroom staff in the United States were racial and ethnic minorities.Media Awareness Network, “Ethnic and Visible Minorities in the News,” 2010, www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/ethnics_and_minorities/minorities_news.cfm. The situation has not improved dramatically during the past decade. According to a 2008 newsroom census released by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the percentage of minority journalists working at daily newspapers was a scant 13.52 percent.National Association of Hispanic Journalists, “NAHJ Disturbed by Figures That Mask Decline in Newsroom Diversity,” news release, 2010, www.nahj.org/nahjnews/articles/2008/April/ASNE.shtml. Because of this underrepresentation behind the scenes, the news media is led by those whose perspective is already privileged, who create the narratives about those without privilege. In the news media, racial minorities are often cast in the role of villains or troublemakers, which in turn shapes public perceptions about these groups. Media critics Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki point out that images of African Americans on welfare, African American violence, and urban crime in African American communities “facilitate the construction of menacing imagery.”Clifford G. Christians, “Communication Ethics,” in Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, ed. Carl Mitchum (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005), 1:366. Similarly, a study by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists found that only 1 percent of the evening news stories aired by the three major U.S. television networks cover Latinos or Latino issues, and that when Latinos are featured, they are portrayed negatively 80 percent of the time.Media Awareness Network, “Ethnic and Visible Minorities in the News.” Still others have criticized journalists and reporters for a tendency toward reductive presentations of complex issues involving minorities, such as the religious and racial tensions fueled by the September 11 attacks. By reducing these conflicts to “opposing frames”—that is, by oversimplifying them as two-sided struggles so that they can be quickly and easily understood—the news media helped create a greater sense of separation between Islamic Americans and the dominant culture after September 11, 2001.Ginny Whitehouse, “Why Diversity Is an Ethical Issue,” The Handbook of Mass Media Ethics, ed. Lee Wilkins and Clifford G. Christians (New York: Routledge, 2009), 101.
Since the late 1970s, the major professional journalism organizations in the United States—Associated Press Managing Editors (APME), Newspaper Association of America (NAA), American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), Society for Professional Journalists (SPJ), Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), and others—have included greater ethnic diversity as a primary goal or ethic. However, progress has been slow. ASNE has set 2025 as a target date to have minority representation in newsrooms match U.S. demographics.Ginny Whitehouse, “Why Diversity Is an Ethical Issue,” The Handbook of Mass Media Ethics, ed. Lee Wilkins and Clifford G. Christians (New York: Routledge, 2009), 102.
Because the programming about, by, and for ethnic minorities in the mainstream media is disproportionately low, many turn to niche publications and channels such as BET, Univision, Telemundo, Essence, Jet, and others for sources of information and entertainment. In fact, 45 percent of ethnic-minority adults prefer these niche media sources to mainstream television, radio programs, and newspapers.Ginny Whitehouse, “Why Diversity Is an Ethical Issue,” The Handbook of Mass Media Ethics, ed. Lee Wilkins and Clifford G. Christians (New York: Routledge, 2009), 103. These sources cover stories about racial minorities that are generally ignored by the mainstream press and offer ethnic-minority perspectives on more widely covered issues in the news.Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, “Ethnic,” in The State of the News Media 2010, www.stateofthemedia.org/2010/ethnic_summary_essay.php. Entertainment channels like BET (a 24-hour cable television station that offers music videos, dramas featuring predominately black casts, and other original programming created by African Americans) provide the diverse programming that mainstream television networks often drop.Rachel Zellars, “Black Entertainment Television (BET),” in Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, 2nd ed., ed. Colin A. Palmer (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006.) 1:259. Print sources like Vista, a bilingual magazine targeting U.S. Hispanics, and Vivid, the most widely circulated African American periodical, appeal to ethnic minority groups because they are controlled and created by individuals within these groups. Though some criticize ethnic niche media, claiming that they erode common ground or, in some instances, perpetuate stereotypes, the popularity of these media has only grown in recent years and will likely continue in the absence of more diverse perspectives in mainstream media sources.Can Tran, “TV Network Reviews: Black Entertainment Television (BET),” Helium, www.helium.com/items/884989-tv-network-reviews-black-entertainment-television-bet; Joe Flint, “No Black-and-White Answer for the Lack of Diversity on Television,” Company Town (blog), Los Angeles Times, June 11, 2010, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/06/diversity-television.html.
Femininity in Mass Media
In the ABC sitcom The Donna Reed Show (1958–1966), actress Donna Reed plays a stay-at-home mother who fills her days with housework, cooking for her husband and children, decorating, and participating in community organizations, all while wearing pearls, heels, and stylish dresses. Such a traditional portrayal of femininity no doubt sounds dated to modern audiences, but stereotyped gender roles continue to thrive in the mass media. Women are still often represented as subordinate to their male counterparts—emotional, noncompetitive, domestic, and sweet natured. In contrast to these types, other women are represented as unattractively masculine, crazy, or cruel. In television dramas and sitcoms, women continue to fill traditional roles such as mothers, nurses, secretaries, and housewives. By contrast, men in film and television are less likely to be shown in the home, and male characters are generally characterized by dominance, aggression, action, physical strength, and ambition.Daniel Chandler, “Television and Gender Roles” www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/TF33120/gendertv.html#E. In the mainstream news media, men are predominately featured as authorities on specialized issues like business, politics, and economics, while women are more likely to report on stories about natural disasters or domestic violence—coverage that does not require expertise.Media Awareness Network, “Media Coverage of Women and Women’s Issues,” www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_working.cfm. In sports programming, men are the authoritative figures in the broadcast booth while women are “sideline reporters.“
Not only is the white male perspective still presented as the standard, authoritative one, but also the media itself often comes to embody the male gaze. Media commentator Nancy Hass notes that “shows that don’t focus on men have to feature the sort of women that guys might watch.”Media Awareness Network, “The Economics of Gender Stereotyping,” www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_economics.cfm. Feminist critics have long been concerned by the way women in film, television, and print media are defined by their sexuality. Few female role models exist in the media who are valued primarily for qualities like intelligence or leadership. Inundated by images that conform to unrealistic beauty standards, women come to believe at an early age that their value depends on their physical attractiveness. According to one Newsweek article, eating disorders in girls are now routinely being diagnosed at younger ages, sometimes as early as 8 or 9. The models who appear in magazines and print advertising are unrealistically skinny (23 percent thinner than the average woman), and their photographs are further enhanced to hide flaws and blemishes. Meanwhile, the majority of women appearing on television are under the age of 30, and many older actresses, facing the pressure to embody the youthful ideal, undergo surgical enhancements to appear younger.Jennifer L. Derenne and Eugene V. Beresin, “Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders,” Academic Psychiatry 30 (2006), ap.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/30/3/257. One recent example is television news host Greta Van Susteren, a respected legal analyst who moved from CNN to Fox in 2002. At the debut of her show, On the Record, Van Susteren, sitting behind a table that allowed viewers to see her short skirt, had undergone not only a hair and wardrobe makeover, but also surgical enhancement to make her appear younger and more attractive.Media Awareness Network, “Media Coverage of Women and Women’s Issues,” www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_working.cfm. However, these enhancements are not restricted to the “over 30” crowd. Indeed, younger stars, such as Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical), singer Ashlee Simpson, and reality star Heidi Montag, have all availed themselves of plastic surgery.
In addition to the prevalence of gender stereotypes, the ratio of men to women in the mass media, in and behind the scenes, is also disproportionate. Surprisingly, though women slightly outnumber men in the general population, over two-thirds of television sitcoms feature men in the starring role.Media Awareness Network, “The Economics of Gender Stereotyping,” www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_economics.cfm. Among writers, producers, directors, and editors, the number of women lags far behind. In Hollywood, for instance, only 17 percent of behind-the-scenes creative talent is represented by women. Communications researcher Martha Lauzen argues that “when women have more powerful roles in the making of a movie or television show, we know that we also get more powerful female characters on-screen, women who are more real and more multi-dimensional.”Media Awareness Network, “Women Working in the Media,” www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_working.cfm.
Sexual Content in Public Communication
Creators of all forms of media know that sex—named, innuendoed, or overtly displayed—is a surefire way to grab an audience’s attention. “Sex sells” is an advertising cliché; the list of products that advertisers have linked to erotic imagery or innuendo, from cosmetics and cars to vacation packages and beer, is nearly inexhaustible. Most often, sexualized advertising content is served up in the form of the female body, in part or in whole, featured in provocative or suggestive poses beside a product that may have nothing to do with sexuality. However, by linking these two things, advertisers are marketing desire itself.
Sex is used to sell not just consumer goods; it sells media, too. Music videos on MTV and VH1, which promote artists and their music, capture audience attention with highly suggestive dance moves, often performed by scantily clad women. Recent music videos by Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga are just a few examples. Movie trailers may flash brief images of nudity or passionate kissing to suggest more to come in the movie. Video games feature female characters like Lara Croft of Tomb Raider, whose tightly fitted clothes reveal all the curves of her Barbie-doll figure. And partially nude models grace the cover of men’s and women’s magazines like Maxim, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue where cover lines promise titillating tips, gossip, and advice on bedroom behavior.Tom Reichert and Jacqueline Lambiase, “Peddling Desire: Sex and the Marketing of Media and Consumer Goods,” Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing, ed. Tom Reichert and Jacqueline Lambiase (New York: Routledge, 2005), 3.
In the 1920s and 1930s, filmmakers attracted audiences to the silver screen with the promise of what was then considered scandalous content. Prior to the 1934 Hays Code, which placed restrictions on “indecent” content in movies, films featured erotic dances, male and female nudity, references to homosexuality, and sexual violence (for more information on the Hays Code, see Chapter 8 and Chapter 15). D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) includes scenes with topless actresses, as does Ben Hur (1925). In Warner Bros.’ Female (1933), the leading lady, the head of a major car company, spends her evenings in sexual exploits with her male employees, a story line that would never have passed the Hays Code a year later.Gary Morris, “Public Enemy: Warner Brothers in the Pre-Code Era,” Bright Lights Film Journal, September 1996, http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/17/04b_warner.php. Trouble in Paradise, a 1932 romantic comedy, was withdrawn from circulation after the institution of the Hays Code because of its frank discussion of sexuality. Similarly, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), which featured a prostitute as one of the main characters, was also banned under the code.Daniel P. Hauesser, “Indecent and Deviant: Pre-Hays Code Films You Should See,” indieWIRE, 2007, www.spout.com/groups/Top_5/Re_5_Pre_Hays_Code_Films/190/19210/1/ShowPost.aspx.
In the 1960s, when the sexual revolution led to increasingly permissive attitudes toward sexuality in American culture, the Hays Code was replaced with the MPAA rating system, with ratings such as G, PG, and R. The rating system, designed to warn parents about potentially objectionable material in films, allowed filmmakers to include sexually explicit content without fear of public protest. Since the replacement of the Hays Code, sexual content has been featured in movies with much greater frequency.
The problem, according to many media critics, is not that sex now appears more often, but that it is almost always portrayed unrealistically in American mass media.Mary Lou Galician, Sex, Love & Romance in the Mass Media (New York: Routledge, 2004), 5; Media Awareness Network, “Sex and Relationships in the Media,” Media Awareness Network, www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_sex.cfm. This can be harmful, they say, because the mass media are important socialization agents; that is, ways that people learn about the norms, expectations, and values of their society.Mary Lou Galician, Sex, Love & Romance in the Mass Media (New York: Routledge, 2004), 82. Sex, as many films, television shows, music videos, and song lyrics present it, is frequent and casual. Rarely do these media point out the potential emotional and physical consequences of sexual behavior. According to one study, portrayals of sex that include possible risks like sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy only occur in 15 percent of the sexually explicit material on television.Parents Television Council, “Facts and TV Statistics,” www.parentstv.org/ptc/facts/mediafacts.asp. Additionally, actors and models depicted in sexual relationships in the media are thinner, younger, and more attractive than the average adult. This creates unrealistic expectations about the necessary ingredients for a satisfying sexual relationship.
Social psychologists are particularly concerned with the negative effects these unrealistic portrayals have on women, as women’s bodies are the primary means of introducing sexual content into media targeted at both men and women. Media activist Jean Kilbourne points out that “women’s bodies are often dismembered into legs, breasts or thighs, reinforcing the message that women are objects rather than whole human beings.”Media Awareness Network, “Sex and Relationships in the Media,” Media Awareness Network, www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_sex.cfm. Adbusters, a magazine that critiques mass media, particularly advertising, points out the sexual objectification of women’s bodies in a number of its spoof advertisements, such as the one in Figure 14.3, bringing home the message that advertising often sends unrealistic and harmful messages about women’s bodies and sexuality. Additionally, many researchers note that in women’s magazines, advertising, and music videos, women are often implicitly—and sometimes explicitly—given the message that a primary concern should be attracting and sexually satisfying men.Media Awareness Network, “Sex and Relationships in the Media,” Media Awareness Network, www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_sex.cfm. Furthermore, the recent increase in entertainment featuring sexual violence may, according to some studies, negatively affect the way young men behave toward women.Barrie Gunter, Media Sex: What Are the Issues? (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002), 8.
Young women and men are especially vulnerable to the effects of media portrayals of sexuality. Psychologists have long noted that teens and children get much of their information and many of their opinions about sex through television, film, and online media. In fact, two-thirds of adolescents turn to the media first when they want to learn about sexuality.Media Awareness Network, “Sex and Relationships in the Media,” Media Awareness Network, www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_sex.cfm. The media may help shape teenage and adolescent attitudes toward sex, but they can also lead young people to engage in sexual activity before they are prepared to handle the consequences. According to one study, kids with high exposure to sex on television were almost twice as likely to initiate sexual activity compared to kids without exposure.Rebecca L. Collins and others, “Watching Sex on Television Predicts Adolescent Initiation of Sexual Behavior,” Pediatrics 114, no. 3 (2004), http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/114/3/e280.
Cultural critics have noted that sexually explicit themes in mass media are generally more widely accepted in European nations than they are in the United States. However, the increased concern and debates over censorship of sexual content in the United States may in fact be linked to the way sex is portrayed in American media rather than to the presence of the sexual content in and of itself. Unrealistic portrayals that fail to take into account the actual complexity of sexual relationships seem to be a primary concern. As Jean Kilbourne has argued, sex in the American media “has far more to do with trivializing sex than with promoting it. We are offered a pseudo-sexuality that makes it far more difficult to discover our own unique and authentic sexuality.”Media Awareness Network, “Sex and Relationships in the Media,” Media Awareness Network, www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_sex.cfm. However, despite these criticisms, it is likely that unrealistic portrayals of sexual content will continue to be the norm in mass media unless the general public stops consuming these images.
Key Takeaways
• In American mass media, where the white male perspective is still presented as the standard, stereotypes of those who differ—women, ethnic minorities, and gays and lesbians—are an issue of ethical concern.
• Racial minorities are often absent, peripheral, or stereotyped in film, television, print media, advertising, and video games.
• Racial stereotypes occur in news reporting, where they can influence public perceptions.
• Underrepresentation of women and racial and ethnic minorities is also a problem in the hiring of creative talent behind the scenes.
• The media still often subordinate women to traditional roles, where they serve as support for their male counterparts.
• The objectification of women in various visual media has particularly led to concerns about body image, unrealistic social expectations, and negative influence on children and adolescent girls.
• “Sex sells” consumer products and media such as movies and music videos.
• The issue of sexual content in the media has become a source of concern to media critics because of the frequency with which it occurs and also because of the unrealistic way it is portrayed.
Exercise \(1\)
Choose a television show or movie you are familiar with and consider the characters in terms of racial and gender diversity. Then answer the following short-answer questions. Each response should be one to two paragraphs.
1. Does the show or movie you’ve chosen reflect racial and gender diversity? Why or why not? Explain why this kind of diversity is important in media.
2. Are there any racial or gender stereotypes present in the show or movie you’ve chosen? If so, identify them and describe how they are stereotypical. If not, describe what elements would prevent the portrayal of a female or ethnic minority characters from being stereotypical.
3. Does the show or movie you’ve selected feature any sexual content? If so, do you think that the content is gratuitous or unrealistic, or does it serve the story? Explain your answer. Then explain why the use of sexual content in media is a concern for many media critics. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/14%3A_Ethics_of_Mass_Media/14.02%3A_Ethical_Issues_in_Mass_Media.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Describe the role of media in delivering news to the public.
• Identify the important characteristics of reliable journalism.
• Summarize the effects of bias in news presentations.
Now more than ever, with the presence of online news sources, news delivery is expected to be instantaneous, and journalists and news agencies face pressure to release stories rapidly to keep up with competing media sources. With this added pressure, standards of accuracy and fairness become more difficult to uphold. What wins when ethical responsibility and bottom-line concerns are at odds? Columnist Ellen Goodman notes that there has always been a tension in journalism between being first and being right. She argues, “In today’s amphetamine world of news junkies, speed trumps thoughtfulness too often.”Ellen Goodman, “Temper ‘Instant’ News Coverage,” Gainesville (FL) Sun, February 7, 1993, news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1320&dat=19930207&id=vt4RAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XuoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5028,1856837. As you read the following sections, decide if you agree with Goodman’s assessment of the state of the news media today.
Immediate News Delivery
In 1916, audiences across America tuned in to their radios to hear the first-ever breaking-news coverage of an event as the results of the presidential election between Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes were announced from the offices of The New York American. Until that broadcast, news was delivered to American homes once per day in the form of a newspaper, and often this coverage lagged a day or more behind the actual incidents it reported. Whereas much of radio news coverage even into the 1930s involved the reading of newspaper stories and news wires on the air, radio offered something that the newspapers could not: live coverage of special events.Gordon Govier, “The Living Room Fixture,” The Evolution of Radio News, 2007, http://www.radioscribe.com/formats.html.
For decades, the public turned to the family radio when they wanted to hear the most recent coverage of important news. All of that changed, however, in 1963 with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. CBS correspondent Dan Rather took television audiences live to “the corner window just below the top floor, where the assassin stuck out his 30 caliber rifle,” and for the first time, people were able to see an event nearly as it occurred. This was the beginning of round-the-clock television news coverage, and the American public, while still relying on print news for detailed coverage, came to expect greater immediacy of major event reporting through television and radio broadcasts.Jaime Holguin, “Rather Recalls JFK Assassination,” CBS News, February 28, 2005, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/28/eveningnews/main677096.shtml.
Today, with the widespread availability of Internet news, instant coverage is the norm rather than the exception, and the Internet and cell phones have generally replaced television and radio as the source of immediate information. Visitors to ABCNews.com can watch an evening newscast three and a half hours before it airs on television.Patricia Sullivan, “As the Internet Grows Up, the News Industry Is Forever Changed,” Washington Post, June 19, 2006, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/13/AR2006061300929.html. RSS (which stands for really simple syndication, a standard for the easy syndication of online content) feeds, home pages for major news-delivery sites like Yahoo! News and CNN.com, news tickers, live video streams, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and a host of other media outlets ensure that news—and rumors of news—circulates within minutes of its occurrence. Additionally, with smartphone applications like those for The New York Times and USA Today, people can access the latest news coverage from almost anywhere.
The development of the Internet as a source of free and immediate access to information has forever changed the structure of the news media. Newspaper, television, and radio news programs have all had to adapt and diversify to compete for a share of the market. As Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for Digital Communication put it, “For the first time in 60 years, newspapers are back in the breaking news business.” Online, newspapers can compete with broadcast media for immediate coverage, posting articles on their home pages as soon as the stories are written, and supplementing the articles on their websites with audiovisual content. Gone is the era of single-medium newsrooms with predictable deadlines.USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, “Annual Internet Survey by Center for the Digital Future Finds Large Increases in Use of Online Newspapers,” news release, Center for Digital Future, April 2009, http://annenberg.usc.edu/News%20and%20Events/News/090429CDF.aspx.
Not only are traditional news media restructuring, but news consumers are also changing the way they access information. Increasingly, audiences want news on demand; they want to get news when they want it, and they want to be able to gather it from a variety of sources. This is having a significant effect on media revenues. News aggregators, websites like Yahoo! News and Google News that compile news headlines from an array of legacy news organizations to display on their pages, have become popular information outlets. Although these websites don’t hire reporters to produce news stories themselves, they get about the same amount of online traffic as websites for legacy news organizations like CNN and The Wall Street Journal. Moreover, many subscribers to print newspapers and magazines are canceling their subscriptions because they can get more current information online at no cost.Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, The State of the News Media 2010, www.stateofthemedia.org/2010/overview_intro.php. Print advertising is down as well. In 2004, The San Francisco Chronicle reported losing \$50 million in classified advertising to free online options like Craigslist.Patricia Sullivan, “As the Internet Grows Up, the News Industry Is Forever Changed,” Washington Post, June 19, 2006, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/13/AR2006061300929.html.
This loss of revenue has become a problem in recent years because while newspapers and magazines generate some income from advertisements on their websites, the money is not enough to compensate for lost readership and print ads. Subscriptions and advertising in traditional print media still account for 90 percent of industry funds, which means with less revenue in these areas, the support base for news organizations is dwindling. Newspapers and magazines across the country have had to restructure and scale down. Newspapers now spend \$1.6 billion less annually on reporting and editing than they did 10 years ago.Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, The State of the News Media 2010.
Additionally, reduced budgets combined with greater pressure for immediacy have changed the way information gets reported and disseminated. Newsrooms are asking their staffs to focus on producing first accounts more quickly to feed multiple platforms. This often means that more resources go into distributing information than gathering it. Once news is released online by one source, it spreads rapidly, and other organizations scramble to release accounts, too, in order to keep up, often leaving staff less time for fact-checking and editing. The initial story is then followed quickly by commentary from both professional news organizations and nonprofessional sources on blogs, Twitter, and other social networks.
As a result of this restructuring, certain stories may get distributed, replayed, and commented on almost excessively, while other stories go unnoticed and in-depth coverage that would unearth more facts and context gets neglected. This has led a number of industry professionals to become anxious over the future of the news industry. The Center for Excellence in Journalism has called the news industry today “more reactive than proactive.”Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, The State of the News Media 2010. Journalist Patricia Sullivan complains, “Right now, almost no online news sites invest in original, in-depth and scrupulously edited news reporting.”Patricia Sullivan, “As the Internet Grows Up, the News Industry Is Forever Changed,” Washington Post, June 19, 2006, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/13/AR2006061300929.html. While some may disagree with Sullivan, in-depth journalism remains an expensive and time-consuming venture that many online news sites, faced with uncertain revenue streams and a growing consumer demand for real-time news updates, are reluctant to bankroll extensively.
Already strapped for funds, news organizations know they have to cater to public demands, and foremost among these demands is speed. When pop-music icon Michael Jackson died on June 26, 2009, at 2:26 p.m., news of his death hit cyberspace by 2:44 p.m. and soon spread nationwide via Twitter. Perhaps surprisingly, the initial report of Jackson’s death was released by celebrity gossip website TMZ. Legacy news sources were slower to publish accounts. The Los Angeles Times, wary of the sourcing of the story, waited to confirm the news and didn’t publish the story on its website until 3:15 p.m., by which time, thanks to the speed of social media, the star’s death was already “old news.”Scott Collins and Greg Braxton, “TV Misses Out as Gossip Website TMZ Reports Michael Jackson’s Death First,” Los Angeles Times, June 26, 2009, http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/26/local/me-jackson-media26.
Social Responsibility of News Media
In the preamble to its statement of purpose, the Committee of Concerned Journalists lists as the central purpose of journalism “to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society.”Committee of Concerned Journalists, “Statement of Shared Purpose,” Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, www.journalism.org/resources/principles. This theory of the social responsibility of the press is often referred to as the vital information premise. Though sometimes worded differently by different organizations, it is widely accepted in the journalism community as the foundation for any principles of media ethics.Jeremy Iggers, Good News, Bad News: Journalism Ethics and the Public Interest (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), 46. What are those specific principles? Here are some that are particularly important for journalists in the current media climate.
Present News Stories That Inform and Serve the Needs of Citizens
If the basis for the principles of ethical news reporting is giving citizens the information they need to function in a democratic society, then that information must be presented accurately. Journalists should be careful to verify the facts before they report them. As the Committee of Concerned Journalists asserts, “Accuracy is the foundation upon which everything else is built—context, interpretation, comment, criticism, analysis and debate,” so reliable news sources are essential if citizens are to have a clear understanding of the society in which they live.Committee of Concerned Journalists, “Statement of Shared Purpose,” Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, www.journalism.org/resources/principles. Furthermore, although news organizations have a professional responsibility toward advertisers and shareholders, their commitment is always to citizens first. This means that journalists must report the facts truthfully and without omission, even if they are not in the best interest of advertisers, shareholders, or friends.
Present Issues Fairly
Reporting issues fairly requires not only factual accuracy, but also lack of favoritism toward any organization, political group, ideology, or other agenda. The Society of Professional Journalists stipulates that journalists should refuse gifts and favors and avoid political involvement or public office if these things compromise journalistic integrity.Society of Professional Journalists, “SPJ Code of Ethics,” http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp. Additionally, journalists should avoid inflating stories for sensation and be as transparent as possible about their sources of information so that the public can investigate the issues further on their own.Committee of Concerned Journalists, “Statement of Shared Purpose,” Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, www.journalism.org/resources/principles.
All sides of an issue should be presented in a news story. Of course, all journalists have a perspective from which they write, but a clear distinction should be made between news reports and editorial content.American Society of News Editors, “ASNE’s Statement of Principles,” August 2009, asne.org/article_view/articleid/325/asnes-statement-of-principles.aspx.
Present Stories in a Way That Addresses Their Complexity
Many issues in the news are layered and highly complex. Developing a thorough understanding of issues requires dedication and a sometimes lengthy investigation, and, especially in a world where rapid reporting is the norm, there can be a temptation to gloss over the finer points of an issue for the sake of efficiency. Additionally, most consumers of news, increasingly busy and overwhelmed by the amount of information available, want stories that can be quickly digested and easily comprehended. However, as the Committee of Concerned Journalists points out, the media must balance what readers want with what they need but cannot anticipate.Committee of Concerned Journalists, “Statement of Shared Purpose,” Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, www.journalism.org/resources/principles. Oversimplifying issues, whether for the sake of a quick story or to satisfy public tastes, becomes a violation of the vital information premise.Society of Professional Journalists, “SPJ Code of Ethics,” http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp.
Present Diverse Perspectives
When discussing what he considers to be one of the key issues in professional journalism, media ethicist Jeremy Iggers points out that because democracy means the widest possible participation of citizens in public life, diversity in journalism is of fundamental importance.Jeremy Iggers, Good News, Bad News: Journalism Ethics and the Public Interest (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), 138. Not only should newsroom staff represent a diversity of gender and races, but journalists should also speak for all groups in society—“not just those with attractive demographics,” as the Committee for Concerned Journalists puts it. Journalists should represent the underrepresented because ignoring citizens is a form of disenfranchisement.Committee of Concerned Journalists, “Statement of Shared Purpose,” Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, www.journalism.org/resources/principles.
Monitor Government and Corporations
When the framers of the U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom of the press, one of the things they had in mind was the ability of the news media to serve as a watchdog over those in positions of power.Committee of Concerned Journalists, “Statement of Shared Purpose,” Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, www.journalism.org/resources/principles. It is the duty of the press to ensure that business is conducted in the open and that government actions are public. One famous example of the media fulfilling its watchdog role was The Washington Post’s investigation of the 1972 Watergate scandal. During Richard Nixon’s presidency, journalists at the Post uncovered information linking government agencies and officials to the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex as part of an attempt to sabotage the Democratic campaign and guarantee Nixon’s reelection.Richard M. Flanagan and Louis W. Koenig, “Watergate,” in Dictionary of American History, ed. Stanley I. Kutler, 3rd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003), 8:425. Media coverage of the scandal increased publicity and ultimately put pressure on the government that led to an investigation and the prosecution of many who were involved.“The Government and Watergate,” in American Decades, ed. Judith S. Baughman and others (Detroit: Gale, 2001), vol. 8. In the past decade, the media has uncovered incriminating information about various Senators and Congressmen, resulting in charges of corruption, tax evasion, conspiracy, and fraud.
Characteristics of Reliable Journalism
While CNN and other news networks took some criticism for their delay in reporting Michael Jackson’s death in 2009, others commended the news organizations for waiting for official confirmation. For many journalists and members of the public, ensuring accuracy, even when it means delays, is a hallmark of responsible journalism.
More than 400 journalistic codes of ethics have been produced by various unions and associations worldwide.Aidan White, To Tell You the Truth: The Ethical Journalist Initiative (Brussels: International Federation of Journalists, 2008), iii. Where they may differ on specifics, these codes of ethics agree that the news media’s top obligation is to report the truth. When journalists say this, of course, they don’t mean truth in an absolute, philosophical sense; they mean practical truth, the truth that involves reporting the facts as faithfully and accurately as possible. This notion of truth includes an accurate representation of information from reliable sources, but it also includes a complete representation, one that presents multiple perspectives on an issue and does not suppress vital information.
Many codes of ethics stress that the press has a duty to continue its investigation of the facts, even after initially reporting them, and to rectify any inaccuracies that may have occurred in the initial coverage of an issue.Aidan White, To Tell You the Truth: The Ethical Journalist Initiative (Brussels: International Federation of Journalists, 2008), ii; Committee of Concerned Journalists, “Statement of Shared Purpose,” Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, www.journalism.org/resources/principles. One example is The Huffington Post, a news website that, with over 2,000 bloggers, has the world’s most linked-to blog. Blogging is sometimes criticized by more traditional journalists for the tendency, among some blogs, to include biases, unreliable information, and unfounded opinions—in other words, for instances of violating journalistic codes of ethics. However, The Huffington Post requires all of its pass-holding writers to fact-check and to correct any factual errors within 24 hours or lose their privileges.Aidan White, To Tell You the Truth: The Ethical Journalist Initiative (Brussels: International Federation of Journalists, 2008), 76.
Along with an emphasis on the truth, codes of ethics stress loyalty and duty to citizens as a standard of primary importance. Of course, truth telling is an essential component of this loyalty, but additionally, the concern here is in reminding journalists whom their work serves. Especially in the current environment, in which media outlets face increased financial pressure, there is a tension between responsible journalism and the demands for profit. Aiden White notes that corporate and political influences are of increasing concern in this environment, but he reminds journalists that while they have duties to other constituencies, “media products are not just economic.” Journalists must hold the larger public interest above other interests.Aidan White, To Tell You the Truth: The Ethical Journalist Initiative (Brussels: International Federation of Journalists, 2008), 8.
Another challenge often posed by bottom-line concerns and the pressure for a good story is sensitivity toward, and protection of, those involved in the news. Responsible journalists should strive to balance disclosure of the news with a respect for individual privacy. Finding this balance can sometimes be a challenge. On one hand, journalists should never expose private information that could be harmful to individuals for the sake of sensationalizing a story. Issues like family life, sexual behavior, sexual orientation, or medical conditions, for instance, are generally considered tabloid material that would violate the privacy of those involved.
On the other hand, there are times when the private lives of individuals must be made public in the interests of serving the common good. One example was the 2009 media scandal surrounding South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who, after media investigations over his weeklong disappearance in June of that year, admitted to flying to Argentina to visit his mistress. After it was revealed that Sanford had used public funds for his private travel, he resigned from his office as the chairman of the Republican Governors’ Association.Associated Press, “Sanford Took Personal Trips on Plane,” CBS News, August 9, 2009, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/09/politics/main5228211.shtml. Although the publicity surrounding this private matter was clearly painful for the governor and his family, releasing information about the incident, particularly regarding the misuse of public funds, was in the best interest of the citizens. The International Federation of Journalists offers three factors as a rough guideline in cases where privacy is in danger of being violated: the nature of the individual’s place in society, the individual’s reputation, and his or her place in public life. Politicians, judges, and others in elected office often must forgo their expectations of privacy for reasons of democracy and accountability—the public’s right to know if their elected officials are engaged in unethical or criminal conduct generally trumps an individual’s right to privacy.Aidan White, To Tell You the Truth: The Ethical Journalist Initiative (Brussels: International Federation of Journalists, 2008), 136. These factors, in recent years, have resulted in public scandals surrounding other political leaders—Representative Anthony Weiner, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and presidential hopeful John Edwards, to name a few.
Because the press has a duty to serve the best interests of the citizens in a democracy, it is important that journalists act independently and that they remain neutral in their presentation of information. Objectivity was once the common term used to support this notion. More recently, however, there has been wider acceptance of the fact that reporting always occurs through a lens of personal experience, culture, beliefs, and background that ultimately all influence the way any individual subjectively perceives a situation.Howard A. Myrick, “The Search for Objectivity in Journalism,” USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), November 2002, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2690_131/ai_94384327/?tag=content;col1. If this were not the case—if there were only one standard way everyone perceived, investigated, and reported on a story—what would be the value of including racial and gender diversity in the newsroom? Nevertheless, responsible journalism requires journalists to avoid favoritism and to present news that is fair and offers a complete picture of the issue.
The principle of journalistic independence is an important component of the news media’s watchdog role. Journalists should avoid conflicts of interest—financial, political, or otherwise—and, when conflicts of interest are unavoidable, it is a journalist’s ethical responsibility to disclose those.Society of Professional Journalists, “SPJ Code of Ethics,” http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp. One example involving conflict of interest centers on recent talk of government bailouts for the news media, similar to the bailouts for the auto and banking industries. However, many journalists are concerned that government support of this kind would present a conflict of interest and interfere with the media’s watchdog role.David Nicklaus, “Bailing Out Journalism Would Threaten Its Independence,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 8, 2010, http://more.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/columnists.nsf/davidnicklaus/story/7db2f5de844ed63f8625773c000da74b?OpenDocument.
In addition to maintaining independence, the news media should allow for commentary and opposition. Leaving space for citizens to voice concerns about journalistic conduct is an important part of serving the public interest and keeping the public’s trust.
The Effects of Bias in News Presentations
While principles of ethical journalism require journalists to remain neutral in their reporting, there is, as previously mentioned, always a degree of bias that will be present in any news reporting due to the element of personal perspective that any journalist will naturally bring to his or her work. A 2005 in-depth study by political scientists at UCLA found that, of 20 media outlets, 18 had a perspective in their news reporting that was left of the national average. Of those 20, only Fox News and The Washington Times scored to the right of the average U.S. voter.Meg Sullivan, “Media Bias is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist,” news release, UCLA, December 14, 2005, http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx.
What, exactly, does political bias in the media look like? In the UCLA study, news sources were scored based on their sources of information and expert opinion. The news outlets with the most liberal slant—CBS News and The New York Times—cited liberal think tanks and policy groups with a much greater frequency than they cited conservative ones.Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo, “A Measure of Media Bias,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 120, no. 4 (2005), http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/groseclose/pdfs/MediaBias.pdf. Political bias can also be observed by examining which stories a network or newspaper chooses to report. According to media analyst Seth Ackerman, the right-leaning Fox News network reports news stories that favor the Republican Party or show the Democratic Party in a negative light. Additionally, Fox’s panels of pundits who offer commentary after the news tend to be politically conservative or moderate far more often than liberal.Seth Ackerman, “The Most Biased Name in the News,” FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, July/August 2001, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067.
Such biases in news media may have an effect on public opinion. However, while the picture a journalist or particular news outlet creates may not be entirely objective, journalists with integrity will strive to be fair and comprehensive, offering opposing views and citing their sources of information. Members of the public should remember that they also have a responsibility to be active, rather than passive, consumers of information. Good media consumers use critical analysis skills while reading news reports. If a story is presented conscientiously in the news, a reader or viewer will have the resources he or she needs to research an issue further and draw his or her own conclusions. As you continue reading the chapter, keep in mind the ethical obligations of those who work in mass media and the potential consequences of their failure to uphold them.
Key Takeaways
• The Internet has brought about profound and rapid changes in the structuring, delivery, and economics of news media.
• Immediate news delivery has become the norm.
• The pressure for immediate delivery increases the tension between factual accuracy and “getting there first” in news reporting.
• Because people can get instant news for free online, subscriptions to print media are down, and so are advertising revenues.
• Most journalistic codes of ethics are based on the premise that the news media exists to provide citizens with the information they need to function in a free and democratic society. Journalists should conform to several ethical obligations:
• Present news stories that inform and serve the needs of citizens.
• Present issues fairly.
• Present stories in a way that addresses their complexity.
• Present diverse perspectives.
• Monitor government and corporations.
• Responsible journalism:
• Ensures accuracy (even if it means causing delays)
• Reports the truth
• Stays loyal to citizens by putting the public interest above all else
• Is protective and sensitive to those involved in the news
• Remains objective and presents information in a neutral way
• Allows for commentary and opposition
• All news stories contain some bias because of the diversity of journalists’ perspectives. While the news media is often criticized for representing a political bias in reporting, ethical journalists always strive to present issues in a fair and comprehensive way.
Exercise \(1\)
Conduct your own survey of political bias in the news. Choose either a television network or newspaper known for more liberal tendencies, such as CNN or The New York Times, and a network or newspaper known for more conservative reporting, such as Fox News or The Washington Times. Examine both sources’ coverage of the same news story (not a column or editorial). Then answer the following short-answer questions. Each response should be one to two paragraphs.
1. What differences do you notice between the two sources’ news coverage?
2. What evidence, if any, do you find of political bias? If it does exist, what effect do you think this bias has on readers?
3. Consider the role of the media in delivering news to the public. In your opinion, can both sources’ coverage still be characterized as fair and accurate? Why or why not? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/14%3A_Ethics_of_Mass_Media/14.03%3A_News_Media_and_Ethics.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Explain concerns related to surveillance and personal privacy rights introduced by the Internet.
• Differentiate between copyright infringement and fair use.
• Identify plagiarism and copyright concerns introduced by the Internet.
Online media has developed rapidly, with technology advancing at a rate that often surpasses the ability of legislation and policy to keep up with it. As a result, issues like individuals’ rights to privacy, copyright protections, and fair use restrictions have become the subject of numerous court cases and public debates as lawmakers, judges, and civil liberties organizations struggle to define the limits of technology and the access it provides to previously restricted information. In the following section you will look at some of the most prominent issues in today’s online media environment. We have already considered some of the legal questions surrounding these issues. Here, you should reflect on the ethical issues in mass media raised in the two preceding sections and how they are manifested in the areas of personal privacy, copyright law, and plagiarism.
Privacy and Surveillance
Concerns about online privacy issues in recent years have led some people to wonder whether the collection of personal information on websites has begun to infringe on individuals’ constitutional rights. While the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly guarantee a general right to privacy, the Bill of Rights establishes privacy of beliefs, privacy of the home, and privacy of person and possessions from unreasonable searches. Additionally, in a number of court cases, the “right to liberty” clause has also been read as a guarantee of personal privacy.Doug Linder, “The Right of Privacy,” Exploring Constitutional Law, 2010, www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html. What do these constitutional rights mean when it comes to storing a person’s credit card data online, or tracking his or her Internet searches, or using cookies to collect information about his or her purchasing habits? Because online media is developing so rapidly, many of these issues have not been settled by federal legislation and remain the source of numerous courtroom battles. Consider the 2010 case in which the online services company Yahoo! entered into a legal struggle with government officials who wanted to search the email account of a Yahoo! user for incriminating evidence. While Yahoo! claimed the government would need a search warrant to access a user’s email, the government investigators claimed the Fourth Amendment does not apply in the case of an email account.Electronic Frontier Foundation, “EFF Backs Yahoo! to Protect User from Warrantless Email Search,” news release, April 14, 2010, http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/04/13. Many college students reveal much about themselves on Facebook; they sometimes are chagrined to learn that future employers sometimes will view this information.
In defense of information collection and surveillance, many websites argue that, by using their services, individuals are agreeing to make their personal information available. However, many people don’t realize the extent of surveillance capabilities or know how to protect certain personal information while using online tools. The more people rely on the Internet for shopping, communication, social networking, and media consumption, the more their personal data is stored online. Every time a person subscribes to a magazine, joins an organization, donates money to charity, gives to a political cause, or searches the pages of a government agency, that information is stored in a computer.Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, “Privacy Today: A Review of Current Issues,” March 2010, www.privacyrights.org/ar/Privacy-IssuesList.htm#publicrecords. For example, cookies, text files that web page servers embed in users’ hard drives, help search engines like Google and Yahoo! track their customers’ search histories, buying habits, and browsing patterns. Cookies stored by Google last for 30 years.Maria Godoy, “Google Records Subpoena Raises Privacy Fears,” NPR, January 20, 2006, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5165854. These search engine cookies are used to customize users’ searches and to deliver customized third-party ads based on a particular user’s demographics and behavior. However, privacy advocates claim this practice fosters predatory advertising.Tom Spring, “Good-Bye to Privacy?” PC World, May 23, 2010, http://www.pcworld.com/article/196787/goodbye_to_privacy.html. Additionally, considering that search engines receive multiple requests per day for specific information on their users (requests that are often tied to criminal investigations and lawsuits), there is a growing concern that unfair or even erroneous profiling may result.Maria Godoy, “Google Records Subpoena Raises Privacy Fears,” NPR, January 20, 2006, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5165854. Much of this information is stored without users’ knowledge or informed consent—although agreements for most software inform users when their data is being collected, few people have the patience or time to read and understand the dense legalistic language of these agreements. And even when users invest the time and effort to understand the agreements, they are left with the difficult choice of either agreeing to have their data recorded or going without useful software.
Internet users concerned about their privacy may also be unaware of another growing trend: the combination of online data with offline information to build profiles of web surfers. Data providers like BlueKai, Datalogic, and Nielsen are now able to pool offline data and demographics to create “digital dossiers” (detailed digital records of a particular subject or market) for online advertisers who want to reach a target market.Tom Spring, “Good-Bye to Privacy?” PC World, May 23, 2010, http://www.pcworld.com/article/196787/goodbye_to_privacy.html. This combination of online and offline information provides a nearly complete picture of someone’s life. If advertisers are looking for a 56-year-old retired female educator who is divorced, owns a home and a dog, suffers from arthritis, and plays tennis at the local fitness club, they can now find her. While advertisers have been careful to point out that people are identified by demographic subgroup but never by name, many organizations that advocate for privacy, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, believe that protections and greater transparency should be enforced.Tom Spring, “Good-Bye to Privacy?” PC World, May 23, 2010, http://www.pcworld.com/article/196787/goodbye_to_privacy.html.
Users also supply a wide range of information about themselves through online social networks that is connected with their names, contact information, and photographs. Creditors now look at individuals’ social networks to determine whether they would be good credit customers, and banks may access social network information to make loan decisions.Ginny Mies, “Skeptical Shopper: Can Your Online Life Ruin Your Credit?” PC World, March 23, 2010,. http://www.pcworld.com/article/192207/skeptical_shopper_can_your_online_life_ruin_your_credit.html. If users aren’t careful about their privacy settings on MySpace, Twitter, or Facebook, photographs and other private information may be easily accessible to anyone performing a Google search. Of even greater concern is the growing trend to publicize information that was previously private as the networking sites evolve and change their interfaces.
Surveillance can range from the monitoring of online activity by employers and other institutions that want to make sure users are following guidelines, to high-level government investigations of terrorist activity. The USA PATRIOT Act, passed just 6 weeks after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, expanded the federal government’s rights to access citizens’ personal information. Under the Patriot Act, authorities have access to personal records held by Internet service providers and other third parties, and government officials can tap in to an individual’s email communications and web searches if he or she is suspected of terrorist activity or of having connections to terrorist activity.American Civil Liberties Union, “Surveillance Under the USA PATRIOT Act,” April 3, 2003, www.aclu.org/national-security/surveillance-under-usa-patriot-act; Stefanie Olsen, “Patriot Act Draws Privacy Concerns,” CNET, October 26, 2001, http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-275026.html. One concern among civil liberties organizations is that the Patriot Act might become a back door for the government to conduct undisclosed surveillance that doesn’t necessarily involve the threat of terrorism. For instance, under the Patriot Act the government can wiretap Internet communications even if the primary purpose is a criminal investigation, as long as intelligence gathering is a significant purpose of the investigation.Berkman Center for Internet and Society, “The USA Patriot Act, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, and Cyberspace Privacy,” Harvard Law School, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/privacy/module5.html.
Fair Use and Plagiarism
Now that a large amount of research can easily be conducted online, and content can be copied and pasted from one platform to another with no more than the click of a button, concerns about plagiarism and copyright infringement are more relevant than ever. The concepts of copyright infringement and plagiarism can easily be confused with each another. The following provides an overview of copyright, its issues and limitations, and its distinction from plagiarism.
Copyright Infringement
Copyright is a form of protection provided by U.S. law, under which the creator of an original artistic or intellectual work is automatically granted certain rights, including the right to distribute, copy, and modify the work.U.S. Copyright Office, “Copyright Basics,” http://www.copyright.gov/. If someone rents a movie from Netflix, for example, and watches it with his friends, he hasn’t violated any copyright laws because Netflix has paid for a license to loan the movie to its customers. However, if the same person rents a movie and burns himself a copy to watch later, he has violated copyright law because he has not paid for nor obtained the film creators’ permission to copy the movie. Copyright law applies to most books, songs, movies, art, essays, and other pieces of creative work. However, after a certain length of time (70 to 120 years depending on the publication circumstances), creative and intellectual works enter the public domain; that is, they are free to be used and copied without permission.
Google Books: Turning Copyright Law on Its Head?
In 2002, Google began scanning millions of books in academic libraries to make them available online in digital format. Of the more than 12 million books Google has digitized since then—and made searchable through Google Book Search—2 million are in the public domain. Those 2 million books are available in “full view” and free for users to download, while books still under copyright are available as limited previews, where users can access about 20 percent of the texts. According to Google, the project will pave the way for greater democratization of knowledge, making texts available to readers who formerly wouldn’t have had access to them. However, many authors, publishers, and legal authorities claim the project represents a massive copyright violation. In 2005, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers filed class-action lawsuits against Google.Annalee Newitz, “5 Ways the Google Books Settlement Will Change the Future of Reading,” io9 (blog).April 2, 2010, http://io9.com/5501426/5-ways-the-google-book-settlement-will-change-the-future-of-reading.
William Cavanaugh, a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice, claims that the Google Books Settlement, an agreement partially reached in 2008, “turns copyright law on its head.” According to the settlement agreement, in exchange for \$125 million, part of which would go to authors and publishers, Google was released from liability for copying the books and was granted the right to charge money for individual and institutional subscriptions to its Google Books service (which gives subscribers full access to the copied books—even those under copyright). Authors have the choice to opt out of the agreement, asking to have their books removed from Google’s servers. However, more than 30,000 publishers have already made deals with Google, which override the authors’ rights to opt out.Norman Oder, “Google Settlement Fairness Hearing, Part Two: DOJ Expresses Opposition; Parties Mount Vigorous Defense,” Library Journal, February 18, 2010, http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6719808.html.
Some works are in the public domain because the creator has chosen to make them available to anyone without requiring permission. However, most works are in the public domain because their copyright has expired; in the United States, anything published before 1923 is automatically in the public domain. Additionally, there have been changes to U.S. copyright law over the years that caused some works to enter the public domain earlier. Before 1964, for instance, any published work had to have its copyright renewed during the 28th year after its publication. If no renewal was filed, the copyright was lost. Figure 14.8 shows significant changes to U.S. copyright law since 1790.Nolo Press, “Chapter 8: The Public Domain,” Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources, 2007, http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter8/index.html.
While it is illegal to violate the rights granted by copyright law, the copyright holder’s rights are not unlimited. One of the significant limitations is the policy of “fair use,” under which the public is entitled to freely use copyrighted information for purposes such as criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research, or parody.U.S. Copyright Office, “Fair Use,” May 2009, http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html. If a critic were writing a book review for a magazine, for instance, according to fair use, she would be allowed to summarize and quote from the book she wanted to review, whether or not the author of the book agreed to this use. According to the U.S. government, there are four issues to consider when determining fair use:
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use on the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted workU.S. Copyright Office, “Fair Use,” May 2009, http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html.
The distinction between what is considered fair and what constitutes copyright infringement is not always clearly defined. For one thing, there are no guidelines that specify a number of words, lines, or notes that can be taken without permission. Table 14.1 provides some examples of distinctions between fair use and copyright infringement.
Fair Use
Not Fair Use
Wright v. Warner Books Inc. (1991): In a biography of Richard Wright the biographer quoted from 6 of Wright’s unpublished letters and 10 unpublished journal entries.
CONSIDERATIONS: The copied letters amounted to less than 1 percent of Wright’s total letter material. Additionally, the biographer’s purpose in copying the documents was informational.
Castle Rock Entertainment Inc. v. Carol Publication Group (1998): Carol Publication published a book of trivia questions about the television series Seinfeld. The book included direct quotes from the show and based its questions on characters and events in the series.
CONSIDERATIONS: The book infringed on the ability of Castle Rock (the copyright holder) to make its own trivia books.
Perfect 10 Inc. v. Amazon.com Inc. (2007): A Google search engine displayed thumbnail-sized photos of nude models from a subscription-only website.
CONSIDERATIONS: The search engine’s use of the photos transformed them into “pointers,” directing users to the photos’ original source. The transformative use was more important than any factors that would allow Google to make money from displaying the images.
Los Angeles News Service v. KCAL-TV Channel 9 (1997): A television news station used a 30-second segment of a four-minute video that depicted the beating of a Los Angeles man. The video was copyrighted by the Los Angeles News Service.
CONSIDERATIONS: The segment used by the news station was a significant portion of the total video. Additionally, the use was for commercial reasons and infringed on the Los Angeles News Service’s ability to market the video.
Table 14.1 Cases Involving Fair Use Source: Stanford University Libraries. “Copyright & Fair Use.” http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-c.html
Plagiarism
Sometimes plagiarism becomes confused with copyright violation. However, the two words are not synonymous; while there can be some overlap between them, not every instance of plagiarism involves copyright violation, and not every instance of copyright violation is an act of plagiarism. For one thing, while copyright violation can involve a wide range of acts, plagiarism is defined more narrowly as using someone else’s information, writing, or speech without properly documenting or citing the source. In other words, plagiarism involves representing another person’s work as one’s own. This can happen in any field—for example, in the music industry. In 1990, Vanilla Ice sampled riffs from David Bowie’s Under Pressure for his hit song, Ice Ice Baby, without licensing or crediting Bowie’s work. Hip hop music, which has a long tradition of “sampling” music, riffs, lyrics, and more from other songs, often raises questions of copyright infringement.Copyright Website, “David Bowie, Queen and Vanilla Ice,” www.benedict.com/Audio/Vanilla/Vanilla.aspx.
As the U.S. Copyright Office points out, it is possible to cite a copyrighted source of information without obtaining permission to reproduce that information.U.S. Copyright Office, “Fair Use,” May 2009, http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html. In such a case, the user has violated copyright law even though she has not plagiarized the material. Similarly, a student writing a paper could copy sections of a document that is in the public domain without properly citing his sources, in which case he would not have broken any copyright laws. However, representing the information as his own work would be an instance of plagiarism.
Plagiarism, a perennially serious problem at academic institutions, has recently become even more prevalent. The ease of copying and pasting online content into a word-processing document can make it highly tempting for students to plagiarize material for research projects and critical papers. Additionally, a number of online “paper mills” contain archives where students can download papers for free or, in some cases, purchase them.Andy Denhart, “The Web’s Plagiarism Police,” Salon, June 14, 1999, www.salon.com/technology/feature/1999/06/14/plagiarism. Sloppy work habits can lead students to inadvertently plagiarize. In 2003, The New York Times surveyed students at 23 college campuses and reported that 38 percent of students admitted to having committed copy-and-paste plagiarism within the previous year.Michelle De Leon, “Internet Plagiarism on the Rise in Colleges,” Lehigh University Brown and White, November 12, 2007, media.www.thebrownandwhite.com/media/storage/paper1233/news/2007/11/12/News/Internet.Plagiarism.On.The.Rise.In.Colleges-3094622.shtml.
To combat the rise in plagiarism, many schools and universities now subscribe to services that allow instructors to check students’ work for plagiarized material. Plagiarism.org, for instance, offers an analytics tool that compares student writing against a database that includes work from online paper mills, academic databases, documents available through major search engines, and other student papers submitted to Plagiarism.org.Andy Denhart, “The Web’s Plagiarism Police,” Salon, June 14, 1999, www.salon.com/technology/feature/1999/06/14/plagiarism. According to many researchers, part of the issue may be that students don’t understand what constitutes plagiarism. Some students, for instance, claim they think information available online is in the public domain.Nicole J. Auer and Ellen M. Krupar, “Mouse Click Plagiarism: The Role of Technology in Plagiarism and the Librarian’s Role in Combating It,” Library Trends, Winter 2001, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1387/is_3_49/ai_75278304/. Figure 14.12 offers suggestions for ways to avoid plagiarism in your own work.
Ways to Avoid Plagiarism
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Avoid taking shortcuts.
• Take thorough notes and keep accurate records.
• Rephrase ideas in your own words.
• Provide citations or attributions for all sources.
• Ask your instructor when in doubt.Longman Publishers, “Avoiding Plagiarism,” Pearson Education, wps.pearsoncustom.com/pcp_longman_ap_2/32/8420/2155775.cw/content/index.html.
While plagiarism is an issue of concern in academia, it occurs in print media as well. Writers, whether through carelessness or laziness, may lift content from existing materials without properly citing or reinterpreting them. In an academic setting, plagiarism may lead to consequences as severe as failure or even expulsion from an institution. However, outside of academia the consequences may be even more damaging. Writers have lost publishing contracts, permanently damaged their reputations, and even ruined their careers over instances of plagiarism. For example, the late George Harrison, of the Beatles, was successfully sued by Ronald Mack for copyright infringement of his song “He’s So Fine.”Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music, 420 F. Supp. 177 (S.D.N.Y. 1976). It was determined by the court that Harrison unconsciously plagiarized the musical essence of Mack’s song for his composition “My Sweet Lord.”
You should now have an understanding of the key issues in media ethics, particularly as they relate to privacy rights, plagiarism, and copyright laws. Please ensure you understand the following listed key concepts.
Key Takeaways
• Concerns about the public’s right to privacy have increased in recent years, as more personal information has become available online.
• Every time someone makes a purchase, performs a web search, accesses a web page, downloads files, sends an email, or engages in social networking, that information is stored in a computer and may be accessed by third parties under certain conditions.
• The USA PATRIOT Act, passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks, has broadened the federal government’s rights to access individuals’ personal records.
• Civil liberties organizations are concerned about clauses of the Patriot Act, such as the one that stipulates that the government can wiretap Internet communications as long as intelligence gathering is a significant purpose of the investigation.
• Rules that distinguish copyright violation from fair use are not always entirely clear and have been the subject of debate now that a greater amount of copyrighted work is easily accessible via the Internet.
• Works enter the public domain once their copyright has expired, at which point they can be altered, copied, and distributed freely.
• Because of numerous changes in U.S. copyright laws, some works have entered the public domain earlier than others.
• According to the U.S. government, when distinguishing between fair use and copyright infringement, there are four things to consider: whether or not the use is for profit, the nature of the copyrighted work, the percentage of the copyrighted material being used, and the effect of that use on the value of the copyrighted work.
• Plagiarism is also a growing concern because of the ease of copying and pasting texts from online sources into computer documents. It is important to keep in mind that plagiarism and copyright infringement are different issues: plagiarism involves not giving credit to a work’s creator, whereas copyright deals with the legality of using a created work.
Exercise \(1\)
You will now examine several cases in detail to further explore your understanding of the concepts and key ideas covered in this chapter. Respond to the questions asked, and provide evidence or examples to defend and support your answer. Each response should be one or two paragraphs.
Case 1. Research the USA PATRIOT Act. You can read what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has to say about the act here: http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/patriot_report_20090310.pdf. You can read what the federal government has to say about the act here: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm
• What are its major stipulations?
• What are some major concerns of civil liberties advocates?
• Do you agree with the ACLU that “the Patriot Act eroded our most basic right—the freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into our private lives?” Or do you agree with the acronym the federal government created to explain the act: Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USAPATRIOT)? Explain your reasons.
Case 2. Consider the following case and decide whether you believe it represents an instance of fair use or whether the action was a copyright violation. Defend your response.
After the publication of author J. K. Rowling’s popular Harry Potter novels, one fan created an elaborate website for Harry Potter enthusiasts. The website includes an encyclopedia of information about the books; indexed lists of people, places, and things; fan art; discussion forums; essays; timelines; and other features. Much of the content of the website’s encyclopedia entries comes directly from the books. Use of the website is free and unrestricted, and while the site includes some ads, the income they generate only goes to offset the site’s operating costs.
• Decide whether you believe the website represents an instance of fair use or whether the action was a copyright violation. Defend your response.
End-of-Chapter Assessment
Review Questions
1. Questions for Section 14.1
Write a detailed response to the questions below, defending your response with examples where appropriate. Each response should be one to two paragraphs:
1. Why was the NAACP unhappy with the schedule of programs for the 1999 season of major television network entertainment?
2. List at least four common characteristics of the way women are often presented in TV and movie entertainment.
3. Why is it considered problematic that so few women and ethnic minorities are represented “behind the scenes” in the creation of mass-media products?
4. Explain how mass media as socialization agents relate to public attitudes toward sexual behavior.
2. Questions for Section 14.2
Write a detailed response to the questions below, defending your response with examples where appropriate. Each response should be one to two paragraphs:
1. How does online news content put added pressure on news organizations?
2. Explain the media’s watchdog role.
3. When is it considered acceptable for journalists to expose details about an individual’s private life?
4. How does political bias influence the way news gets presented?
3. Questions for Section 14.3
Write a detailed response to the questions below, defending your response with examples where appropriate. Each response should be one to two paragraphs:
1. Identify cookies. Why are cookies a concern for privacy advocates?
2. What are some reasons a created work might be in the public domain?
3. List the four considerations the federal government lists for determining whether an action is fair use or copyright violation.
4. Give an example of an act that could be considered plagiarism but not copyright violation.
Critical Thinking Questions
Answer the following critical thinking questions. Your responses should be one to two pages for each prompt.
1. Watch segments of the evening news on three of the major television networks. Based on the information presented here about representations of women and racial minorities, what do you observe? Do your observations corroborate claims of stereotyping and underrepresentation? Do you notice important differences among the three networks where these issues are concerned?
2. Create a mock advertisement that breaks with common racial stereotypes, gender myths, or media representations of sexuality.
3. A number of prominent journalists and news experts have argued that the newspaper industry must find a new model for generating revenue if it hopes to survive. Create a short proposal in which you outline a plan for newspaper agencies to earn money from sources other than subscriptions and print advertising.
4. Develop an argument in which you defend the use of information gathering and profiling for the placement of Internet ads and the creation of customized web pages.
5. What might be some implications of the Google Books settlement? Why do you think William Cavanaugh claimed that it “turns copyright law on its head”?
Career Connection
Political Blogger
Research what it takes to be a professional political blogger for a news site like CNN.com or The Huffington Post. Then answer the following short-answer questions. Each response should be one to two paragraphs.
1. How much and what kind of research would you need to perform on a daily basis?
2. Where would you go for your information?
3. What are some elements that make for a successful blog?
4. What are some particular ethical concerns surrounding this form of journalism? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/14%3A_Ethics_of_Mass_Media/14.04%3A_Ethical_Considerations_of_the_Online_World.txt |
• 15.1: Introduction
In May 2010, the social networking website Facebook was thrown into the news when its chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg, announced new changes to the site’s privacy policy. Although the announcement alone did not necessarily garner heavy attention from the news media, the involvement of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ramped up public interest.
• 15.2: Government Regulation of Media
The U.S. federal government has long had its hand in media regulation. Media in all their forms have been under governmental jurisdiction since the early 1900s. Since that time, regulatory efforts have transformed as new forms of media have emerged and expanded their markets to larger audiences.
• 15.3: The Law and Mass Media Messages
Media law has been a much-debated topic ever since the first U.S. media industry laws appeared in the early 1900s. The contention surrounding media law largely stems from the liberties guaranteed under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which includes the freedom of the press.
• 15.4: Censorship and Freedom of Speech
To fully understand the issues of censorship and freedom of speech and how they apply to modern media, we must first explore the terms themselves. Censorship is defined as suppressing or removing anything deemed objectionable. A common, everyday example can be found on the radio or television, where potentially offensive words are “bleeped” out. More controversial is censorship at a political or religious level. If you’ve ever been banned from reading a book in school, or watched a “clean” versi
• 15.5: Intellectual Property Issues in the Mass Media
Since its inception, the Internet has posed problems of who owns the content. Over the years, the government has struggled to find ways to introduce copyright protections into the online environment because, unlike other forms of media, the Internet enables users to make an unlimited number of copies of material and to transmit that information around the world.Bill Rosenblatt, “The Digital Object Identifier: Solving the Dilemma of Copyright Protection Online,” Journal of Electronic Publishing 3
• 15.6: Digital Democracy and Its Possible Effects
In an era when work, discourse, and play are increasingly experienced via the Internet, it is fitting that politics have surged online as well in a recent phenomenon known as digital democracy. Digital democracy—also known as e-democracy—engages citizens in government and civic action through online tools. This new form of democracy began as an effort to include larger numbers of citizens in the democratic process. Recent evidence seems to confirm a rising popular belief that the Internet is the
• 15.7: Media Influence on Laws and Government
In 2007, The Washington Post published a critical exposé on the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In response to the public outcry, the U.S. Army launched an investigation and set about improving the facility. As demonstrated in this case, media coverage can directly influence people’s lives. Media have long had a voice and a role in politics. As you have read in earlier chapters, even some of the earliest newspapers and magazines used their pages as a forum for political discourse. When broadca
15: Media and Government
Facebook versus the FTC
In May 2010, the social networking website Facebook was thrown into the news when its chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg, announced new changes to the site’s privacy policy. Although the announcement alone did not necessarily garner heavy attention from the news media, the involvement of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ramped up public interest.
The previous month, several watchdog groups had sent letters to Congress and the FTC asking for an investigation of Facebook’s privacy policy. The letters attacked the site’s privacy policies, which dated from December 2009 and had been designed to provide users more control over privacy settings. However, PC Magazine noted, “given Facebook’s move toward a more open format as it integrates status updates with search engines like Google and Bing, the site encouraged its users to make more of their data public, and made some of the default settings more open.”Chloe Albanesius, “Facebook Prepping Changes to Privacy Policy,” PC Magazine, May 21, 2010, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364063,00.asp.
Essentially, Facebook provides three default options for sharing information: with “everyone,” “friends of friends,” or “friends only.” Zuckerberg explained the privacy policy by saying:
We recommended that there be large pieces of information in each of these buckets. For friends only, that’s all of the really sensitive stuff. For friends of friends, it could be who can see the photos and videos of you, which is actually the majority of the content people share on the site. And then for everyone, it’s basic information and status updates and posts like that.Dan Fletcher, “Time’s Q&A With Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg,” Time NewsFeed (blog), Time, May 27, 2010, http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/05/27/times-qa-with-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg/
Concern grew that some of Facebook’s default privacy settings allowed everyone, regardless of their level of connection to a user, to access some personal information. In their open letter to Congress, privacy watchdog groups addressed these concerns by stating, “Facebook continues to manipulate the privacy settings of users and its own policy so that it can take personal information provided by users for a limited purpose and make it widely available for commercial purposes…. The company has done this repeatedly and users are becoming increasingly angry and frustrated.”Mark Hachman, “Facebook Targeted by New FTC Privacy Complaint,” PC Magazine, May 7, 2010, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363518,00.asp. In light of users’ outrage, the letter asked the FTC to get involved.
The FTC is a congressional commission designed to oversee and enforce consumer protections. Despite—or perhaps because of—this stated goal, the FTC’s lack of involvement in Facebook’s privacy settings frustrated many individuals; one letter to Congress “openly worried that the FTC either lacked the power or the motivation to pursue questions of privacy at Facebook.”Mark Hachman, “Facebook Targeted by New FTC Privacy Complaint,” PC Magazine, May 7, 2010, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363518,00.asp. The FTC responded that the issue was of “particular interest” to them, but as of this writing, no official action has been taken.
The issue has prompted a broader discussion of the government’s role in regulating information disseminated on the Internet. The New York Times articulated the discussion’s central questions: “What can government do to ensure that users have control of their own information, which might live on indefinitely on the web? Would regulation work? Or should government stay out of this arena?”New York Times, “Should Government Take On Facebook?” Room for Debate (blog), May 25, 2010, http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/should-government-take-on-facebook/. Facebook stands by the rights of its users, arguing that “adult users should be free to publish information about their lives if they choose to do so.”New York Times, “Should Government Take On Facebook?” Room for Debate (blog), May 25, 2010, http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/should-government-take-on-facebook/. However, Facebook did respond to the open letter and modified its privacy settings to make it easier for individuals to control their online identities. Yet the debate continues over online privacy and the government’s role in maintaining this privacy. The recent buzz over Facebook’s privacy policies is just one of many examples of the debate over government’s place in the world of media. How is copyright protected across different media outlets? What material is considered appropriate for broadcast? Does the U.S. government have the right to censor information? This chapter explores these and other questions regarding the long and complex relationship between media and the government. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/15%3A_Media_and_Government/15.01%3A_Introduction.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Describe the role of the FTC.
• Explain the major duties of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
• Describe deregulation and its effect on the media landscape.
The U.S. federal government has long had its hand in media regulation. Media in all their forms have been under governmental jurisdiction since the early 1900s. Since that time, regulatory efforts have transformed as new forms of media have emerged and expanded their markets to larger audiences.
Major Regulatory Agencies
Throughout the 20th century, three important U.S. regulatory agencies appeared. Under the auspices of the federal government, these agencies—the FTC, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), and the FCC—have shaped American media and their interactions with both the government and audiences.
Federal Trade Commission
The first stirrings of the FTC date from 1903, when President Theodore Roosevelt created the Bureau of Corporations to investigate the practices of increasingly larger American businesses. In time, authorities determined that an agency with more sweeping powers was necessary. Founded on September 26, 1914, the FTC came into being when President Woodrow Wilson signed the FTC Act into law, creating an agency designed to “prevent unfair methods of competition in commerce.”Federal Trade Commission, “About the Federal Trade Commission,” http://ftc.gov/ftc/about.shtm. From the beginning, the FTC absorbed the work and staff of the Bureau of Corporations, operating in a similar manner, but with additional regulatory authorization. In the words of the FTC,
Like the Bureau of Corporations, the FTC could conduct investigations, gather information, and publish reports. The early Commission reported on export trade, resale price maintenance, and other general issues, as well as meat packing and other specific industries. Unlike the Bureau, though, the Commission could … challenge “unfair methods of competition” under Section 5 of the FTC Act, and it could enforce … more specific prohibitions against certain price discriminations, vertical arrangements, interlocking directorships, and stock acquisitions.“A Brief History of the Federal Trade Commission,” program notes, Federal Trade Commission 90th Anniversary Symposium, 6.
Although its primary focus was on the prevention of anticompetitive business practices, in its early years, the FTC also provided oversight on wartime economic practices. During World War I, for example, President Wilson frequently turned to the FTC for advice on exports and trading with foreign nations, resulting in the Trading with the Enemy Act, which restricted trade with countries in conflict with the United States.
Federal Radio Commission
First established with the passage of the Radio Act of 1927, the FRC was intended to “bring order to the chaotic situation that developed as a result of the breakdown of earlier wireless acts passed during the formative years of wireless radio communication.”Fritz Messere, “The Federal Radio Commission Archives,” http://www.oswego.edu/~messere/FRCpage.html. The FRC comprised five employees who were authorized to grant and deny broadcasting licenses and assign frequency ranges and power levels to each radio station.
In its early years, the FRC struggled to find its role and responsibility in regulating the radio airwaves. With no clear breakdown of what could or could not be aired, nearly everything was allowed to play. As you learned in Chapter 7, the FRC lasted only until 1934, when it was engulfed by the FCC.
Federal Communications Commission
Since its creation by the Communications Act in 1934, the FCC has been “charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable.”Federal Communications Commission, “About the FCC,” http://www.fcc.gov/aboutus.html. Part of the New Deal—President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Great Depression–era suite of federal programs and agencies—the commission worked to establish “a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service.”Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Federal Communications Commission,” www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=federalcommu.
The responsibilities of the FCC are broad, and throughout its long history the agency has enforced several laws that regulate media. A selection of these laws include the 1941 National TV Ownership Rule, which states that a broadcaster cannot own television stations that reach more than 35 percent of the nation’s homes; the 1970 Radio/TV Cross-Ownership Restriction, which prohibits a broadcaster from owning a radio station and a TV station in the same market; and the 1975 Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Prohibition, which discourages ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the same market.“Media Regulation Timeline,” NOW With Bill Moyers, PBS, January 30, 2004, http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/mediatimeline.html. All of these acts and more have undergone changes in the modern media marketplace.
Regulation Today
Today, the FCC continues to hold the primary responsibility for regulating media outlets, with the FTC taking on a smaller role. Although each commission holds different roles and duties, the overall purpose of governmental control remains to establish and bring order to the media industry while ensuring the promulgation of the public good. This section examines the modern duties of both commissions.
The Structure and Purposes of the FCC
The FCC contains three major divisions: broadcast, telegraph, and telephone. Within these branches, subdivisions allow the agency to more efficiently carry out its tasks. Presently, the FCC houses seven operating bureaus and 10 staff offices. Although the bureaus and offices have varying specialties, the bureaus’ general responsibilities include “processing applications for licenses and other filings; analyzing complaints; conducting investigations; developing and implementing regulatory programs; and taking part in hearings.”Federal Communications Commission, “About the FCC,” http://www.fcc.gov/aboutus.html. Four key bureaus are the Media Bureau, the Wireline Competition Bureau, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, and the International Bureau.
The Media Bureau oversees licensing and regulation of broadcasting services. Specifically, the Media Bureau “develops, recommends and administers the policy and licensing programs relating to electronic media, including cable television, broadcast television, and radio in the United States and its territories.”Federal Communications Commission, “Media Bureau,” http://www.fcc.gov/mb/. Because it aids the FCC in its decisions to grant or withhold licenses from broadcast stations, the Media Bureau plays a particularly important role within the organization. Such decisions are based on the “commission’s own evaluation of whether the station has served in the public interest,” and come primarily from the Media Bureau’s recommendations.Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Federal Communications Commission.” The Media Bureau has been central to rulings on children’s programming and mandatory closed captioning.
The Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) is primarily responsible for “rules and policies concerning telephone companies that provide interstate—and, under certain circumstances, intrastate—telecommunications services to the public through the use of wire-based transmission facilities (i.e. corded/cordless telephones).”Federal Communications Commission, “About the FCC,” http://www.fcc.gov/aboutus.html. Despite the increasing market for wireless-based communications in the United States, the WCB maintains its large presence in the FCC by “ensuring choice, opportunity, and fairness in the development of wireline telecommunications services and markets.”Federal Communications Commission, “Wireline Competition Bureau,” http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/. In addition to this primary goal, the bureau’s objectives include “developing deregulatory initiatives; promoting economically efficient investment in wireline telecommunications services; and fostering economic growth.”Federal Communications Commission, “Wireline Competition Bureau,” http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/. The WCB recently ruled against Comcast regarding blocked online content to the public, causing many to question the amount of authority that the government has over the public and big businesses.
Another prominent bureau within the FCC is the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB). The rough counterpart of the WCB, this bureau oversees mobile phones, pagers, and two-way radios, handling “all FCC domestic wireless telecommunications programs and policies, except those involving public safety, satellite communications or broadcasting, including licensing, enforcement, and regulatory functions.”Federal Communications Commission, “About the WTB,” http://wireless.fcc.gov/index.htm?job=about. The WTB balances the expansion and limitation of wireless networks, registers antenna and broadband use, and manages the radio frequencies for airplane, ship, and land communication. As U.S. wireless communication continues to grow, this bureau seems likely to continue to increase in both scope and importance.
Finally, the International Bureau is responsible for representing the FCC in all satellite and international matters. A larger organization, the International Bureau’s goal is to “connect the globe for the good of consumers through prompt authorizations, innovative spectrum management and responsible global leadership.”Federal Communications Commission, “International Bureau,” http://www.fcc.gov/ib/. In an effort to avoid international interference, the International Bureau coordinates with partners around the globe regarding frequency allocation and orbital assignments. It also concerns itself with foreign investment in the United States, ruling that outside governments, individuals, or corporations cannot own more than 20 percent of stock in a U.S. broadcast, telephone, or radio company.
The Structure and Purposes of the FTC
Although the FCC provides most of the nation’s media regulations, the FTC also has a hand in the media industry. As previously discussed, the FTC primarily dedicates itself to eliminating unfair business practices; however, in the course of those duties it has limited contact with media outlets.
One example of the FTC’s media regulatory responsibility is the National Do Not Call Registry. In 2004, the agency created this registry to prevent most telemarketing phone calls, exempting such groups as nonprofit charities and businesses with which a consumer has an existing relationship. Although originally intended for landline phones, the Do Not Call Registry allows individuals to register wireless telephones along with traditional wire-based numbers.
Role of Antitrust Legislation
As discussed in Chapter 13, the federal government has long regulated companies’ business practices. Over the years, several antitrust acts (law discouraging the formation of monopolies) have been passed into law.
During the 1880s, Standard Oil was the first company to form a trust (a unit of business made up of a board of trustees, formed to monopolize an industry), an “arrangement by which stockholders … transferred their shares to a single set of trustees.”“Sherman Antitrust Act (1890),” http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=51. With corporate trustees receiving profits from the component companies, Standard Oil functioned as a monopoly (a business that economically controls a product or a service). The Sherman Antitrust Act was put into place in 1890 to dissolve trusts such as these. The Act stated that any combination “in the form of trust or otherwise that was in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states, or with foreign nations” was illegal.“Sherman Antitrust Act (1890),” http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=51.
The Sherman Antitrust Act served as a precedent for future antitrust regulation. As discussed in Chapter 13, the 1914 Clayton Antitrust Act and the 1950 Celler-Kefauver Act expanded on the principles laid out in the Sherman Act. The Clayton Act helped establish the foundation for many of today’s business and media competition regulatory practices. Although the Sherman Act established regulations in the United States, the Clayton Act further developed the rules surrounding antitrust, giving businesses a “fair warning” about the dangers of anticompetitive practice.Brian Gongol, “The Clayton Antitrust Act,” February 18, 2005, http://www.gongol.com/research/economics/claytonact/. Specifically, the Clayton Act prohibits actions that may “substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce.”Brian Gongol, “The Clayton Antitrust Act,” February 18, 2005, http://www.gongol.com/research/economics/claytonact/.
The problem with the Clayton Act was that, while it prohibited mergers, it offered a loophole in that companies were allowed to buy individual assets of competitors (such as stocks or patents), which could still lead to monopolies. Established in 1950 and often referred to as the Antimerger Act, the Cellar-Kefauver Act closed that loophole by giving the government the power to stop vertical mergers. (Vertical mergers happen when two companies in the same business but on different levels—such as a tire company and a car company—combine.) The act also banned asset acquisitions that reduced competition.“Celler-Kefauver Antimerger Act,” http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Celler-Kefauver+Antimerger+Act.
These laws reflected growing concerns in the early and mid-20th century that the trend toward monopolization could lead to the extinction of competition, thus leading to less choice and potentially higher prices. Government regulation of businesses increased until the 1980s, when the United States experienced a shift in mind-set and citizens called for less governmental power. The U.S. government responded as deregulation became the norm.
Move Toward Deregulation
Media deregulation actually began during the 1970s as the FCC shifted its approach to radio and television regulation. Begun as a way of clearing laws to make the FCC run more efficiently and cost effectively, deregulation truly took off with the arrival of the Reagan administration and its new FCC chairman, Mark Fowler, in 1981. The FCC began overturning existing rules and experienced “an overall reduction in FCC oversight of station and network operations.”Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Deregulation,” www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=deregulation. Between 1981 and 1985, lawmakers dramatically altered laws and regulation to give more power to media licensees and to reduce that of the FCC. Television licenses were expanded from three years to five, and corporations were now allowed to own up to 12 separate television stations.
The shift in regulatory control had a powerful effect on the media landscape. Whereas initially laws had prohibited companies from owning media entities in more than one medium, consolidation created large mass-media companies that increasingly dominated the U.S. and global media system. Before the increase in deregulation, eight major companies controlled phone services to different regions of the United States. Today, however, there are four.Gene Kimmelman, “Deregulation of Media: Dangerous to Democracy,” Consumers Union, www.consumersunion.org/telecom/kimmel-303.htm. Companies such as Viacom and Disney own television stations, record companies, and magazines. Bertelsmann alone owns more than 30 radio stations, 280 publishing outlets, and 15 record companies.Columbia Journalism Review, “Resources: Who Owns What,” http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=bertelsmann. Due to this rapid consolidation, Congress grew concerned about the costs of deregulation, and by the late 1980s, it began to slow the FCC’s release of control.
Today, deregulation remains a hotly debated topic. Some favor deregulation, believing that the public benefits from less governmental control. Others, however, argue that excessive consolidation of media ownership threatens the system of checks and balances.Gene Kimmelman, “Deregulation of Media: Dangerous to Democracy,” Consumers Union, www.consumersunion.org/telecom/kimmel-303.htm. Proponents on both sides of the argument are equally vocal, and it is likely that regulation of media will ebb and flow over the years, as it has since regulation first came into practice.
Internet Censorship Around the World
Is what you see on the Internet being censored? In Chapter 11, you read about the debate between the search engine Google and China. However, Internet censorship is much more widespread, affecting people from Germany to Thailand to the United States. And now, thanks to a new online service, you can see for yourself.
In September 2010, Google launched its new web tool, Google Transparency. This program allows users to see a map of online censorship around the world. With this tool, people can view the number of times a country requests data to be removed, what kind of data they request be removed, and the percentage of requests that Google complies with. In some cases, the content is minor—YouTube videos that violate copyright, for example, are frequent offenders. In other cases, the requests are more formidable; Iran blocked all of YouTube after the disputed 2009 elections, and Pakistan blocked the site for more than a week in response to a 2010 online protest. Perhaps most surprising is the amount of requests from countries not normally associated with strict censorship. Germany, for example, has banned content it deems to be affiliated with neo-Nazism, and Thailand refuses to allow videos of its king that it finds offensive. Between January and June 2010, the United States asked Google 4,287 times for information regarding its users, and sent 128 requests to the search engine to remove data. Eighty percent of the time, Google complied with the requests for data removal. John D. Sutter, “Google: Internet freedom is declining,” CNN, September 21, 2010, articles.cnn.com/2010-09-21/tech/google.transparency_1_internet-censorship-google-maps-internet-freedom?_s=PM:TECH.
What is the general trend in Internet censorship? According to Google, it’s becoming more and more commonplace every year. However, the search engine hopes that its new tool will combat this trend. A spokesperson for the company said, “The openness and freedom that have shaped the internet as a powerful tool has come under threats from governments who want to control that technology.” By giving users access to censorship numbers, Google allows them to witness the amount of Internet censorship that they are subject to in their everyday lives. As censorship increases, many predict that citizen outrage will increase as well. The future of Internet censorship may be unsure, but for now, at least, the numbers are visible to all.John D. Sutter, “Google: Internet freedom is declining,” CNN, September 21, 2010, articles.cnn.com/2010-09-21/tech/google.transparency_1_internet-censorship-google-maps-internet-freedom?_s=PM:TECH.
Key Takeaways
• The FTC was established in 1914 and is designed to “protect America’s consumers” and “prevent unfair methods of competition in commerce.”
• Established in 1934 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the FCC is charged with regulating interstate and international communications.
• During the 1980s, the U.S. government began the process of deregulating many existing FCC radio and television laws, allowing the FCC to run more effectively but also setting the stage for increased media consolidation.
Exercise \(1\)
Visit the FCC’s web page (http://www.fcc.gov/) and explore some of the regulations that currently exist. Think about television or radio programs that you watch or listen to. Then write a one-page paper addressing the following:
1. Describe the role of the FTC.
2. Explain the major duties of the FCC.
3. Describe deregulation and its effect on the media landscape. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/15%3A_Media_and_Government/15.02%3A_Government_Regulation_of_Media.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Identify important laws that relate to different aspects of the media.
• Explain the effects of important laws on media outlets and audiences.
Media law has been a much-debated topic ever since the first U.S. media industry laws appeared in the early 1900s. The contention surrounding media law largely stems from the liberties guaranteed under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which includes the freedom of the press.
Generally speaking, media law comprises two areas: telecommunications law, which regulates radio and television broadcasts, and print law, which addresses publications such as books, newspapers, and magazines. Despite differences between the two areas, many media laws involve First Amendment protections. This section explores several areas of media law: privacy, libel and slander, copyright and intellectual property, freedom of information, and equal time and coverage.
Privacy, as you have likely noticed, has been a theme in many chapters. The media and privacy intersect in many arenas, including the legal arena. In 1974, Congress passed the Privacy Act, which “protects records that can be retrieved by personal identifiers such as a name, social security number, or other identifying number or symbol.”U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “The Privacy Act,” http://www.hhs.gov/foia/privacy/index.html. This act also regulates how agencies can collect, store, and use information and requires agencies to tell individuals when they are collecting information about them. Designed to ensure that all First Amendment guarantees remain honored, the act requires all public and private agencies to function within its boundaries.
Under the Privacy Act, media personnel must be careful to avoid revealing certain information about an individual without his or her permission, even if that portrayal is factually accurate. Privacy laws, including the Privacy Act, “limit … your ability to publish private facts about someone and recognize … an individual’s right to stop you from using his or her name, likeness, and other personal attributes for certain exploitative purposes.”Citizen Media Law Project, “Publishing Personal and Private Information,” http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/publishing-personal-and-private-information. Members of the media can avoid the pitfalls of privacy laws by maintaining a professional relationship with the community upon which they report. To avoid liability, journalists and other media professionals are encouraged to report or comment only on “matters of legitimate public interest and only portray people who have a reasonable relationship to [their] topic.”Citizen Media Law Project, “Publishing Personal and Private Information,” http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/publishing-personal-and-private-information. In 2005, a legal dispute arose between congressional aides Robert Steinbuch and Jessica Cutler. Steinbuch sued Cutler for publishing information about their intimate relationship; however, the case was dismissed when the court decided that Cutler had only provided facts that were already publically known.Citizen Media Law Project, “Publication of Private Facts,” http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/publication-private-facts.
Libel and Slander
Media outlets also must be wary of committing acts of defamation. These occur when false statements that can harm a reputation are printed, broadcast, spoken, or otherwise communicated to others. Two different types of legal protections, libel and slander laws, exist to prevent such defamation from taking place and can extend to individuals, groups, and even companies. Although defamation encompasses both categories, they are separate concepts. Libel refers to written statements or printed visual depictions, while slander refers to verbal statements and gestures.Media Law Resource Center, “Frequently Asked Media Law Questions,” http://www.medialaw.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Public_Resources/Libel_FAQs/Libel_FAQs.htm. State jurisdiction largely covers libel and slander laws, but they are nearly identical throughout the United States.
As with privacy laws, print and broadcast journalists can protect themselves from defamation lawsuits by carrying out responsible reporting. Media personnel are legally protected when communicating a report outweighs any potential damage to a person’s reputation. However, when journalists do not report responsibly, the legal and financial consequences can be devastating. In the 2007 case Murphy vs. Boston Herald, the Boston Herald newspaper was sued for misquoting Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy. The court ruled that the false quote was published with a malicious intent and awarded Murphy \$2.1 million in damages.Barbara W. Wall, “News Watch: Boston Newspapers Suffer Setbacks in Libel Cases,” Gannett, 159.54.227.112/go/newswatch/2005/april/nw0401-4.htm. In the more famous case of Linda Tripp in 1998, Tripp was charged with secretly recording phone conversations between herself and Monica Lewinsky, who had a sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton. Tripp faced a prison sentence of 10 years for slander and illegal documentation; however, the case was dropped in early 2000 due to witness bias.Don Van Natta Jr., “Maryland Is Dropping Wiretap Case against Tripp,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/25/us/maryland-is-dropping-wiretap-case-against-tripp.html. More recently, David and Victoria Beckham sued their former nanny for telling the tabloids that their marriage is in trouble. The nanny’s contract contained an agreement not to talk about the celebrity couple’s private lives.CBS News, “Beckham’s Sue Former Nanny,“ February 11, 2009, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/26/entertainment/main691003.shtml
Copyright and Intellectual Property
Copyright laws fall under federal jurisdiction and are, therefore, identical across the country. As you learned in Chapter 4, Congress first established U.S. copyright and patent protections in 1790 and, despite revisions and updates, has maintained some form of copyright law to this day. With coverage of a wide range of materials, copyright law encompasses “almost all creative work that can be written down or otherwise captured in a tangible medium.”Citizen Media Law Project, “Copyright,” http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/copyright. This includes literary works; musical works; dramatic works; pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and even architectural works. Once a work has achieved copyright, the copyright owner must grant permission for that work to be legally reproduced. After a certain number of years, a copyright expires and the work enters the public domain.
Copyright does not, however, protect facts. This is of particular importance for news media. Despite the length of time it takes to uncover facts, no individual or company can own them. Anyone may repeat facts as long as that person does not copy the written story or broadcast in which those facts were communicated.
Intellectual property law protects “products of the mind,” including copyrights, patents, open licenses, trademarks, trade secrets, URLs, domain names, and even components of television programs (as David Letterman found out when he moved from NBC to CBS, and was forced to leave certain aspects of his television show behind). Intellectual property law generally follows the same guidelines as copyright law, and the associated legislation seeks “to encourage innovation and creativity, with an ultimate aim of promoting a general benefit to society.”Citizen Media Law Project, “Intellectual Property,” http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/intellectual-property. The role of copyright and intellectual property in the mass media will be covered in greater detail later in this chapter.
Freedom of Information Act
President Lyndon B. Johnson first signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) into law in 1966. By requiring full or partial disclosure of U.S. government information and documents, the act “helps the public keep track of its government’s actions, from the campaign expenditures of city commission candidates to federal agencies’ management of billions of dollars in tax revenues.”Citizen Media Law Project, “Access to Government Records,” http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/access-government-records. Because it allows everyone access to federal documents and information that otherwise would go unreleased, FOIA is particularly important for those working in the news media.
Although the act covers a large range of agencies, some offices are exempt from FOIA. The act provides access to the public records of the executive branch of the U.S. government but does not include documents from the current president, Congress, or the judicial branch.Citizen Media Law Project, “Access to Records from the Federal Government,” http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/access-records-from-federal-government. Because FOIA pertains to individuals and information in high levels of government, the process of accessing information can be complicated. Those who are interested must become skilled at navigating the complex set of procedures to offer citizens accurate information. Although FOIA allows any person for any reason access to the records, journalists who work for mainstream media organizations often receive perks such as the waiving of fees and expedited processing.Citizen Media Law Project, “Who Can Request Records Under FOIA,” http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/who-can-request-records-under-foia.
The Equal Time Rule
Falling under broadcast regulations, the Communication Act’s Section 315—also known as the Equal Time Rule—requires radio and television stations to give equal opportunity for airtime to all candidates. Essentially, Section 315 ensures that television and radio stations cannot favor any one political candidate over another.
Passed by Congress in 1927, the equal opportunity requirement was the first major federal broadcasting law. Legislators feared that broadcasters and stations would be able to manipulate elections by giving one candidate ample air time. Although candidates cannot receive free airtime unless their opponents do as well, the law doesn’t take into consideration campaign funding. Well-funded candidates who can afford to pay for airtime still have an advantage over their poorly funded peers. Controversies over campaign financing are directly tied to the high cost of political campaign advertising, especially over television.
News programs, interviews, and documentaries are exempt from the requirements of Section 315. This allows media outlets to report on the activities of a candidate without also having to cover the activities of his or her opponent. Presidential debates fall under this exemption as well and are not required to include third-party candidates.
Section 315 also prohibits media from censoring what a candidate says or presents on air. Recently there has been controversy over campaign ads picturing aborted fetuses. Citing Section 315, the FCC allowed these television ads to continue to run.Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Equal Time Rule: U.S. Broadcasting Regulatory Rule,” www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=equaltimeru.
The Fairness Doctrine
As discussed in Chapter 7, the Fairness Doctrine was enacted in 1949, when applications for radio broadcast licenses outpaced the number of available frequencies. At the time, concerns that broadcasters might use their stations to promote a particular perspective encouraged the creation of the radio-specific version of Section 315. The FCC thus instituted the Fairness Doctrine to “ensure that all coverage of controversial issues by a broadcast station be balanced and fair.”Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Fairness Doctrine,” www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=fairnessdoct.
The FCC took the view … that station licensees were “public trustees,” and as such had an obligation to afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues. The commission later held that stations were also obligated to actively seek out issues of importance to their community and air programming that addressed those issues.Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Fairness Doctrine,” www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=fairnessdoct.
The Fairness Doctrine was considered controversial among journalists who felt that it infringed on the rights of free speech and freedom of press granted in the First Amendment. The doctrine was dissolved during the 1980s with the Reagan administration’s deregulatory efforts. We can see these effects today with the popularity of political talk radio. Stations do not have to assure that all sides of an issue are discussed.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to bring order to the then-largely-unregulated online arena. As discussed in Chapter 13, the DMCA prohibits individuals from either circumventing access-control measures or trafficking devices that may help others circumvent copyright measures. Under this act, it is illegal to use code-cracking devices to illegally copy software, and websites are required to take down material that infringes on copyrights. (You’ve experienced this regulation yourself if you’ve ever visited YouTube or Google Video and found that a video has been removed due to copyright claims.)
The DMCA does allow webcasting (the broadcasting of media over the Internet) as long as webcasters pay licensing fees to the companies that own the material. This allows sites such as Hulu to legally stream movies and television shows to viewers. The DMCA also protects institutes of higher education, including distance-learning programs, from certain copyright liabilities.Online Institute for Cyberspace Law and Policy, “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” UCLA, www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/dmca1.htm.
One of the most controversial aspects of the DMCA is that, while it requires websites to remove copyrighted material, it does not require websites to monitor their content. A 3-year-long court battle between media giant Viacom and the Google-owned website YouTube was recently waged over this factor. Viacom argued that YouTube infringed on its rights by hosting copyrighted videos. Google responded that while YouTube may include copyrighted material, it is not required to scan every user-uploaded video for copyright infringement. When a claim is brought against a YouTube video, the video is removed—beyond that, the website is not responsible for content. The judge ruled in favor of Google, stating that it was indeed protected under the DMCA. While many saw this as a victory for Internet freedom, others warned that it would have future consequences for the protection of copyright holders.Steve Rosenbaum, “Viacom vs. YouTube: What Was Won. What Was Lost,” Huffington Post, July 9, 2010, www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-rosenbaum/viacom-vs-YouTube-what-wa_b_641489.html.
Key Takeaways
• The Privacy Act works to guarantee privacy to individuals and controls how personal information is used. Defamation in the written form (libel) or the spoken form (slander) is illegal in the United States.
• Questions for Section 315 (Equal Time Rule) ensures that broadcast media cannot favor any one candidate over another by granting one more time than another. The Fairness Doctrine ensured that radio stations offered equal time to opposing viewpoints.
• The Freedom of Information Act grants the public, including the news media, access to many government documents. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, established in 1998, extended existing copyright laws to encompass and protect information online.
Exercise \(1\)
Visit the website of a major media outlet and examine the coverage of a recent local, state, or national election. Compare the coverage of different candidates. Then write answers to the short-response questions below. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.
1. Identify and describe important laws that relate to different aspects of the media.
2. Explain the effects of the Privacy Act, Section 315, the Fairness Doctrine, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act on media outlets and audiences.
3. Using information gathered from the media website, do you think there was equal coverage of candidates during the recent election? Why or why not? How do you think this balance would have differed if Section 315 were not in existence? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/15%3A_Media_and_Government/15.03%3A_The_Law_and_Mass_Media_Messages.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Explain the FCC’s process of classifying material as indecent, obscene, or profane.
• Describe how the Hay’s Code affected 20th-century American mass media.
To fully understand the issues of censorship and freedom of speech and how they apply to modern media, we must first explore the terms themselves. Censorship is defined as suppressing or removing anything deemed objectionable. A common, everyday example can be found on the radio or television, where potentially offensive words are “bleeped” out. More controversial is censorship at a political or religious level. If you’ve ever been banned from reading a book in school, or watched a “clean” version of a movie on an airplane, you’ve experienced censorship.
Much as media legislation can be controversial due to First Amendment protections, censorship in and of the media is often hotly debated. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”“First Amendment—Religion and Expression,” http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment01/. Under this definition, the term “speech” extends to a broader sense of “expression,” meaning verbal, nonverbal, visual, or symbolic expression. Historically, many individuals have cited the First Amendment when protesting FCC decisions to censor certain media products or programs. However, what many people do not realize is that U.S. law establishes several exceptions to free speech, including defamation, hate speech, breach of the peace, incitement to crime, sedition, and obscenity.
Classifying Material as Indecent, Obscene, or Profane
To comply with U.S. law, the FCC prohibits broadcasters from airing obscene programming. The FCC decides whether or not material is obscene by using a three-prong test.
Obscene material has the following characteristics:
1. Causes the average person to have lustful or sexual thoughts
2. Depicts lawfully offensive sexual conduct
3. Lacks literary, artistic, political, or scientific value
Material meeting all of these criteria is officially considered obscene and usually applies to hard-core pornography.Federal Communications Commission, “Obscenity, Indecency & Profanity: Frequently Asked Questions,” www.fcc.gov/eb/oip/FAQ.html. “Indecent” material, on the other hand, is protected by the First Amendment and cannot be banned entirely.
Indecent material has the following characteristics:
1. Contains graphic sexual or excretory depictions
2. Dwells at length on depictions of sexual or excretory organs
3. Is used simply to shock or arouse an audience
Material deemed indecent cannot be broadcast between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., to make it less likely that children will be exposed to it.Federal Communications Commission, “Obscenity, Indecency & Profanity: Frequently Asked Questions,” www.fcc.gov/eb/oip/FAQ.html.
These classifications symbolize the media’s long struggle with what is considered appropriate and inappropriate material. Despite the existence of the guidelines, however, the process of categorizing materials is a long and arduous one.
There is a formalized process for deciding what material falls into which category. First, the FCC relies on television audiences to alert the agency of potentially controversial material that may require classification. The commission asks the public to file a complaint via letter, email, fax, telephone, or the agency’s website, including the station, the community, and the date and time of the broadcast. The complaint should “contain enough detail about the material broadcast that the FCC can understand the exact words and language used.”Federal Communications Commission, “Obscenity, Indecency & Profanity: Frequently Asked Questions,” www.fcc.gov/eb/oip/FAQ.html. Citizens are also allowed to submit tapes or transcripts of the aired material. Upon receiving a complaint, the FCC logs it in a database, which a staff member then accesses to perform an initial review. If necessary, the agency may contact either the station licensee or the individual who filed the complaint for further information.
Once the FCC has conducted a thorough investigation, it determines a final classification for the material. In the case of profane or indecent material, the agency may take further actions, including possibly fining the network or station.Federal Communications Commission, “Obscenity, Indecency & Profanity: Frequently Asked Questions,” www.fcc.gov/eb/oip/FAQ.html. If the material is classified as obscene, the FCC will instead refer the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice, which has the authority to criminally prosecute the media outlet. If convicted in court, violators can be subject to criminal fines and/or imprisonment.Federal Communications Commission, “Obscenity, Indecency & Profanity: Frequently Asked Questions,” www.fcc.gov/eb/oip/FAQ.html.
Each year, the FCC receives thousands of complaints regarding obscene, indecent, or profane programming. While the agency ultimately defines most programs cited in the complaints as appropriate, many complaints require in-depth investigation and may result in fines called notices of apparent liability (NAL) or federal investigation.
Year
Total Complaints Received
Radio Programs Complained About
Over-the-Air Television Programs Complained About
Cable Programs Complained About
Total Radio NALs
Total Television NALs
Total Cable NALs
2000
111
85
25
1
7
0
0
2001
346
113
33
6
6
1
0
2002
13,922
185
166
38
7
0
0
2003
166,683
122
217
36
3
0
0
2004
1,405,419
145
140
29
9
3
0
2005
233,531
488
707
355
0
0
0
Table 15.1 FCC Indecency Complaints and NALs: 2000–2005 Source: fcc.gov/eb/oip/ComplStatChart.pdf
Violence and Sex: Taboos in Entertainment
Although popular memory thinks of old black-and-white movies as tame or sanitized, many early filmmakers filled their movies with sexual or violent content. Edwin S. Porter’s 1903 silent film The Great Train Robbery, for example, is known for expressing “the appealing, deeply embedded nature of violence in the frontier experience and the American civilizing process,” and showcases “the rather spontaneous way that the attendant violence appears in the earliest developments of cinema.”“Violence,” Film Reference, http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Violence-BEGINNINGS.html. The film ends with an image of a gunman firing a revolver directly at the camera, demonstrating that cinema’s fascination with violence was present even 100 years ago.
Porter was not the only U.S. filmmaker working during the early years of cinema to employ graphic violence. Films such as Intolerance (1916) and The Birth of a Nation (1915) are notorious for their overt portrayals of violent activities. The director of both films, D. W. Griffith, intentionally portrayed content graphically because he “believed that the portrayal of violence must be uncompromised to show its consequences for humanity.”“Violence,” Film Reference, http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Violence-BEGINNINGS.html.
Hays Code
Although audiences responded eagerly to the new medium of film, some naysayers believed that Hollywood films and their associated hedonistic culture was a negative moral influence. As you read in Chapter 8, this changed during the 1930s with the implementation of the Hays Code. Formally termed the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, the code is popularly known by the name of its author, Will Hays, the chairman of the industry’s self-regulatory Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA), which was founded in 1922 to “police all in-house productions.”“Violence,” Film Reference, http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Violence-BEGINNINGS.html. Created to forestall what was perceived to be looming governmental control over the industry, the Hays Code was, essentially, Hollywood self-censorship. The code displayed the motion picture industry’s commitment to the public, stating the following:
Motion picture producers recognize the high trust and confidence which have been placed in them by the people of the world and which have made motion pictures a universal form of entertainment…. Hence, though regarding motion pictures primarily as entertainment without any explicit purposes of teaching or propaganda, they know that the motion picture within its own field of entertainment may be directly responsible for spiritual or moral progress, for higher types of social life, and for much correct thinking.“The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code),” ArtsReformation, www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html.
Among other requirements, the Hays Code enacted strict guidelines on the portrayal of violence. Crimes such as murder, theft, robbery, safecracking, and “dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc.” could not be presented in detail.“The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code),” ArtsReformation, www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html. The code also addressed the portrayals of sex, saying that “the sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home shall be upheld. Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing.”“The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code),” ArtsReformation, www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html.
As television grew in popularity during the mid-1900s, the strict code placed on the film industry spread to other forms of visual media. Many early sitcoms, for example, showed married couples sleeping in separate twin beds to avoid suggesting sexual relations.
By the end of the 1940s, the MPPDA had begun to relax the rigid regulations of the Hays Code. Propelled by the changing moral standards of the 1950s and 1960s, this led to a gradual reintroduction of violence and sex into mass media.
Ratings Systems
As filmmakers began pushing the boundaries of acceptable visual content, the Hollywood studio industry scrambled to create a system to ensure appropriate audiences for films. In 1968, the successor of the MPDDA, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), established the familiar film ratings system to help alert potential audiences to the type of content they could expect from a production.
Film Ratings
Although the ratings system changed slightly in its early years, by 1972 it seemed that the MPAA had settled on its ratings. These ratings consisted of G (general audiences), PG (parental guidance suggested), R (restricted to age 17 or up unless accompanied by a parent), and X (completely restricted to age 17 and up). The system worked until 1984, when several major battles took place over controversial material. During that year, the highly popular films Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins both premiered with a PG rating. Both films—and subsequently the MPAA—received criticism for the explicit violence presented on screen, which many viewers considered too intense for the relatively mild PG rating. In response to the complaints, the MPAA introduced the PG-13 rating to indicate that some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13. Examples of films with a PG-13 rating include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011), Avatar (2009), The Dark Knight (2008), and Titanic (1999).
Another change came to the ratings system in 1990, with the introduction of the NC-17 rating. Carrying the same restrictions as the existing X rating, the new designation came at the behest of the film industry to distinguish mature films from pornographic ones. Examples of films with an NC-17 rating include Showgirls (1995) and Crash (1996). Despite the arguably milder format of the rating’s name, many filmmakers find it too strict in practice; receiving an NC-17 rating often leads to a lack of promotion or distribution because numerous movie theaters and rental outlets refuse to carry films with this rating.
Television and Video Game Ratings
Regardless of these criticisms, most audience members find the rating system helpful, particularly when determining what is appropriate for children. The adoption of industry ratings for television programs and video games reflects the success of the film ratings system. During the 1990s, for example, the broadcasting industry introduced a voluntary rating system not unlike that used for films to accompany all television shows. These ratings are displayed on screen during the first 15 seconds of a program and include TV-Y (all children), TV-Y7 (children age 7 and above), TV-Y7-FV (older children—fantasy violence), TV-G (general audience), TV-PG (parental guidance suggested), TV-14 (parents strongly cautioned), and TV-MA (mature audiences only).
Table 15.2 Television Ratings System
Rating
Meaning
Examples of Programs
TV-Y
Appropriate for all children
Sesame Street, Barney & Friends, Dora the Explorer
TV-Y7
Designed for children 7 and above
SpongeBob SquarePants, Captain Planet
TV-Y7-FV
Directed toward older children; includes depictions of fantasy violence
The Powerpuff Girls, Pokémon, Avatar: The Last Airbender
TV-G
Suitable for general audiences; contains little or no violence, no strong language, and little or no sexual material
Hannah Montana, The Price Is Right, American Idol
TV-PG
Parental guidance suggested
The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Tyler Perry’s House of Payne
TV-14
Parents strongly cautioned; contains suggestive dialogue, strong language, and sexual or violent situations
Saturday Night Live, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Jersey Shore
TV-MA
Mature audiences only
South Park, The Boondocks, The Shield
Source: www.tvguidelines.org/ratings.htm
At about the same time that television ratings appeared, the Entertainment Software Rating Board was established to provide ratings on video games. Video game ratings include EC (early childhood), E (everyone), E 10+ (ages 10 and older), T (teen), M (mature), and AO (adults only).
Table 15.3 Video Game Ratings System
Rating
Meaning
Examples of Games
EC
Designed for early childhood, children ages 3 and older
Nickelodeon BINGO, Winnie the Pooh ABC’s, Elmo’s World
E
Suitable for everyone over the age of 6; contains minimal fantasy violence and mild language
Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Little Big Planet, Frogger, Myst
E 10+
Appropriate for ages 10 and older; may contain more violence and/or slightly suggestive themes
Dance Dance Revolution, Tales of Monkey Island, Rock Band, Scribblenauts
T
Content is appropriate for teens (ages 13 and older); may contain violence, crude humor, sexually suggestive themes, use of strong language, and/or simulated gambling
Final Fantasy XIV, The Sims 3, Super Smash Bros. Brawl
M
Mature content for ages 17 and older; includes intense violence and/or sexual content
Quake, Grand Theft Auto IV, God of War, Fallout 3
AO
Adults (18+) only; contains graphic sexual content and/or prolonged violence
Playboy Mansion: Private Party, Manhunt 2
Even with these ratings, the video game industry has long endured criticism over violence and sex in video games. One of the top-selling video game series in the world, Grand Theft Auto, is highly controversial because players have the option to solicit prostitutes or murder civilians.Media Issues, “Violence in Media Entertainment,” www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/violence_entertainment.cfm. In 2010, a report claimed that “38 percent of the female characters in video games are scantily clad, 23 percent baring breasts or cleavage, 31 percent exposing thighs, another 31 percent exposing stomachs or midriffs, and 15 percent baring their behinds.”Media Awareness Network, “Sex and Relationships in the Media,” Media Awareness Network, www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_sex.cfm. Despite multiple lawsuits, some video game creators stand by their decisions to place graphic displays of violence and sex in their games on the grounds of freedom of speech.
Key Takeaways
• The U.S. Government devised the three-prong test to determine if material can be considered “obscene.” The FCC applies these guidelines to determine whether broadcast content can be classified as profane, indecent, or obscene.
• Established during the 1930s, the Hays Code placed strict regulations on film, requiring that filmmakers avoid portraying violence and sex in films.
• After the decline of the Hays Code during the 1960s, the MPAA introduced a self-policed film ratings system. This system later inspired similar ratings for television and video game content.
Exercise \(1\)
Look over the MPAA’s explanation of each film rating online at http://www.mpaa.org/ratings/what-each-rating-means. View a film with these requirements in mind and think about how the rating was selected. Then answer the following short-answer questions. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.
1. Would this material be considered “obscene” under the Hayes Code criteria? Would it be considered obscene under the FCC’s three-prong test? Explain why or why not. How would the film be different if it were released in accordance to the guidelines of the Hayes Code?
2. Do you agree with the rating your chosen film was given? Why or why not? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/15%3A_Media_and_Government/15.04%3A_Censorship_and_Freedom_of_Speech.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Determine the importance of ethical and legal compliance in online interactions.
• Identify the role of copyright protection in cyberspace.
• Describe the RIAA’s antipiracy efforts.
• Explain why complete privacy does not exist online.
Since its inception, the Internet has posed problems of who owns the content. Over the years, the government has struggled to find ways to introduce copyright protections into the online environment because, unlike other forms of media, the Internet enables users to make an unlimited number of copies of material and to transmit that information around the world.Bill Rosenblatt, “The Digital Object Identifier: Solving the Dilemma of Copyright Protection Online,” Journal of Electronic Publishing 3, no. 2 (1997), quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jep;view=text;rgn=main;idno=3336451.0003.204. In this section, we explore the unique challenges presented in dealing with online copyright and intellectual property and the U.S. government’s role in regulating those fields.
Online Creativity and Intellectual Property Rights
Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998 to establish a protocol for online copyright matters. Yet the nature of the Internet causes very different copyright and intellectual property issues than older forms of media do. Because of the ease of sharing information online, for example, the DMCA has not worked as Congress expected.Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” www.eff.org/issues/dmca. Copying and sharing materials online is relatively simple and, as such, piracy and rights infringement run rampant. In fact, many have argued that despite the DMCA’s attempt to stop piracy, in practice, it has done nothing.Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” www.eff.org/issues/dmca. Additionally, because information is disseminated so rapidly online, piracy opponents struggle with determining the rightful owner of a particular copyright.
The DMCA and its role in Internet policing have frustrated many online users and watchdog groups. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) claims that “the DMCA has become a serious threat that jeopardizes fair use, impedes competition and innovation, chills free expression and scientific research, and interferes with computer intrusion laws.”Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” www.eff.org/issues/dmca. In 2004, comic book company Marvel Entertainment sued game publishers NCsoft and Cryptic for copyright infringement in their online game City of Heroes. Marvel argued that players could use the character customization system in City of Heroes to make characters look almost identical to Marvel characters.David Jenkins, “Marvel Sues City Of Heroes Creators,” Gamasutra, November 12, 2004, www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=4548. Situations like this led groups such as the EFF to publically call for DMCA reform. Such disputes serve as reminders of the challenges inherent in issuing copyrights and intellectual property rights for the online industry.
Copyright Protection in Cyberspace
Certainly, the DMCA brought about major transformations by establishing copyright protection guidelines for the digital arena. However, in 1996—prior to the passage of the DMCA—the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) established two treaties designed to “update and supplement the major existing WIPO treaties on copyright and related rights, primarily in order to respond to developments in technology and in the marketplace.”World Intellectual Property Organization, “Frequently Asked Questions,” www.wipo.int/copyright/en/faq/faqs.htm#P7_220. The first of these, the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT), was created to protect authors of literary and artistic works, including computer programs, original databases, and fine art.World Intellectual Property Organization, “Frequently Asked Questions,” www.wipo.int/copyright/en/faq/faqs.htm#P7_220. The second, the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), deals with “related rights,” or rights connected to copyright. This law was created to protect the rights of performers and producers of sound recordings.World Intellectual Property Organization, “Frequently Asked Questions,” www.wipo.int/copyright/en/faq/faqs.htm#P7_220. These treaties both ensure basic rights, such as compensation and acknowledgement for those who create works, and extend further protections.World Intellectual Property Organization, “Frequently Asked Questions,” www.wipo.int/copyright/en/faq/faqs.htm#P7_220.
Supported by the WIPO and the DMCA, new forms of communication now enjoy copyright protections. Copyright laws cover blogs and website content, provided that these sites contain original writing.U.S. Copyright Office, “What Does Copyright Protect?” www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#what_protect. Despite these developments, however, the Internet still poses challenges for copyrighted material. Because the web changes so quickly, maintaining copyright protection with the Copyright Office can be difficult. Presently, a work must be fixed and in a tangible form to be protected under copyright. Different, altered versions of the same work might not be covered under an original filed copyright claim. As such, authors publishing online must be careful to ensure that their work is protected.
The RIAA versus Piracy
Widespread piracy problems arose during the late 1990s with the popularization of technology allowing peer-to-peer (P2P) music sharing. Suddenly, software such as Napster, Scour, Aimster, AudioGalaxy, Morpheus, Grokster, Kazaa, iMesh, and LimeWire popped up on computers everywhere, allowing access to free music around the world—and fueling online piracy. However, in 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) put the laws established by the DMCA into practice and began a campaign to stop music piracy. In response to the growing number of users, the organization announced that it had been gathering evidence against users sharing music on P2P networks. Rather than go after the software engineers, “the RIAA investigators targeted ‘uploaders’—individuals who were allowing others to copy music files from their ‘shared’ folders.”U.S. Copyright Office, “What Does Copyright Protect?” http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#what_protect.
This data collection led to the RIAA filing more than 250 lawsuits against individuals in what has been called “an unprecedented legal campaign against its own customers.”Electronic Frontier Foundation, “RIAA v. The People,” http://www.eff.org/riaa-v-people. Among the first of these lawsuits was one against a 12-year-old girl who had to pay \$2,000 and publicly apologize to settle her case. Since then, the recording industry has filed, settled, or threatened legal actions against over 28,000 individuals.Electronic Frontier Foundation, “RIAA v. The People,” http://www.eff.org/riaa-v-people. Many college students have been targeted. Recently, the popular torrent site The Pirate Bay found itself under attack for allowing users to search for pirated copies of material. This case mirrors the case of Viacom versus YouTube, because the prosecution argued that The Pirate Bay was responsible for the material its users posted and downloaded. These lawsuits raise the question of whether websites are responsible for the actions of their users, an issue that looks to be central to future Internet legislation.Mike Masnick, “Pirate Bay Loses a Lawsuit; Entertainment Industry Loses an Opportunity,” Techdirt, April 17, 2009, http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090417/0129274535.shtml.
The Law and Online Interactions
The Internet is a relatively new form of media, but it is not exempt from media laws. Terms of service agreements, as well as legislation such as the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, regulate Internet use. As you will see in the following case studies, when it comes to criminal use, the Internet is not as anonymous as it seems.
TOS Agreements
All software and most Internet sites have a terms of service agreement to which its users must comply. Terms of service (TOS) are legally binding rules that an individual must adhere to in order to use a particular piece of software or service. iTunes, for instance, makes users agree to use their downloadable material for noncommercial use only and states that Apple is not responsible for lost or corrupted files. Anyone who has installed a new piece of software or logged on to social networking sites has agreed to a TOS. Entrance into these sites or use of a program typically requires a user to read through legal guidelines and then click a box agreeing to abide by the stated rules. You likely have done so numerous times.
Deterred by the length and legal jargon of the standard TOS, however, many people skip to the end and simply accept the terms without reading them carefully. iTunes, for instance, has a clause that states the following:
You may not use or otherwise export or re-export the Licensed Application [iTunes] except as authorized by United States law … the Licensed Application may not be exported or re-exported … into any U.S.-embargoed countries … You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons.Apple, “Terms and Conditions,” http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html.
While not all Terms of Service are as extensive, an individual’s breach of any TOS may result in suspension, restriction, or cancellation of account privileges, depending on the severity of the offense. As individuals become increasingly reliant on Internet services such as email, calendars, and social networks, the potential for disruption is enormous.
The Case of Megan Meier
In 2008, a compelling court case arose regarding TOS violation. Lori Drew, a 49-year-old woman, was accused of using a fake MySpace account to convince 13-year-old Megan Meier to commit suicide. How did it come about? After Drew’s daughter had a confrontation with Meier, Drew created an account pretending to be a teenage boy. At first she used the persona to flirt with Meier and uncover information about the teenager’s social life and relationship to her daughter. Later, when Drew decided she had enough information, she broke off her friendship, telling Meier that the world would be better off without her. Later that day, a distraught Megan Meier hanged herself.Jennifer Steinhauer, “Verdict in MySpace Suicide Case,” New York Times, November 26, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/us/27myspace.html. After Lori Drew’s identity was revealed, Meier’s shocked parents filed charges against her. Despite the tragic events, whether Drew had actually committed a crime remained questionable. Eventually, prosecutors decided the following:
Since there were no laws that applied in Missouri, the state where this tragedy occurred, [Drew] will face trial in California (the home of MySpace) where she will be charged with—of all things—TOS violations. Creating a false identity goes against MySpace’s terms of service and … as a result she will be facing 1 count of conspiracy and 3 counts of accessing a computer without authorization.Steve Spalding, “Lori Drew Facing Trial for TOS Violation,” How to Split an Atom, November 21, 2008, howtosplitanatom.com/the-news/lori-drew-facing-trial-for-tos-violation/.
The case is complicated and the charge unprecedented. As one author writes, “This raises the questions as to how much weight do online ‘contracts’ hold.”Steve Spalding, “Lori Drew Facing Trial for TOS Violation,” How to Split an Atom, November 21, 2008, howtosplitanatom.com/the-news/lori-drew-facing-trial-for-tos-violation/.
Prosecutors charged Drew under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), although that law is designed primarily to reduce hacking into computer systems. In August 2009, a jury found Drew guilty of “misdemeanor counts of unauthorized access,” but commented that “the CFAA was not devised as a vehicle for criminalizing simple contractual violations on the Internet.”Ryan Paul, “Judge: TOS Violations Not a Crime in Teen Suicide Case,” Ars Technica (blog), August 31, 2009, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/judge-says-tos-violations-arent-a-crime-acquits-lori-drew.ars. Although many believe that prosecutors pushed the charge too far, the Drew case brought TOS agreements to the attention of the public, shedding light on the complicated laws associated with Internet use.
Crimes on the Internet
Although cases such as Drew’s have brought about unexpected challenges, other online cases have had less ambiguous results. One newly clarified aspect of online law involves the use of the Internet to commit a crime. Regardless of the supposed anonymity of online use, law enforcement agencies and courts can requisition Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of suspected lawbreakers and trace their computers to discover their identities. This practice has brought many individuals to trial for criminal offenses committed over the Internet.
Online Hate Crimes and Anonymity
In 1998, a federal court found a 21-year-old Los Angeles man, Richard Machado, guilty of sending racist death threats to 59 Asian students. This case set a precedent because Machado was the first person to be convicted of an online hate crime for sending the message via email. Machado had used a campus computer to send an email to a group of mostly Asian students at University of California, Irvine, saying, “I personally will make it my life career to find and kill every one of [you].” Machado, a former UC Irvine student, signed the email “Asian Hater.” Prosecutors charged Machado with sending the threat based on the recipients’ race or ethnicity and interfering with their right to attend a public university.Courtney Macavinta, “Conviction in Online Threat Case,” CNET, February 11, 1998, http://news.cnet.com/Conviction-in-online-threat-case/2100-1023_3-208044.html.
The case signaled a new legal development because it was the first trial regarding hate crimes online. Prosecutor Michael Gennaco said of Machado’s sentencing, “The jury has spoken that a line needs to be drawn in cyberspace. If you cross that line, you’ll be subjected to the same criminal penalties you would be as if you use a telephone or post mail to do these kinds of acts.”Courtney Macavinta, “Conviction in Online Threat Case,” CNET, February 11, 1998, http://news.cnet.com/Conviction-in-online-threat-case/2100-1023_3-208044.html. Internet law specialists agree with Gennaco that the Internet is not and should not be treated differently from other communication methods; something posted online carries the same weight as a phone conversation or face-to-face interaction. This means that online anonymity is, in fact, not anonymous.
Despite the precedent of Machado’s case, many people still mistakenly believe that the Internet will protect them from prosecution. Such was the case of Walter Edward Bagdasarian, who discovered that the government can trace supposedly anonymous posts using IP addresses. U.S. Secret Service agents arrested Bagdasarian, a Southern California man, in 2009 for “posting a racist note to a Yahoo message board in October [2008] expressing displeasure over Barack Obama’s candidacy, and predicting ‘he will have a 50 cal in the head soon.’”Kevin Poulsen, “Online Threat to Kill Obama Leads to Arrest,” Wired, January 9, 2009, http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/01/threat/. The case exemplifies both the ease with which authorities can and do trace criminal behavior online and their propensity to take such cases seriously.
What does the future hold for Internet legislation? Many say that it will closely mirror that of other media outlets. Already there have been cases regarding Internet monopolies, defamation of users, and copyright infringement on message boards and personal websites.Netlitigation, “Internet Law: News, Suits, and Discussion,” http://www.netlitigation.com/netlitigation/. Others argue that Internet regulation should take into account the differences between the use of the Internet and the use of other media; for example, an Arizona radio station that violates broadcasting laws is tried in Arizona, but where should an Internet podcaster be charged? If a user posts information on a community forum, is it protected under copyright? Does email spam fall under the same regulations as telemarketing? What privacy rights should Internet users have? As the Internet grows and more issues are taken to court, authorities must come to terms with media issues in a constantly changing digital landscape.
Key Takeaways
• The DMCA and the WIPO provide basic legal guidelines for copyright and intellectual property protections online. Nevertheless, regulating and enforcing such statutes remains a complicated, difficult process due to the rapid change and shared authorship inherent to online content.
• In 2003, the RIAA began a campaign against illegal peer-to-peer sharing of music. Its actions resulted in hundreds of lawsuits and greater awareness of issues pertaining to digital copyrights.
• Law enforcement agencies and courts can requisition IP addresses and trace computers to discover the identity of online users suspected of committing crimes. Seemingly anonymous Internet activities may be subject to severe legal consequences.
Exercise \(1\)
Thoroughly read a terms of service agreement from a major website you use frequently, such as a social networking site. How do the terms fit with your expectations? Is there anything that you find surprising? Is there anything that causes any concerns? With this in mind, answer the following short-answer questions. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.
1. Describe the importance of ethical and legal compliance in online interactions. What would happen if you violated the terms of service that you read?
2. Describe the RIAA’s antipiracy efforts.
3. Explain why complete privacy does not exist online. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/15%3A_Media_and_Government/15.05%3A_Intellectual_Property_Issues_in_the_Mass_Media.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Explain how the Internet has changed citizens’ role in the political process.
• Determine the differences between traditional campaigning and digital campaigning.
In an era when work, discourse, and play are increasingly experienced via the Internet, it is fitting that politics have surged online as well in a recent phenomenon known as digital democracy. Digital democracy—also known as e-democracy—engages citizens in government and civic action through online tools. This new form of democracy began as an effort to include larger numbers of citizens in the democratic process. Recent evidence seems to confirm a rising popular belief that the Internet is the most effective modern way to engage individuals in politics. “Online political organizations…have attracted millions of members, raised tens of millions of dollars, and become a key force in electoral politics. Even more important, the 2004 and 2008 election cycles show that candidates themselves can use the Internet to great effect.”Matthew Hindman, The Myth of Digital Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 4.
President Obama’s Digital Campaign
Perhaps the best example of a political candidate putting digital democracy to use is the successful 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama. On June 8, 2008, following Obama’s victory in the Democratic presidential primaries, The New York Times published an article discussing the candidate’s use of the Internet in his nomination bid. Titled “The Wiki-Way to the Nomination,” the article credits Obama’s success to his employment of digital technology: “Barack Obama is the victor, and the Internet is taking the bows.”Noam Cohen, “The Wiki-Way to the Nomination,” New York Times, June 8, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/weekinreview/08cohen.html.
Obama’s campaign certainly is not the first to rely on the Internet. Another Democratic presidential hopeful, Howard Dean, famously built his campaign online during the 2004 election cycle. But the Obama campaign took full advantage of the possibilities of digital democracy and, ultimately, secured the Oval Office partially on the strength of that strategy. As one writer puts it, “What is interesting about the story of his digital campaign is the way in which digital was integrated fully into the Obama campaign, rather than [being] seen as an additional extra.”Eliza Williams, “The Story Behind Obama’s Digital Campaign,” Creative Review, July 1, 2009, www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/june/the-story-behind-obamas-digital-campaign. President Obama’s successful campaign serves as an excellent example of the possibilities of digital democracy.
Traditional Websites
Several existing political websites proved beneficial to the Obama campaign. Founded in 1998, the liberal website MoveOn.org has long used its popularity and supporter base to mobilize citizens to vote, lobby, or donate funds to Democratic campaigns. With more than 4 million members, MoveOn.org plays a noticeable role in U.S. politics and serves as inspiration for other like-minded digital efforts.
The Obama campaign gave a nod to the success of such sites by building a significant web presence. Websites such as MyBarackObama.com formed the foundation of these online efforts. However, the success of the Obama digital campaign came from its use of online media in all its forms. The campaign turned not only to traditional websites but also to social networking sites, email outreach, text messages, and viral videos.
Social Networking
More and more, digital democracy demands that its users rely on these alternative forms of Internet outreach. Social networking site Facebook was the hub of many digital outreach efforts during the 2008 campaign. As of 2010, Barack Obama’s official Facebook page boasts more than 9 million fans, and the Obama administration uses the page to send messages about the current political climate.
Individuals not part of the official campaign also established Facebook pages supporting the candidate. Mamas for Obama emerged just prior to the election, as did Women for Obama and the Michelle Obama Fan Club. The groups range in size, but all speak to a new wave of digital democracy. Other political candidates, including 2008 Republican presidential contender John McCain, have also turned to Facebook, albeit in less comprehensive ways.
Email Outreach
The Obama campaign also relied on email. In 2009, an article was published titled “The Story Behind Obama’s Digital Campaign” discussing the success of Obama’s use of the Internet. According to the article, 13.5 million people signed up for updates on Obama’s progress via the MyBarackObama.com website. The campaign regularly sent out emails to reach its audience.
Emails were short—never longer than 300 words—and never anonymous, there was always a consistency of voice and tone. Obama and other key figures in the campaign also contributed emails to be sent—“Michelle wrote her own emails … and more people opened those than her husband’s”—giving the campaign a personal touch and authenticity, rather than the impression of being simply churned out by the PR machine.Eliza Williams, “The Story Behind Obama’s Digital Campaign,” Creative Review, July 1, 2009, www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/june/the-story-behind-obamas-digital-campaign.
A combination of message and financial appeal, the emails were successful not only in reaching target audiences but also in earning valuable campaign dollars.
Two billion emails were then sent out, although … this email content was carefully managed, with individuals targeted with different “tracks” depending on their circumstances and whether they had already donated to the campaign…. By the end of the campaign the website had mobilized over 3 million people to contribute over \$500 million online.Eliza Williams, “The Story Behind Obama’s Digital Campaign,” Creative Review, July 1, 2009, www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/june/the-story-behind-obamas-digital-campaign.
Text Messaging
Additionally, Obama used text messaging to reach out to his supporters. During the campaign, supporters could sign up to receive text messages, and attendees at rallies and other events were asked to send text messages to friends or potential supporters to encourage them to participate in Obama’s campaign. Members of MyBarackObama.com were the first to discover his running mate selection via text message.BarackObama.com, “Be the First to Know,” Organizing for America, my.barackobama.com/page/s/firsttoknow. This tool proved helpful and demonstrated the Obama campaign’s commitment to fully relying on the digital world.
E-Democracy
Perhaps even more impressive than the campaign’s commitment to digital democracy were the e-democracy efforts of Obama’s supporters. Websites such as Barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com, a gently mocking site “listing the many examples of Mr. Obama’s magical compassion. (‘Barack Obama carries a picture of you in his wallet’; ‘Barack Obama thought you could use some chocolate’),”Noam Cohen, “The Wiki-Way to the Nomination,” New York Times, June 8, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/weekinreview/08cohen.html. emerged, but viral videos offered even stronger examples of Obama’s grassroots campaign.
One example of a supporter-created video was “Barack Paper Scissors,” an interactive game inspired by rock-paper-scissors. Posted on YouTube, the video logged some 600,000 views. The success of videos such as “Barack Paper Scissors” did not go unnoticed by the Obama campaign. The viral video “Yes We Can,” in which Barack Obama’s words were set to music by will.i.am (of the Black Eyed Peas), has been viewed more than 20 million times online. Capitalizing on the popularity of the clip, the campaign brought it from YouTube to its main website, thus generating even more views and greater exposure for its message.
Political Rumors Online
Although the Internet is a powerful tool for candidates, it also propagates rumors that can derail—or at least hinder—a politician’s career. Blog posts and mass emails can be created within minutes and then reposted or forwarded in seconds. Thus, ideas spread like wildfire regardless of their relative truth. Snopes.com, a website dedicated to verifying or debunking urban legends and Internet rumors, has an entire search section dedicated to political rumors, ranging from shooting down a list of books supposedly banned by Sarah Palin to investigating whether actress Nancy Cartwright, best known as the voice of Bart Simpson, was once elected mayor of Northridge, California. The pages dedicated to major political figures such as President Obama can be huge; Obama’s page, for example, lists more than 60 debunked rumors. Some of these rumors include the questioning of his U.S. citizenship, his decision to ban recreational fishing, and his refusal to sign Eagle Scout certificates.
Many of these online rumors are accompanied by “photographic evidence,” thanks to technology such as Photoshop, which allows photographs to be manipulated with the click of a mouse. With such a spread of online rumors, savvy media consumers must be wary of what they read and seek out legitimate sources of information to verify the news that they receive.
Digital Democracy and the Digital Divide
Just as digital technology access issues can create the kinds of problems discussed in Chapter 13, the digital divide can equally split the country’s involvement with politics along tech-savvy lines. Certainly, the Obama campaign’s reliance on modern technology allowed it to reach a large population of young voters; but in doing so, the campaign focused much of its attention in an area out of reach to other voters. In The Myth of Digital Democracy, author Matthew Hindman wonders, “Is the Internet making politics less exclusive?”Matthew Hindman, The Myth of Digital Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 4. The answer is likely both yes and no. While the Internet certainly has the power to inform and mobilize many individuals, it also denies poorer citizens without digital access an opportunity to be part of the new wave of e-democracy.
Nevertheless, digital democracy will continue to play a large role in politics, particularly after the overwhelming success of President Obama’s largely digital campaign. But politicians and their supporters must consider the digital divide and work to reach out to those who are not plugged in to the digital world.
Key Takeaways
• The Internet has dramatically changed citizens’ involvement in the political process by giving them greater access to issues and candidates.
• Candidates can now communicate with individuals via websites, email, text messages, and viral videos, offering citizens a more personal experience with the election process.
• Savvy consumers question the truth of unverified online information such as that contained in emails or blog posts.
Exercise \(1\)
Visit YouTube and search for a local or national candidate with whom you are familiar. If possible, compare the video message to those available on a candidate’s website. Then answer the following short-answer questions. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.
1. How does this video support the overall theme of the candidate’s campaign?
2. How might access to videos such as these alter the way campaigns are run?
3. Explain how the growth of the Internet has changed citizens’ roles in the political process. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/15%3A_Media_and_Government/15.06%3A_Digital_Democracy_and_Its_Possible_Effects.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Describe how radio transformed the political process.
• Discuss the impact of the televised debates on presidential campaigns.
In 2007, The Washington Post published a critical exposé on the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In response to the public outcry, the U.S. Army launched an investigation and set about improving the facility. As demonstrated in this case, media coverage can directly influence people’s lives.
Media have long had a voice and a role in politics. As you have read in earlier chapters, even some of the earliest newspapers and magazines used their pages as a forum for political discourse. When broadcast media emerged during the 20th century, radio briefs and television reports entered the conversation, bringing political stories to the public’s living rooms.
In addition to acting as a watchdog, media provide readers and viewers with news coverage of issues and events, and also offer public forums for debate. Thus, media support—or lack thereof—can have a significant influence on public opinion and governmental action. In 2007, for example, The Washington Post conducted a four-month investigation of the substandard medical treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. Because of the ensuing two-part feature, the Secretary of the Army and the two-star general in charge of the medical facility lost their jobs.
However, an ongoing debate exists over media’s role in politics. Many individuals wonder who is really behind certain stories. William James Willis, author of The Media Effect: How the News Influences Politics and Government discusses this debate:
Sometimes the media appear willing or unwitting participants in chasing stories the government wants them to chase; other times politicians find themselves chasing issues that the media has enlarged by its coverage. Over the decades, political scientists, journalists, politicians, and political pundits have put forth many arguments about the media’s power in influencing the government and politicians.William James Willis, The Media Effect: How the News Influences Politics and Government (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007), 4.
Regardless of who is encouraging whom, media coverage of politics certainly raises questions among the public. Despite laws put in place to prevent unbalanced political coverage, such as Section 315, a large majority of the public is still wary of the media’s role in swaying political opinion. In a January 2010 survey, two-thirds of respondents said that the media has too much influence on the government. Additionally, 72 percent of respondents agreed that “most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win.”Rasmussen Reports, “67% Say News Media Have too Much Influence Over Government Decisions,” news release, January 14, 2010, www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/january_2010/67_say_news_media_have_too_much_influence_over_government_decisions. This statistic demonstrates the media’s perceived political power along with the road the media must carefully navigate when dealing with political issues.
Politics, Broadcast Media, and the Internet
Throughout their respective histories, radio, television, and the Internet have played important roles in politics. As technology developed, citizens began demanding greater levels of information and analysis of media outlets and, in turn, politicians. Here we explore the transformation of politics with the development of media.
Radio
As discussed in Chapter 7, radio was the first medium through which up-to-the-minute breaking news could be broadcast, with its popularization during the 1920s. On November 2, 1920, KDKA in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, became the first station to broadcast election results from the Harding-Cox presidential race, “becoming a pioneer in a brand new technology.”“History of the Radio,” americanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/history_of_the_radio. Suddenly, information that would previously have been available only later in the newspapers was transmitted directly into American living rooms. The public responded positively, wanting to be more involved in U.S. politics.
As radio technology developed, “Americans demanded participation in the political and cultural debates shaping their democratic republic.”Henry Jenkins, “Contacting the Past: Early Radio and the Digital Revolution,” MIT Communications Forum, web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/jenkins_cp.html. Radio provided a way to hold these debates in a public forum; it also provided a venue for politicians to speak directly to the public, a phenomenon that had not been possible on a large scale prior to the invention of the radio. This dynamic changed politics. Suddenly, candidates and elected officials had to be able to effectively communicate their messages to a large audience. “Radio brought politicians into people’s homes, and many politicians went to learn effective public-speaking for radio broadcasts.”“Radio’s Emergence,” library.thinkquest.org/27629/themes/media/md20s.html.
Television
Today, television remains Americans’ chief source of political news, a relationship that dates back almost to the very beginning of the medium. Political candidates began using television commercials to speak directly to the public as early as 1952. These “living room candidates,” as they are often called, understood the power of the television screen and the importance of reaching viewers at home. In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first candidate to harness television’s popularity. Eisenhower stepped onto the television screen “when Madison Avenue advertising executive Rosser Reeves convinced [him] that short ads played during such popular television programs as I Love Lucy would reach more voters than any other form of advertising. This innovation had a permanent effect on the way presidential campaigns are run.”Museum of the Moving Image, The Living Room Candidate, http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/.
Nixon–Kennedy Debates of 1960
The relationship between politics and television took a massive step forward in 1960 with a series of four televised “Great Debates” between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Seventy million U.S. viewers tuned into the first of these on September 26, 1960. The debates gave voters their first chance to see candidates debate, marking television’s entry into politics.
As discussed earlier in the book, the visual difference between the two candidates was staggering; Kennedy appeared much more presidential. A record number of viewers watched the debates, and many historians have attributed Kennedy’s success at the polls that November to the public perception of the candidates formed during these debates.“Kennedy-Nixon Debates,” Mary Ferrell Foundation, www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Kennedy-Nixon_Debates.
War and Television
Later in the decade, rising U.S. involvement in Vietnam brought television and public affairs together again in a significant way. The horrors of battle were broadcast directly into U.S. homes on a large scale for the first time; although television had been invented prior to the Korean War, “the medium was in its infancy…[and] its audience and technology [were] still too limited to play a major role.”Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Vietnam on Television,” www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=vietnamonte. As such, in 1965 the Vietnam War became the first “living-room war.”
Early in the war, the coverage was mostly upbeat:
It typically began with a battlefield roundup, written from wire reports based on the daily press briefing in Saigon … read by the anchor and illustrated with a battle map…. The battlefield roundup would normally be followed by a policy story from Washington, and then a film report from the field…. As with most television news, the emphasis was on the visual and above all the personal: “American boys in action” was the story, and reports emphasized their bravery and their skill in handling the technology of war.Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Vietnam on Television,” www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=vietnamonte.
In 1969, however, television coverage began to change as journalists grew more and more skeptical of the government’s claims of progress, and there was more emphasis on the human costs of war.Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Vietnam on Television,” www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=vietnamonte. Although gore typically remained off screen, a few major violent moments were caught on film and broadcast into homes. In 1965, CBS aired footage of U.S. Marines setting village huts on fire, and in 1972, NBC audiences witnessed Vietnamese civilians fall victim to a napalm strike. Such scenes altered America’s perspective of the war, generating antiwar sentiment. Over twenty years later, in 1991, the Persian Gulf War was brought into homes across the country, as live video feed showed the impact of scud missiles striking their targets. The media, in that conflict, were accused of shaping public sentiments toward acceptance of the U.S. military involvement.
Political News Programming
The way that news is televised has dramatically changed over the medium’s history. For years, nightly news broadcasts dominated the political news cycle; then, in the 1980s, round-the-clock cable news channels appeared. Founded by Ted Turner in 1980, CNN (Cable News Network) was the first such network. Upon the launch of CNN, Turner stated, “We won’t be signing off until the world ends. We’ll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event…and when the end of the world comes, we’ll play ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ before we sign off.”TV Tropes, “Twenty Four Hour News Networks,” tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwentyFourHourNewsNetworks.
Twenty-four-hour news stations such as CNN have become more popular, and nightly news programs have been forced to change their focus, now emphasizing more local stories that may not be covered by the major news programs. Additionally, the 21st century has seen the rise of the popularity and influence of satirical news shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. The comedic news programs have, in recent years, become major cultural arbiters and watchdogs of political issues thanks to the outspoken nature of their hosts and their frank coverage of political issues.
Online News and Politics
Finally, the Internet has become an increasingly important force in how Americans receive political information. Websites such as the Huffington Post, Daily Beast, and the Drudge Report are known for breaking news stories and political commentary. Additionally, political groups regularly use the Internet to organize supporters and influence political issues. Online petitions are available via the Internet, and individuals can use online resources to donate to political causes or connect with like-minded people.
Media and government have had a long and complicated history. Each influences the other, through regulations and news cycles. As technology develops, the relationship between media and politics will likely become even more intermeshed. The hope is that the U.S. public will benefit from such developments, and both media and the government will seek out opportunities to involve the public in their decisions.
Key Takeaways
• Election results were broadcast on the radio in 1920, granting listeners access to political information as it was being made public and transforming the way that citizens viewed politics and political involvement.
• The televised Nixon–Kennedy debates of 1960 brought politics into the living rooms of Americans, forever changing U.S. citizens’ understanding of the political process and making television a valuable platform for candidates and issues.
Exercise \(1\)
Choose a political topic that interests you, such as conflict in the Middle East, the legalization of marijuana, or gay marriage. Find a radio story, a television story, and an Internet story about this topic. Then write a one-page paper answering the following questions.
1. Describe how radio transformed the political process. How was your topic presented differently on the radio than it was on television or the Internet?
2. Discuss the effect of televised debates on presidential campaigns. Was your issue addressed in the 2008 presidential campaign? Was it discussed on the televised debates?
3. How do different media tell the same story? Do any present a more balanced story? Which covered your topic the most in depth? Which covered it the least?
End-of-Chapter Assessment
Review Questions
1. Questions for Section 15.1
1. What are the major duties of the FTC?
2. What are the major duties of the FCC?
3. Describe the effects of Reagan-era deregulation on the mass media.
2. Questions for Section 15.2
1. Explain the difference between libel and slander.
2. What is Section 315, and how does it affect the media’s relationship with politics?
3. What is the purpose and scope of the Freedom of Information Act?
3. Questions for Section 15.3
1. Define censorship.
2. Briefly list the steps in the process that the FCC uses to classify materials as profane, indecent, or obscene.
3. How did the Hays Code affect mass media during the 20th century?
4. Questions for Section 15.4
1. How and why has the RIAA worked to eliminate piracy?
2. What is a TOS and why is it important?
3. Why might authorities request personal information about an Internet user?
5. Questions for Section 15.5
1. What is digital democracy?
2. List three ways that digital democracy affects modern political activity.
6. Questions for Section 15.6
1. How did the invention of the radio transform politics?
2. What are two examples of the influence of television on government?
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Evaluate the role of the FCC in modern media. Do you think regulation should increase or decrease? Why?
2. Compare and contrast Section 315 and the Fairness Doctrine.
3. Discuss why profane and indecent material can be broadcast during certain time slots, but obscene material cannot be broadcast at all.
4. Explain the importance of compliance with terms of service agreements.
5. Describe the effects of the digital divide on political campaigning.
6. Discuss the role that television has played in swaying public opinion on issues of war.
Career Connection
Some media professionals work closely with political candidates to help them craft their public images and messages. Suppose that you were going to advise the campaign of a candidate for local, state, or national office. Choose a candidate who interests you and visit his or her existing website. Explore any other digital outreach efforts. Then answer the following questions to help you make recommendations for the campaign.
1. How does he or she employ social networking sites?
2. How does he or she target varying age groups on the Internet?
3. What could you do to strengthen his or her digital outreach? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/15%3A_Media_and_Government/15.07%3A_Media_Influence_on_Laws_and_Government.txt |
• 16.1: Changes in Media Over the Last Century
Life has changed dramatically over the past century, and a major reason for this is the progression of media technology. Compare a day in the life of a modern student—let’s call her Katie—with a day in the life of someone from Katie’s great-grandparents’ generation. When Katie wakes up, she immediately checks her smartphone for text messages and finds out that her friend will not be able to give her a ride to class. Katie flips on the television while she eats breakfast to check the news and lea
• 16.2: Information Delivery Methods
As we saw in Chapter 14 "Ethics of Mass Media", when superstar Michael Jackson died of a cardiac arrest in June 2009, the news sent media outlets all over the world into a frenzy, providing journalists, bloggers, authors, and television news anchors with months of material. The pop singer’s death is a good example of how information is disseminated through the various media channels. Unafraid to publish unconfirmed rumors that may have to be retracted later, blogs and gossip websites are often f
• 16.3: Modern Media Delivery- Pros and Cons
In October 2009, 17-year-old child-care student Ashleigh Hall made friends with a handsome 19-year-old man on Facebook. Ashleigh, from Darlington, England, and her new friend began chatting online and exchanged mobile phone numbers so they could text each other. The excited teenager soon told her friends that she was going on a date with her new boyfriend, Pete, and that his father would be picking her up in his car. Unfortunately, Pete and his “father” were one and the same person—convicted rap
• 16.4: Current Trends in Electronic Media
What do your former high school classmates do for a living? What does your favorite celebrity think about the current administration? What do other professionals in your field think about industry trends? Which restaurant do your coworkers frequent? Five years ago, these questions would most likely have been met with blank stares, but thanks to the exponential growth of electronic media—social networking in particular—it is now possible to keep track of past and present contacts via the Internet
• 16.5: Privacy Laws and the Impact of Digital Surveillance
When a young waitress named Ashley was having a tough time at work, she decided to vent about her job on Facebook. The 22-year-old was working an overtime shift at a North Carolina pizza parlor and a demanding customer who had stayed late left a meager tip. Feeling frustrated, Ashley posted a short status update on her Facebook profile, calling the anonymous customer an unflattering name. Unfortunately for Ashley, her coworkers saw her post on the social networking site.
• 16.6: 16.6 Mass Media, New Technology, and the Public
When the iPad went on sale in the United States in April 2010, 36-year-old graphic designer Josh Klenert described the device as “ridiculously expensive [and] way overpriced.”Connie Guglielmo, “Apple IPad’s Debut Weekend Sales May Be Surpassing Estimates,” Businessweek, April 4, 2010, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-04/apple-ipad-s-debut-weekend-sales-may-be-surpassing-estimates.html.
16: The Future of Mass Media
Learning Objectives
• Describe the types of new media.
• Identify how the Internet has affected media delivery.
• Explain why new media are often more successful than traditional forms of media.
Life has changed dramatically over the past century, and a major reason for this is the progression of media technology. Compare a day in the life of a modern student—let’s call her Katie—with a day in the life of someone from Katie’s great-grandparents’ generation. When Katie wakes up, she immediately checks her smartphone for text messages and finds out that her friend will not be able to give her a ride to class. Katie flips on the television while she eats breakfast to check the news and learns it is supposed to rain that day. Before she leaves her apartment, Katie goes online to make sure she remembered the train times correctly. She grabs an umbrella and heads to the train station, listening to a music application on her smartphone on the way. After a busy day of classes, Katie heads home, occupying herself on the train ride by watching YouTube clips on her phone. That evening, she finishes her homework, emails the file to her instructor, and settles down to watch the television show she digitally recorded the night before. While watching the show, Katie logs on to Facebook and chats with a few of her friends online to make plans for the weekend and then reads a book on her e-reader.
Katie’s life today is vastly different from the life she would have led just a few generations ago. At the beginning of the 20th century, neither television nor the Internet existed. There were no commercial radio stations, no roadside billboards, no feature films, and certainly no smartphones. People were dependent on newspapers and magazines for their knowledge of the outside world. An early-20th-century woman the same age as Katie—let’s call her Elizabeth—wakes up to read the daily paper. Yellow journalism is rife, and the papers are full of lurid stories and sensational headlines about government corruption and the unfair treatment of factory workers. Full-color printing became available in the 1890s, and Elizabeth enjoys reading the Sunday comics. She also subscribes to Good Housekeeping magazine. Occasionally, Elizabeth and her husband enjoy visiting the local nickelodeon theater, where they watch short silent films accompanied by accordion music. They cannot afford to purchase a phonograph, but Elizabeth and her family often gather around a piano in the evening to sing songs to popular sheet music. Before she goes to sleep, Elizabeth reads a few pages of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Separated by nearly a century of technology, Elizabeth’s and Katie’s lives are vastly different.
New Media
Traditional media encompasses all the means of communication that existed before the Internet and new media technology, including printed materials (books, magazines, and newspapers), broadcast communications (television and radio), film, and music. New media, on the other hand, includes electronic video games and entertainment, and the Internet and social media. Although different forms of mass media rise and fall in popularity, it is worth noting that despite significant cultural and technological changes, none of the media discussed throughout this text has fallen out of use completely.
Electronic Games and Entertainment
First popularized in the 1970s with Atari’s simple table-tennis simulator Pong, video games have come a long way over the past four decades. Early home game consoles could play only one game, a limitation solved by the development of interchangeable game cartridges. The rise of the personal computer in the 1980s enabled developers to create games with more complex story lines and to allow players to interact with each other via the computer. In the mid-1980s, online role-playing games developed, allowing multiple users to play at the same time. A dramatic increase in Internet use helped to popularize online games during the 1990s and 2000s, both on personal computers and via Internet-enabled home console systems such as the Microsoft Xbox and the Sony PlayStation. The Internet has added a social aspect to video gaming that has bridged the generation gap and opened up a whole new audience for video game companies. Senior citizens commonly gather in retirement communities to play Nintendo’s Wii bowling and tennis games using a motion-sensitive controller, while young professionals and college students get together to play in virtual bands on games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band. No longer associated with an isolated subculture, contemporary video games are bringing friends and families together via increasingly advanced gaming technology.
The Internet and Social Media
It is almost impossible to overstate the influence the Internet has had on media over the past two decades. Initially conceived as an attack-proof military network in the 1960s, the Internet has since become an integral part of daily life. With the development of the World Wide Web in the 1980s and the introduction of commercial browsers in the 1990s, users gained the ability to transmit pictures, sound, and video over the Internet. Companies quickly began to capitalize on the new technology, launching web browsers, offering free web-based email accounts, and providing web directories and search engines. Internet usage grew rapidly, from 50 percent of American adults in 2000 to 75 percent of American adults in 2008.Pew Research Center, Internet User Profiles Reloaded, January 5, 2010, pewresearch.org/pubs/1454/demographic-profiles-internet-broadband-cell-phone-wireless-users. Now that most of the industrialized world is online, the way we receive our news, do business, conduct research, contact friends and relatives, apply for jobs, and even watch television has changed completely. To provide just one example, many jobs can now be performed entirely from home without the need to travel to a central office. Meetings can be conducted via videoconference, written communication can take place via email, and employees can access company data via a server or file transfer protocol (FTP) site. You very likely have had the opportunity to take an online college class.
In addition to increasing the speed with which we can access information and the volume of information at our fingertips, the Internet has added a whole new democratic dimension to communication. Becoming the author of a printed book may take many years of frustrated effort, but becoming a publisher of online material requires little more than the click of a button. Thanks to social media such as blogs, social networking sites, wikis, and video-sharing websites, anyone can contribute ideas on the web. Social media has many advantages, including the instantaneous distribution of news, a variety of different perspectives on a single event, and the ability to communicate with people all over the globe. Although some industry analysts have long predicted that the Internet will render print media obsolete, mass-media executives believe newspapers will evolve with the times. Just as the radio industry had to rethink its commercial strategy during the rise of television, newspaper professionals will need to rethink their methods of content delivery during the age of the Internet.
New Media versus Traditional Media
New technologies have developed so quickly that executives in traditional media companies often cannot retain control over their content. For example, as we saw, when music-sharing website Napster began enabling users to exchange free music files over the Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing cost the music industry a fortune in lost CD sales. Rather than capitalize on the new technology, music industry executives sued Napster, ultimately shutting it down, but never quite managing to stamp out online music piracy. Even with legal digital music sales through online vendors such as Apple’s iTunes Store, the music industry is still trying to determine how to make a large enough profit to stay in business.
The publishing industry has also suffered from the effects of new technology (although newspaper readership has been in decline since the introduction of television and radio). When newspapers began developing online versions in response to competition from cable television, they found themselves up against a new form of journalism: amateur blogging. Initially dismissed as unreliable and biased, blogs such as Daily Kos and The Huffington Post have gained credibility and large readerships over the past decade, forcing traditional journalists to blog and tweet in order to keep pace (which allows less time to check that sources are reliable or add in-depth analysis to a story). Traditional newspapers are also losing out to news aggregators such as Google News, which profit from providing links to journalists’ stories at major newspapers without offering financial compensation to either the journalists or the news organizations. Many newspapers have adapted to the Internet out of necessity, fighting falling circulation figures and slumping advertising sales by offering websites, blogs, and podcasts and producing news stories in video form. Those that had the foresight to adapt to the new technology are breathing a sigh of relief; a 2010 Pew Research Center report found that more Americans receive their news via the Internet than from newspapers or radio sources, and that the Internet is the third most popular news source behind national and local television news (see Section 6.3).Pew Research Center, “The New News Landscape: Rise of the Internet,” March 1, 2010, pewresearch.org/pubs/1508/internet-cell-phone-users-news-social-experience?src=prc-latest&proj=peoplepress.
Pay-for-Content: Will It Work?
Critics of the pay-for-content model point to the failure of Newsday, a Long Island, New York, daily that was one of the first non-business publications to use the pay-for-content model. In October 2009, Newsday began charging readers \$5 a week (\$260 a year) for unlimited access to its online content. Three months later, an analysis of the move indicated that it had been a total failure. Just 35 people had signed up to pay for access to the site. Having spent \$4 million redesigning and relaunching the Newsday website in preparation for the new model, the owners grossed just \$9,000 from their initial readership.
However, the lack of paying consumers may be partly accounted for by the number of exceptions granted by the company. Subscribers to the print version of the paper can access the site for free, as can those with Optimum Cable. According to Newsday representatives, 75 percent of Long Island residents have either a newspaper subscription or Optimum Cable. “Given the number of households in our market that have access to Newsday’s website as a result of other subscriptions, it is no surprise that a relatively modest number have chosen the pay option,” said a Cablevision spokeswoman.John Koblin, “After 3 Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday’s Web Site,” New York Observer, January 26, 2010, www.observer.com/2010/media/after-three-months-only-35-subscriptions-newsdays-web-site. Even though most Long Island residents have access to the site, traffic has dropped considerably. A Nielsen Online survey revealed that traffic fell from 2.2 million visits in October 2009 to 1.5 million visits in December 2009. Publishing executives will be watching closely to see whether The New York Times meets a similar fate with its pay-for-content model.
New media have three major advantages over traditional media. First, it is immediate, enabling consumers to find out the latest news, weather report, or stock prices at the touch of a button. Digital music can be downloaded instantly, movies can be ordered via cable or satellite on-demand services, and books can be read on e-readers. In an increasingly fast-paced world, there is little need to wait for anything. The second advantage is cost. Most online content is free, from blogs and social networking sites to news and entertainment sources. Whether readers are willing to pay for content once they are used to receiving it for free is something that the The New York Times set to find out in 2011, when it introduces a metered fee model for its online paper. Finally, new media is able to reach the most remote parts of the globe. For example, if a student is looking for information about day-to-day life in Iran, there is a high probability that a personal web page about living in that country exists somewhere on the Internet. Around three-fourths of Americans, half of Europeans, and just over one-fourth of the world’s population overall have Internet access.Internet World Stats, “Internet Usage Statistics,” www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. This widespread reach makes the Internet an ideal target for advertisers, who can communicate with their desired niche audiences via tracking devices such as profile information on social networking sites.
Key Takeaways
• Traditional media include printed materials (books, magazines, and newspapers), broadcast communications (television and radio), film, and music. New media include all forms of communication in the digital world, including electronic video games, the Internet, and social media. The Internet has added a social aspect to video gaming that has bridged the generation gap and opened up a whole new audience for video game companies, including senior citizens and families. The prevalence of the Internet in modern daily life affects us in nearly every way, from how we receive our news, to the way we do business, conduct research, contact friends and relatives, apply for jobs, and even how we watch television.
• New media frequently trump traditional media for three main reasons: They are more immediate, are often free, and can reach a wider number of people.
Exercise \(1\)
Review the traditional and emerging forms of media. Then answer the following short-answer questions. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.
1. Think of three examples of traditional or new media. What are the advantages of each type of medium? What are the disadvantages?
2. Which of these types of media has been around the longest? Which is the most modern?
3. How has the Internet affected the delivery of other types of media?
4. Do you believe that new media are more successful than traditional forms? Why or why not? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/16%3A_The_Future_of_Mass_Media/16.01%3A_Changes_in_Media_Over_the_Last_Century.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Explain why the Internet has become a primary source of news and information.
As we saw in Chapter 14, when superstar Michael Jackson died of a cardiac arrest in June 2009, the news sent media outlets all over the world into a frenzy, providing journalists, bloggers, authors, and television news anchors with months of material. The pop singer’s death is a good example of how information is disseminated through the various media channels. Unafraid to publish unconfirmed rumors that may have to be retracted later, blogs and gossip websites are often first to produce celebrity news stories. Digital sources also have the advantage of immediacy—rather than waiting for a physical newspaper to be printed and delivered, a time-consuming process that occurs just once a day, bloggers and online reporters can publish a story on the Internet in the time it takes to type it out. Within 40 minutes after the Los Angeles Fire Department arrived at Jackson’s home, a small entertainment website called X17online posted the news that Jackson had suffered cardiac arrest. Twenty minutes later, larger entertainment site TMZ picked up the information and distributed it to hundreds of thousands of people via RSS—a web publishing technology that enables users to automatically receive new digital content from the provider. Multiple Wikipedia members updated Jackson’s biographical entry to include the news of his cardiac arrest before any major news networks or broadcasters had announced the news. By the time the cardiac arrest was reported on CNN’s official Twitter account two hours after the 911 call, Twitter users and TMZ reporters were already posting reports of the star’s death. The story created such a surge in online traffic that microblogging site Twitter temporarily shut down and Google returned an error message for searches of the singer’s name because it assumed it was under attack. An hour after the news of Jackson’s death hit the Internet, mainstream news sources such as The Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, and CNN confirmed the information, and it was immediately disseminated among local and national television and radio stations.
The order in which the news broke among the major media outlets was a source of contention. Many outlets around the world were reluctant to rely on the TMZ report, because the website was primarily known for its frivolous content, aggressive paparazzi tactics, and embarrassing celebrity photographs. Many of the more reputable news sources, including CNN, waited until both the coroner’s office and The Los Angeles Times had confirmed Jackson’s death before announcing it as a fact to viewers, preferring to release an accurate story rather than to gain an edge over other news outlets (even though both TMZ and CNN are owned by Time Warner). “Given the nature of the story we exercised caution,” said CNN spokesman Nigel Pritchard.Scott Collins and Greg Braxton, “TV Misses Out as Gossip Website TMZ Reports Michael Jackson’s Death First,” Los Angeles Times, June 26, 2009, articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/26/local/me-jackson-media26. However, Harvey Levin, managing editor of TMZ, denied that his site was less credible than any other news source. “TMZ is a news operation and we are fact based,” he said. “Our goal is always to take stories and factually source them and present them. We’re not a gossip site…. We have things researched, we have things lawyered, we make lots of phone calls…. I mean it’s the same principle.”Neal Karlinsky and Eloise Harper, “Michael Jackson’s Death Puts Us Weekly and TMZ at the Head of the Pack,” ABC News, July 1, 2009, abcnews.go.com/Nightline/MichaelJackson/story?id=7971440&page=1. Despite Levin’s protests, it appears that, for now at least, old media stalwarts such as the Associated Press and The LA Times have the advantage of reliability over (sometimes) faster sources with less credibility. As Adam Fendelman, founder of entertainment news site HollywoodChicago.com, noted, “The Web and TV phenomenon that TMZ is is very good at fast-breaking and late-breaking news, but there’s an inherent problem with trust in the everyday consumer’s mind”Wailin Wong, “Michael Jackson Death News: Online Activity Heats Up Twitter and Google, Slows Down Some Sites,” Chicago Tribune, June 26, 2009, www.chicagotribune.com/topic/wghp-story-jackson-media-coverage-090625,0,4191041.story. (see Section 6.4 for more advantages and disadvantages of new media).
Once news of Michael Jackson’s death had been reported through all the major international media outlets, a tabloid war broke out, with newspapers and magazines determined to get the “story behind the story.” Speculation about the cause of death and the role played by prescription drugs fed salacious media reports in the tabloids and news and gossip magazines long after the initial news story broke. Other newspapers and magazines, including Time and Entertainment Weekly, focused on tribute articles that reviewed Jackson’s long list of accomplishments and reflected on his musical legacy, and the four major broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS) aired documentaries covering the pop star’s life. In the days and weeks following Jackson’s death, radio stations abandoned their playlists in favor of back-to-back Michael Jackson hits, contributing to a huge upswing in record sales. Media coverage continued for many months, saturating newspapers, magazines, and television and radio stations—when the coroner’s report ruled Jackson’s death a homicide in August 2009, during the funeral service a month later, and again in February 2010 when Jackson’s doctor was charged with involuntary manslaughter for administering a powerful sedative to help the star sleep.
Although the book-publishing industry was at a disadvantage because of the time delay between receiving news of Jackson’s death and the ability to physically place books on shelves, many authors, agents, and publishers were able to capitalize on the star’s tragic story. Numerous biographies were published in the months following Jackson’s death, along with several explosive “tell-all” books by people close to the star that provided intimate details about his private life. To compensate for their lack of immediacy, books have several advantages over other print and web sources, primarily the ability to include greater depth of information on a subject than any other form of media. Fans eager for more information about their idol and his life eagerly purchased Jackson biographies, including his 1988 autobiography Moonwalk, which was re-released in October 2009.
Other, less immediate forms of media were also commercially successful, including a posthumous film titled This Is It, named after the much-anticipated comeback tour that was supposed to start just 3 weeks after Jackson’s death. Composed of rehearsal footage from the concerts, the documentary was shown on more than 3,400 domestic screens during a sold-out 2-week run in October and November 2009. An accompanying two-disc soundtrack album, featuring classic Jackson hits along with new track “This Is It,” topped the Billboard 200 chart upon its release in November 2009, selling 373,000 copies in its first week of release. A spin-off DVD also topped the U.S. sales chart in February 2010, selling more than 1.2 million copies the week of its release. Posthumous sales of Jackson’s earlier material also generated huge amounts of revenue. In the first 4 months after Jackson’s death, Forbes magazine estimated that his estate made \$90 million in gross earnings. Music industry consultant Barry Massarsky commented, “Nothing increases the value of an artist’s catalog [more] than death … an untimely death.”Lauren Streib, “Michael Jackson’s Money Machine,” Forbes, October 27, 2009, www.forbes.com/2009/10/27/michael-jackson-earnings-since-death-dead-celebs-09-business-entertainment-jackson.html. This cross-media approach is typical of every major news story, although the controversy surrounding Jackson throughout his life, the circumstances of his death, and the sheer magnitude of his contribution to pop history meant that the performer’s demise had a particularly widespread effect.
Changing Delivery Methods
As the Michael Jackson example shows, the number of people receiving news from the Internet is rapidly growing, although television remains the dominant source of information. Currently, most Americans use multiple resources for news. In a 2010 survey, 92 percent of people said they obtained their daily news from a variety of sources, including online news sites, blogs, social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, television, newspapers, and radio.Suzanne Choney, “Internet, TV Main News Sources for Americans,” MSNBC, March 1, 2010, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35607411/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/. On a typical day, 6 in 10 American adults get their news online, placing the Internet third behind local television news and national or cable television news.Suzanne Choney, “Internet, TV Main News Sources for Americans,” MSNBC, March 1, 2010, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35607411/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/. The use of smartphone technology is contributing to the ease with which people can access online news; more than a third of cell phone owners use their phones to check for weather, news, sports, and traffic information.Suzanne Choney, “Internet, TV Main News Sources for Americans,” MSNBC, March 1, 2010, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35607411/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/.
For young people in particular, the rise in social networking use is transforming the news from a one-way passage of information into a social experience. People log on to their Facebook or Twitter accounts, post news stories to their friends’ web pages, comment on stories that interest them, and react to stories they have recently read. During a survey of students at the University of Texas at Austin, senior Meg Scholz told researchers that she scanned news websites and blogs every time she went online to check her email, eliminating the need to pick up a newspaper or watch television news. “It’s not that I have anything against a printed newspaper,” she said. “But for my lifestyle the Internet is more accessible.”Peter Johnson, “Young People Turn to the Web for News,” Media Mix, USA Today, March 22, 2006, www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/mediamix/2006-03-22-media-mix_x.htm. Other Internet users appreciate the ability to filter news and information that is relevant to them; 28 percent of those surveyed said they customize their social networking home pages to include news from sources or on topics that interest them.Suzanne Choney, “Internet, TV Main News Sources for Americans,” MSNBC, March 1, 2010, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35607411/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/. Researchers at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, the organization that conducted the survey, speculate that this personalization of news is a result of the constant stream of information in modern life. Pew Research Center Director Lee Rainie commented, “People feel more and more pressed about the volume of information flowing into their lives. So, they customize the information flow in order to manage their lives well and in order to get the material that they feel is most relevant to them.”Suzanne Choney, “Internet, TV Main News Sources for Americans,” MSNBC, March 1, 2010, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35607411/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/. Although television remains the primary source of news for most Americans, Internet and mobile technology is changing the structure of information delivery methods to audiences, making it more portable, more personalized, and more participatory.
Key Takeaways
• Information delivery methods to audiences include print (newspapers, books, magazines), broadcast (radio, television), new media (Internet, social media, blogs), and documentary films. When a big news story breaks, digital media sources have the advantage of speed over traditional media sources—but are not yet considered completely accurate or trustworthy. Established newspapers and magazines still have the advantage of credibility. A big news story passes through every media outlet, starting with the Internet and online newspapers, moving to print newspapers, magazines, television, and radio, and finally on to slower, more detailed types of media such as books and documentaries.
• Information delivery methods are changing. Most people still get their news from local and national television stations, but the Internet is the third most popular source of information, and its popularity is increasing. Smartphone technology is making Internet news more portable, while social networking sites provide a participatory aspect, enabling people to comment on or share news stories of interest. The ability to customize social networking home pages to filter news topics and sources is making news more personalized, allowing consumers to read only the information that interests them.
Exercise \(1\)
Conduct a survey among your friends, family, and classmates to find out where they get their news on a regular basis. Then respond to the following short-answer questions. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.
1. What is the most common source of news among the population sample you surveyed?
2. Do most people obtain their news from a variety of sources or from a single source?
3. Does the main source of news vary according to age group? Create a line graph or bar graph to illustrate your results, and write a brief report of your findings.
4. Which group uses the Internet as a source of news and information the most? Why do you think this is? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/16%3A_The_Future_of_Mass_Media/16.02%3A_Information_Delivery_Methods.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Describe the advantages of modern media delivery methods.
• Describe the disadvantages of modern media delivery methods.
In October 2009, 17-year-old child-care student Ashleigh Hall made friends with a handsome 19-year-old man on Facebook. Ashleigh, from Darlington, England, and her new friend began chatting online and exchanged mobile phone numbers so they could text each other. The excited teenager soon told her friends that she was going on a date with her new boyfriend, Pete, and that his father would be picking her up in his car. Unfortunately, Pete and his “father” were one and the same person—convicted rapist Peter Chapman. The 33-year-old homeless sex offender used his Facebook alter ego (which included photographs of an unknown teenage boy) to lure Ashleigh to a secluded location, where he raped and murdered her. Chapman was arrested by chance shortly after the event, and in court he pleaded guilty to kidnap, rape, and murder.
Ashleigh’s tragic story illustrates some disadvantages of modern media delivery: anonymity and unreliability. Although social networking sites such as Facebook are a convenient way to create new relationships and reconnect with old friends, there is no way of knowing whether users are who they claim to be, leaving people (particularly impressionable youths) vulnerable to online predators. Since much of the content on the Internet is unregulated, this lack of reliability spans the entire online spectrum, from news stories and Wikipedia articles to false advertising claims and unscrupulous con artists on websites such as Craigslist.
However, modern media can also work to mobilize efforts to stop crime. The popular NBC television series Dateline: To Catch a Predator followed police investigators who used Internet chat rooms to identify potential child molestors. Posing as young teens, police officers entered chat rooms and participated in conversations with various users. If an adult user began a sexual dialogue and expressed interest in meeting the teen for sexual purposes, the police set up a sting operation, catching the would-be pedophile in the act. In cases such as these, the rapid transmission of information and the global nature of the Internet made it possible for criminals to be apprehended.
Advantages of Modern Media Delivery
If Ashleigh’s story highlights some of the most negative aspects of modern media, the quick dissemination of news and information are some of the most beneficial aspects of the World Wide Web. As we noted earlier in the chapter, speed can be a huge advantage of online media delivery. When a news story breaks, it can be delivered almost instantaneously through RSS feeds and via many major outlets, enabling people all over the world to learn about a breaking news story mere minutes after it happens.
Once an Internet user has paid for a monthly service provider, most of the content on the web is free, allowing people access to an unlimited wealth of information via news websites, search engines, directories, and home pages for numerous topics ranging from cooking tips to sports trivia. When all this information became readily available at the touch of a button, many journalists and technology experts wrote articles claiming the information overload was bad for people’s health. Fears that the new technology would cause attention deficit disorder, stunt people’s reasoning, and damage their ability to empathize were raised by some highly respected publications, including The Times of London and the The New York Times. However, there is no consistent evidence that the Internet causes psychological problems; in fact, statistics show that people who use social networking sites have better offline social lives, and people who play computer games are better at absorbing and reacting to information than those who do not, and they experience no loss of accuracy or increased impulsiveness.Vaughan Bell, “Don’t Touch That Dial!” Slate, February 15, 2010, www.slate.com/id/2244198/pagenum/all/. As Vaughan Bell points out in his article about the history of media scares, “Worries about information overload are as old as information itself, with each generation reimagining the dangerous impacts of technology on mind and brain.”Vaughan Bell, “Don’t Touch That Dial!” Slate, February 15, 2010, www.slate.com/id/2244198/pagenum/all/.
In addition to speed, reach, and cost, online media delivery enables a wider range of voices and perspectives on any subject. Through nontraditional media such as blogs and Twitter, people can put their own personal slant on current events, popular culture, and issues that are important to them without feeling obliged to remain neutral. A study by the Pew Research Center found that nontraditional media sources report on a wider variety of stories than traditional media, enabling individual sites to develop their own personality and voice. The study also discovered that these online sources focus on highly emotional subject matter that can be personalized by the writers and shared in the social forum.Pew Research Center, “New Media, Old Media,” May 23, 2010, pewresearch.org/pubs/1602/new-media-review-differences-from-traditional-press. By opening up blogs and social media sites to online discussion or debate, bloggers enable readers to generate their own content, turning audiences from passive consumers into active creators. In this way, knowledge becomes a social process rather than a one-way street—the blogger posts an opinion, a reader comments on the blogger’s opinion, the blogger then evaluates the reader’s comment and revises his or her perspective accordingly, and the process repeats itself until an issue has been thoroughly explored. Many bloggers also provide links to other blogs they support or enjoy reading, enabling ideas with merit to filter through various channels on the Internet.
Disadvantages of Modern Media Delivery
Along with a growing number of online predators misrepresenting themselves on social networking sites, the Internet is responsible for a lot of other types of misinformation circulating the web. Unless users are able to distinguish between reliable, unbiased sources and factual information, they may find themselves consuming inaccurate news reports or false encyclopedia entries. Even so-called reliable news sources are subject to occasional errors with their source material. When French composer Maurice Jarre died in 2009 at the age of 84, Irish sociology and economics student Shane Fitzgerald decided to try an experiment with Wikipedia. He added fictional quotes to Jarre’s Wikipedia entry and then watched as newspapers worldwide (including reputable sources such as the The Guardian) copied his quotes word for word and attributed them to the composer. Red-faced journalists were later forced to correct their errors by retracting the quotes. Writing a follow-up report for The Irish Times, Fitzgerald commented, “If I could so easily falsify the news across the globe, even to this small extent, then it is unnerving to think about what other false information may be reported in the press.”J. Mark Lytle, “Wikipedia Hoax Shames Major Publishers,” TechRadar, May 10, 2009, www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/Wikipedia-hoax-shames-major-publishers-597729.
Although most traditional media strive for nonpartisanship, many newer online sources are fervently right wing or left wing. With websites such as the Huffington Post on the left of the political spectrum and the Drudge Report on the right, consumers need to be aware when they are reading news with an ideological slant. Critics fear the trend toward social media sources may lead to the restriction of the movement of ideas. If consumers choose their media circle exclusively consistent with their own political biases, they will be limited to a narrow political viewpoint.
Along with practical disadvantages, the Internet also has several economic disadvantages. An increasing gap between people who can afford personal computers and access to the web and people who cannot, known as the digital divide, separates the haves and the have-nots. Although about 75 percent of U.S. households are connected to the Internet, there are gaps in access in terms of age, income, and education. For example, a recent study found that 93 percent of people age 18–29 have Internet access, compared with 70 percent of people 50–64 and just 38 percent of people over 65.Pew Research Center, “Demographics of Internet Users,” Pew Internet & American Life Project, January 6, 2010, www.pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/Trend-Data/Whos-Online.aspx. Similar disparities occur with income and education (see Figure 16.2).
These disparities mean that people with lower incomes and educational levels are at a disadvantage when it comes to accessing online job listings, information, news, and computer-related skills that might help them in the workplace. The digital divide is even more prominent between developed and developing countries. In nations such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, the government permits little or no access to the Internet. In other countries, such as Mexico, Brazil, and Columbia, poor telecommunications infrastructure forces users to wait extremely inconvenient lengths of time to get online. And in many developing countries that have poor public utilities and intermittent electrical service, the Internet is almost unheard of. Despite its large population, the entire continent of Africa accounts for less than 5 percent of Internet usage worldwide.Internet World Stats, “Internet Usage Statistics,” www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.
Traditional media also face economic disadvantages when it comes to profiting from the Internet. Having freely given away much of their online content, newspapers are struggling to transition to an entirely ad-based business model. Although publishers initially envisioned a digital future supported entirely by advertising, two years of plummeting ad revenue (the Newspaper Association of America reported that online advertising revenues fell 11.8 percent in 2009) has caused some papers to consider introducing online fees. Although modern media delivery is quick and efficient, companies are still trying to establish a successful economic model to keep them afloat in the long term.
Key Takeaways
• Modern media delivery has numerous advantages, including the speed at which content is delivered, the widespread reach of the Internet, and the low cost—most online content is free. The sheer amount of information available online has caused many critics to claim the information overload is bad for people’s health; however, studies have not substantiated this theory. Online media delivery enables a wide range of voices and perspectives to be heard via blogs and social networking sites. These sites are also changing the way knowledge is consumed: from a one-way system (for example, through passively reading newspaper articles) to a dynamic process that involves an entire online community.
• Modern media delivery also has several disadvantages. Not all web pages are reliable sources of information; many are subject to user error (for example, on sites such as Wikipedia) or bias (for example, on partisan political blogs). The Internet also has economic disadvantages; it widens the digital divide between those who have access to the technology and those who do not (usually older people, people of lower economic means or educational status, or people in developing countries with poor infrastructure), and causes problems for traditional media, which are finding it difficult to profit from digital technology.
Exercise \(1\)
Choose two online newspaper articles or blogs on the same subject, one from a liberal website such as the Huffington Post and one from a conservative website such as the Drudge Report. Read through both articles and underline examples of political bias or prejudice. Then answer the following short-answer questions. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.
1. How does each article use selective facts to support its argument?
2. What information is missing from each article?
3. How might reading just one of these articles unfairly sway someone looking for nonpartisan information on the topic you have chosen?
4. What are the advantages of modern media delivery methods? How might you have found both articles if the Internet did not exist? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/16%3A_The_Future_of_Mass_Media/16.03%3A_Modern_Media_Delivery-_Pros_and_Cons.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Determine popular trends in social networking.
• Describe the concept of membership-only websites that cater to specific audiences.
• Explain the use and appeal of electronic applications.
What do your former high school classmates do for a living? What does your favorite celebrity think about the current administration? What do other professionals in your field think about industry trends? Which restaurant do your coworkers frequent? Five years ago, these questions would most likely have been met with blank stares, but thanks to the exponential growth of electronic media—social networking in particular—it is now possible to keep track of past and present contacts via the Internet, sometimes in exhaustive detail. As social media use continues to grow in popularity, marketers, advertisers, and businesses are looking for ways to use the new technology to increase revenue and improve customer service. Meanwhile, social networking sites are expanding into commerce, connecting businesses and consumers via third-party sites so that people can bring a network of friends to partner websites. Facebook Connect, for example, enables a consumer to visit a partner site such as Forever 21, find a pair of jeans on sale, and broadcast the information to everyone on her Facebook network. If a few Facebook friends do the same thing, the information can create an effective viral marketing campaign for the partner site. A more secure version of the ill-fated Beacon (see Chapter 11), Facebook Connect extends the Facebook platform out of the social network’s walls, creating one giant network on the web.
The current trend toward immediacy (instant Twitter updates, instant Google searches, instant driving directions from Google Maps) is compounded by the development of smartphone applications, which allow users to access or post information wherever they happen to be located. For example, a person shopping for a particular product can instantly compare the price of that product across an entire range of stores using the Android ShopSavvy app, while someone new to an area can immediately locate a gas station, park, or supermarket using iPhone’s AroundMe app. Industry insiders have coined the term nowism to describe the instant gratification that can be achieved by real-time content on the web. Sparked by social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the real-time trend looks set to continue, with companies from all types of industries jumping on the immediacy bandwagon.
Social Networking Continues to Grow
The growth of social media over the past few years has been exponential; according to Nielsen, Twitter alone grew 1,382 percent in February 2009, registering 7,000,000 unique visitors in the United States for the month. By February 2010, Twitter had 75,000,000 registered users and between 10,000,000 and 15,000,000 active tweeters.Sharon Gaudin, “Twitter Users Send 50 Million Tweets a Day,” Computerworld, February 23, 2010, www.computerworld.com/s/article/9161118/Twitter_users_send_50_million_tweets_a_day. Meanwhile, Facebook has more than 400 million active users worldwide, according to its website, with each user averaging 130 Facebook friends. In February 2010, Facebook was declared the web’s most popular site, with users spending an average of more than 7 hours a month on the site; more than the amount of time spent on Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Amazon.com, Wikipedia, and MSN combined.Ben Parr, “Facebook Is the Web’s Ultimate Timesink,” Mashable (blog), February 16, 2010, mashable.com/2010/02/16/facebook-nielsen-stats/.
Initially conceived in 2004 as a website for students to keep in touch over the Internet and get to know each other better, Facebook has since developed into the world’s largest social networking site. In addition to connecting friends and acquaintances and enabling users to share photos, links, and multimedia, the site (along with other social networking sites such as MySpace) has branched out into social gaming, a rapidly growing industry that allows users to download free games through the site and play online with friends and family members. Appealing to a wide demographic—including people who rarely play video games—social games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars are free to play, but generate revenue for developers by offering additional bonuses or virtual goods for paying players. A recent survey found that most of the revenue generated by the social gaming audience comes from a small percentage of players (around 10 percent) who are willing to actually spend money on social networking games. Out of that 10 percent, just 2 percent of people, described as the “whales” of the social gaming industry, spend more than \$25 a month on social games. Inside Network founder Justin Smith, who coauthored the survey, said, “It is clear that people either spend a lot of money or spend nothing.”Dean Takahashi, “Social Game ‘Whales’ are Big Spenders on Facebook, Survey Says” VentureBeat, June 22, 2010, venturebeat.com/2010/06/22/social-game-whales-are-big-spenders-on-facebook-survey-says/. The games, which primarily appeal to the female over-40 demographic, are designed so that Facebook users can spend a few minutes playing several times a day. In the United States, 55 percent of social network game players are women, and the average age is 48.Caleb Johnson, “Average Social Networking Gamer in the U.S.? Your Mom,” Switched, February 17, 2010, www.switched.com/2010/02/17/average-social-networking-gamer-in-the-u-s-your-mom/.
Other continuing trends in social networking include microblogging on sites such as Twitter, which is rapidly becoming the fastest source of news on the Internet. The site acts as a personal newswire, passing on information about shared world events as they affect people in real time. For example, when an earthquake shook Los Angeles in 2008, people began tweeting personal accounts from their homes 9 minutes before the Associated Press picked up the story. In 2009, citizens of Iran bypassed government censorship by tweeting news of the election results across the world. Organizations such as the Associated Press communicated with Twitter users to receive information about the resulting protests and demonstrations.Rebecca Santana, “Twittering the election crisis in Iran,” USA Today, June 16, 2009, www.usatoday.com/tech/world/2009-06-15-iran-twitter_N.htm.
Business owners are also beginning to realize the power of Twitter; online shoe merchant Zappos.com provides more than 500 of its employees with Twitter accounts to humanize the people behind the sales and help them connect with their customers. Feedback from Twitter users provides companies with valuable information about how they can improve their products and services. Celebrities have also attached themselves to Twitter as a means of publicizing forthcoming projects and keeping in touch with fans. Actor Ashton Kutcher is particularly media savvy; beating news outlet CNN to become the first Twitter user with more than 1,000,000 followers in 2009, the star used his popularity to raise awareness for medical charity Malaria No More, donating 10,000 mosquito nets to the organization following his success as Twitter’s first “millionaire.” Kutcher’s social media consultancy, Katalyst Films, maximizes the use of social networking technology by working with entertainment content, advertising, and online conversation in an effort to generate money from the web. “Entertainment, really, is a dying industry,” Kutcher said in a 2009 interview. “We’re a balanced social-media studio, with revenue streams from multiple sources—film, TV, and now digital. For the brand stuff, we’re not replacing ad agencies but working with everyone to provide content and the monetization strategies to succeed on the Web.”Ellen McGirt, “Mr. Social: Ashton Kutcher Plans to be the Next New-Media Mogul,” Fast Company, December 1, 2009, www.fastcompany.com/magazine/141/want-a-piece-of-this.html.
In addition to brand marketing and cross-promotions infiltrating social networking sites, digital experts predict social media will become more exclusive, with people filtering out clutter from unwanted sources. David Armano, senior vice president of Edelman Digital, said, “Not everyone can fit on someone’s newly created Twitter list and as networks begin to fill with noise, it’s likely that user behavior such as ‘hiding’ the hyperactive updaters that appear in your Facebook news feed may become more common.”David Armano, “Six Social Media Trends for 2010,” The Conversation (blog), Harvard Business Review, November 2, 2009, blogs.hbr.org/cs/2009/11/six_social_media_trends.html.
Exclusivity on the Web
Armano’s prediction for social networking sites may filter across other areas of the web. Membership-only sites that cater to a specific audience are becoming increasingly popular. Based on e-commerce models such as Gilt and Rue La La, which sell luxury brand clothing at below-retail prices by invitation only, websites such as Thrillist offer exclusive clothing deals in addition to providing information on food, drink, entertainment, nightlife, and gadgets by subscription newsletter. Aimed at young, affluent male professionals, Thrillist reaches more than 2,200,000 subscriptions across the United States and the United Kingdom, and has reached over \$10,000,000 in revenue in 2010. Cofounder and CEO Ben Lerer believes that Thrillist represents the future of media. “It’s what modern media looks like,” he said. “Content plus commerce.”Ty McMahan, “Is Thrillist the Future of Media?” Speakeasy (blog), Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2010, blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/05/13/is-thrillist-the-future-of-media/. In 2010, Thrillist acquired members-only online retailer JackThreads.com, enabling the company to offer its user base exclusive access to JackThreads’ private shopping community as a benefit to subscribing.
Another highly targeted web trend is the emergence of micro magazines—digital publications aimed at a specific audience that attract advertisers wanting to reach a particular group of people. For example, the magazine Fearless is an online magazine entirely dedicated to stories of overcoming fear. Marketing expert Seth Godin believes that whereas publications such as Newsweek and Time are “slow and general, the world is fast and specific,” which creates a need for online subscription magazines that can provide targeted material to interested individuals.Seth Godin, “Micro Magazines and a Future of Media,” Seth Godin’s Blog, May 6, 2010, sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/05/micro-magazines-and-a-future-of-media.html. “The big difference is that instead of paying for an office building and paper and overhead, the money for an ad in a micro-magazine can go directly to the people who write and promote it and the ad itself will be seen by exactly the right audience,” Godin writes.Seth Godin, “Micro Magazines and a Future of Media,” Seth Godin’s Blog, May 6, 2010, sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/05/micro-magazines-and-a-future-of-media.html. The possibilities for micro magazines are endless, with focus topics covering every travel destination, interest group, and profession. Operating in a similar way to traditional subscription magazine models, micro magazines are distributed via email or RSS and are supported by a forum or blog. This interactive aspect provides readers with a sense of community—rather than passive consumers of general-interest news, they are part of a network of readers who can communicate with others who have a shared interest.
An Excess of Apps
In April 2009, Apple celebrated the 1 billionth download from its App Store. Launched in July 2008, the online venue for third-party iPhone and iPod Touch applications initially offered consumers 500 apps, ranging from shortcuts to websites such as Facebook and eBay to games and useful online services. Although competing smartphones such as the Treo and BlackBerry offered similar application facilities, Apple’s App Store quickly became the most successful platform for mobile software, averaging around \$1,000,000 a day in iPhone application sales during the first month of its existence.Dianne See Morrison, “Apple’s App Store Sales Top \$30 Million in First Month; Can Free Apps Make Developers Money?” Washington Post, August 11, 2008, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081100440.html. Under a revenue-sharing agreement, the company keeps 30 percent of any income generated and gives the other 70 percent to third-party app developers. By April 2011, the App Store offered around 350,000 applications, aiding iPhone and iPad users with numerous daily activities, ranging from identifying an unknown song, to finding a nearby gas station, to matching the color of a photograph taken by the iPhone with a database of paint colors. Unlike many commercials that exaggerate a products’ abilities, Apple’s tagline “There’s an app for that” is usually on the mark.
One recent trend in smartphone applications is the use of location-sharing services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, and Google Latitude. Utilizing the GPS function in modern smartphones, these apps enable users to “check in” to a venue so that friends can locate each other easily. The apps also encourage users to explore new places in their area by following other users’ suggestions on places to go. Users have the option of automatically updating their Facebook and Twitter accounts when they check in, and are able to earn points or badges according to how many times they check into a location, adding a competitive element to the service. Users with the most check-ins at a location become the “mayor” of that place, and some businesses offer rewards to users who achieve this status.
Although many apps stand alone, some are tied to other forms of media. For example, popular musical-comedy television show Glee has its own application that enables users to sing their favorite musical numbers from the show, upload their efforts to Facebook or MySpace, and invite friends to sing with them. The application also provides a voice-enhancing feature to correct users’ pitch and harmonize their voices while they sing. Other cross-media applications include game versions of television quiz shows Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, apps for individual celebrities such as country singer Reba McEntire, and apps for television news channels, including CNN and MSNBC. Making life easier for users while providing them with endless entertainment options, apps have become a huge part of everyday life for many people; by June 2010, Apple’s App Store had generated total revenue of \$1.4 billion.Philip Elmer-DeWitt, “App Store: 1% of Apple’s Gross Profit,” Fortune, CNN Money, June 23, 2010, tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/23/app-store-1-of-apples-gross-profit/.
Key Takeaways
• Social networking sites continue to grow in popularity; Facebook is the largest social networking site on the web with more than 400 million users worldwide. Social gaming is a popular trend on networking sites, and many users are not typical video game players; instead, they fit the female over-40 demographic. Developers generate revenue from social networking sites by charging gamers real money for bonuses or virtual goods. Microblogging is another popular social networking trend. Key events around the world are often reported on microblog Twitter first by users who experience the events firsthand. Business owners use Twitter to connect with their customers more effectively. Celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher are media savvy and use Twitter to promote worthy causes. Digital experts predict social networking will become more exclusive in the future, with people filtering out clutter from unwanted sources.
• The Internet is moving in a more exclusive direction through membership-only sites such as Thrillist, which cater to specific audiences via subscription newsletters. Micro magazines such as Fearless, which target very specific audiences and are distributed via email or RSS feed, are also becoming more popular.
• Applications for smartphones and tablet computers such as the iPad are hugely popular, offering consumers numerous shortcuts to their favorite websites in addition to games and services. Two current trends are location-sharing applications, facilitated by the GPS functionality on modern smartphones, and cross-media applications such as those that tie in with particular television shows, celebrities, or music radio stations.
Exercise \(1\)
Poll a group of friends or colleagues about the amount of time they spend on social networking sites, and write a one- to two-page report on the answers to the following questions.
1. How often do most people spend on each site at one time?
2. For what purpose do they primarily use social networking sites? Does this differ from the popular trends in social networking that you read about in this section?
3. How many people play social networking games, and are they willing to spend money on them?
4. How many people use smartphone apps to connect to social networking sites? What is the appeal of such electronic applications?
5. Describe the concept of membership-only websites. Does anyone you interviewed subscribe to a membership-only website? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/16%3A_The_Future_of_Mass_Media/16.04%3A_Current_Trends_in_Electronic_Media.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Describe the impact of the USA PATRIOT Act on privacy.
• Explain the consequences of social networking in terms of privacy and employment.
• Describe current attempts to restore privacy at home and in the workplace.
When a young waitress named Ashley was having a tough time at work, she decided to vent about her job on Facebook. The 22-year-old was working an overtime shift at a North Carolina pizza parlor and a demanding customer who had stayed late left a meager tip. Feeling frustrated, Ashley posted a short status update on her Facebook profile, calling the anonymous customer an unflattering name. Unfortunately for Ashley, her coworkers saw her post on the social networking site. Two days after her angry post, Ashley’s manager called her in to show her a copy of her comments and promptly fired her.Jodi Lai, “Waitress Gets Fired After Facebook Rant About Bad Tipper,” National Post (Don Mills, Toronto), May 17, 2010, news.nationalpost.com/2010/05/17/waitress-gets-fired-after-facebook-rant-about-bad-tipper/. Ashley’s story is one of many examples of employers terminating their employees because of inappropriate comments or photographs on social networking sites; a study by Internet security firm Proofpoint found that 8 percent of companies have dismissed an employee for his or her behavior on social networking sites.Adam Ostrow, “Facebook Fired: 8% of US Companies Have Sacked Social Media Miscreants,” Mashable (blog), August 10, 2009, mashable.com/2009/08/10/social-media-misuse/. These cases highlight a blurring of personal and professional life in the Internet age, leaving many people uncomfortable with the notion that their employer can monitor what they say or do in their free time and use it as a reason for dismissal.
Since the passing of the USA PATRIOT Act, which as we have seen extended the government’s surveillance powers over communication devices, privacy has become a fiercely controversial issue in the United States, with supporters arguing the legal measures are necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, and opponents claiming that the act infringes on civil liberties. Privacy issues raised by the USA PATRIOT Act, combined with the growing problem of identity theft and increased monitoring in the workplace, make privacy a greater concern now than ever before.
The USA PATROIT Act: Weakening Privacy Laws or Protecting Citizens?
As we saw in Chapter 14, the USA PATRIOT Act has generated a huge amount of debate and controversy since its approval by President George W. Bush in October 2001. Signed into law with little debate or congressional review just 43 days after the September 11 attacks, the act’s provisions enable the government, with permission from a special court, to obtain roving wiretaps over multiple communication devices, seize suspects’ records without their knowledge, monitor an individual’s web surfing and library records, and conduct surveillance on a person deemed to be suspicious but without known ties to a terrorist group. Approving the House of Representatives’ decision to renew 16 of the act’s provisions in 2005, President Bush said, “The [USA] PATRIOT Act is essential to fighting the war on terror and preventing our enemies from striking America again. In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment.”CNN, “Patriot Act’s Fate Remains Uncertain,” December 15, 2005, www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/patriot.act/.
However, not everyone agrees with the former president’s opinion. While proponents of the act cite the need to disrupt or prevent terrorist attacks, New York City Council member Bill Perkins, who sponsored a 2004 resolution condemning the law, says, “The [USA] PATRIOT Act is really unpatriotic, it undermines our civil rights and civil liberties. We never give up our rights, that’s what makes us Americans.”Michelle Garcia, “N.Y. City Council Passes Anti-Patriot Act Measure,” Washington Post, February 5, 2004, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13970-2004Feb4.html. Opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act sparked a wave of protest across the United States. More than 330 communities in 41 states passed resolutions condemning the act.Timothy Egan, “State of the Union: Opposing the Patriot Act,” BBC News, September 13, 2004, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/3651542.stm. Librarians in Detroit reported that Muslim children had stopped checking out books on Islam out of fear they were being monitored, while librarians in New Jersey and California shredded records and computer sign-up sheets in an attempt to thwart the legislation. While citizens can protect against invasions of privacy on the Internet by limiting personal information and being careful about the information they share, the invasion of privacy through other lines of communication is more difficult to prevent. Despite fierce objections to the act, President Barack Obama signed an unamended 1-year extension of several key provisions of the PATRIOT Act (including the use of roving wire taps) in 2010. In the near future, politicians will have to decide whether citizen protection is worth the loss of liberties in the United States.
Social Networking: The Blurring of Personal and Professional
The privacy issue has strayed well beyond government legislation; it affects anyone who is currently employed or even just looking for a job. When employers consider whether or not to hire an individual, they no longer need to rely on just a résumé to obtain pertinent information. A simple Google search often reveals that a potential employee has a social networking site on the Internet, and unless privacy settings have been put in place, the employer can access everything the candidate has posted online. A 2010 survey by CareerBuilder.com revealed that 53 percent of companies check out candidates’ profiles on social networking sites such as MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook before deciding to employ them, and a further 12 percent of companies intend to review social networking sites of potential employees in the future.Carrie-Ann Skinner, “Job Seekers, Watch Your Walls – Employers Check Facebook,” PC World, January 17, 2010, www.pcworld.com/article/186989/job_seekers_watch_your_walls_employers_check_facebook.html. Factors that affect an employer’s decision whether or not to hire candidates based on their social networking page include the use of drugs or drinking, the posting of discriminatory comments, or the posting of photographs deemed to be inappropriate or provocative. The survey also revealed that some candidates posted information on their social networking page that proved they had lied on their résumé.Carrie-Ann Skinner, “Job Seekers, Watch Your Walls – Employers Check Facebook,” PC World, January 17, 2010, www.pcworld.com/article/186989/job_seekers_watch_your_walls_employers_check_facebook.html.
As we have seen, once employees are hired, they still need to be careful about what they post on social networking sites, particularly in relation to their jobs. Cheryl James, a hospital worker from Michigan, was fired in 2010 after she posted a message on Facebook describing a patient as a “cop killer” and hoping that he would “rot in hell.”Ronnie Dahl, “Oakwood Hospital Employee Fired for Facebook Posting,” MyFOXDetroit.com, July 30, 2010, www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/oakwood-hospital-employee-fired-for-facebook-posting-20100730-wpms. A few years earlier, Virgin Atlantic Airlines terminated 13 crew members for describing passengers as “chavs” (a derogatory British term similar to “white trash”). A Virgin spokesman commented, “There is a time and a place for Facebook. But there is no justification for it to be used as a sounding board for staff of any company to criticize the very passengers who pay their salaries.”Lawrence Conway, “Virgin Atlantic Sacks 13 Staff for Calling its Flyers ‘Chavs’,” Independent (London), November 1, 2008, www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/virgin-atlantic-sacks-13-staff-for-calling-its-flyers-chavs-982192.html.
Although employees might reasonably expect to be disciplined for using social networking sites on company time—a 2009 study discovered that 54 percent of U.S. companies have banned workers from using social networks during work hours—the issue of whether companies can influence how their employees behave in their private lives is a little trickier.Sharon Gaudin, “Study: 54% of Companies Ban Facebook, Twitter at Work,” Computerworld, October 6, 2009, www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139020/Study_54_of_companies_ban_Facebook_Twitter_at_work. The outcome of a 2009 federal court case in New Jersey may have some bearing on whether companies have the right to spy on their employees while the employees are on password-protected sites using non–work computers. The case, between restaurant employees Brian Pietrylo and Doreen Marino and managers at Houston’s in Hackensack, New Jersey, centered on a forum set up by Pietrylo on MySpace. The forum, which was password-protected and required an email invitation to join, made fun of the restaurant décor and patrons and included sexual jokes and negative comments about restaurant supervisors. Restaurant hostess Karen St. Jean, who had received an invitation to the forum, showed the supervisors the site and believed they found it amusing; however, the information was passed further up the management chain, and Pietrylo and Marino were fired. The restaurant claimed that the pair’s online posts violated policies set out in the employee handbook, including professionalism and a positive attitude. Marino and Pietrylo filed for unfair dismissal, claiming that the restaurant managers had violated their privacy under New Jersey law. Following a trial in June 2009, a federal jury agreed that the restaurant had violated state and federal laws that protect the privacy of web communications. The jury awarded Pietrylo and Marino a total of \$3,400 in back pay and \$13,600 in punitive damages.Charles Toutant, “Restaurateurs Invade Waiters’ MySpace,” New Jersey Law Journal, June 19, 2009, www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1202431575049.
Although the outcome of the New Jersey case may have some bearing on the use of social networking sites outside of work, employees should still exercise caution in the office. Companies are increasingly using technological advances to monitor Internet usage, track employees’ whereabouts through GPS-enabled cell phones, and even film employees’ movements via webcam or miniature video cameras. Lewis Maltby, author of workplace rights book Can They Do That?, says, “There are two trends driving the increase in monitoring. One is financial pressure. Everyone is trying to get leaner and meaner, and monitoring is one way to do it. The other reason is that it’s easier than ever. It used to be difficult and expensive to monitor employees, and now, it’s easy and cheap.”Laura Petrecca, “More Employers Use Tech to Track Workers,” USA Today, March 17, 2010, www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2010-03-17-workplaceprivacy15_CV_N.htm. Whereas employees using their own equipment outside of work hours might have a reasonable expectation of privacy, the situation changes when using company property. Nancy Flynn, founder of training and consulting firm ePolicy Institute, said, “Federal law gives employers the legal right to monitor all computer activity. The computer system is the property of the employer, and the employee has absolutely no reasonable expectations of privacy when using that system.”Laura Petrecca, “More Employers Use Tech to Track Workers,” USA Today, March 17, 2010, www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2010-03-17-workplaceprivacy15_CV_N.htm. Because this lack of privacy covers everything from instant messages sent to coworkers to emails sent from personal accounts when employees are logged onto the company network, the prudent action for employees to take is to separate their work life from their personal life as much as possible.
Restoration of Privacy
Social networking sites have come under fire in recent years for violating users’ privacy. In 2009, Facebook simplified its settings to keep up with the popularity of microblogging sites such as Twitter. One consequence of this action was that the default setting enabled status updates and photos to be seen across the entire Internet (see Chapter 11 for more information about Facebook privacy settings). The social networking site has also come under criticism for a temporary glitch that gave users unintended access to their friends’ private instant messages, and for a new feature in 2010 that enabled the company to share private information with third-party websites. Although Facebook simplified its controls for sharing information by consolidating them on a single page and making it easier for users to opt out of sharing information with third-party applications, public concern prompted 14 privacy groups to file an unfair-trade complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in May 2010.Warwick Ashford, “Facebook Stands Up to Privacy Coalition,” ComputerWeekly, June 21, 2010, www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/06/21/241663/Facebook-stands-up-to-privacy-coalition.htm. Congress is currently investigating whether more government regulation of social networking sites is necessary to protect people’s privacy.
Other companies, including Google, are actively attempting to restore users’ privacy. In response to revelations that the company had accidentally captured and archived wireless data with its Google Street View cars (which are equipped with cameras to provide panoramic views along many streets around the world), Google announced in 2010 that it was launching an encrypted search facility. The technology uses SSL (secure sockets layer) to protect Internet searches from being intercepted while traveling across the web. Users can activate the secure search facility by typing “https” at the beginning of the URL instead of “http.” Although the technology provides a measure of security—the search will not be archived in the computer’s history or appear in the AutoFill during a subsequent search—it is not entirely private. Google maintains a record of what people search for, and Internet users will still need to rely on the company’s promise not to abuse the data. However, if the encrypted search facility proves successful, it may become a role model for social networking sites, which could offer encryption for more than just log-ins.
Key Takeaways
• Privacy issues have become increasingly important in recent years with the rise of identity theft, workplace monitoring, and the passing of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001. The PATRIOT Act was signed in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It gave the federal government extended surveillance rights, including the ability to obtain roving wiretaps over multiple communication devices, seize suspects’ records without their knowledge, monitor an individual’s web-surfing and library records, and conduct surveillance of a person deemed to be suspicious but without known ties to a terrorist group. Supporters of the act claimed the provisions were essential in the efforts to prevent further terrorist attacks; however, opponents claimed that the act breached civil liberties and unfairly infringed on people’s privacy.
• Monitoring employees in the workplace has begun to stray outside of office hours, and employees are now finding their social networking sites being scanned by employers for offensive material. Inappropriate comments or photos on a social networking site may negatively affect a person’s chance of finding a job if employers use sites such as Facebook and Twitter as a means of screening applicants. The issue of whether employers are allowed to discriminate against employees based on their out-of-work activities has not been fully decided; however, in general, anything that takes place on company property or on company time may be scrutinized and used as a reason for dismissal.
• Some websites are attempting to restore privacy settings in light of recent scandals in which personal information was divulged on the Internet. Google has established an encrypted search facility that enables users to browse the web without running the risk of sensitive information being intercepted. The encryption also prevents websites from being stored on the computer’s history and stops them from appearing on the AutoFill function during future searches. However, the encryption is not entirely private because Google still retains a record of search information.
Exercise \(1\)
Visit the website located at www.eff.org/wp/effs-top-12-ways-protect-your-online-privacy. Read through the 12 tips and use them to evaluate your security on the Internet. How many of the tips do you already follow? What can you do to protect your privacy further? Keep these answers in mind as you respond to the following short-answer questions. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.
1. How does the USA PATRIOT Act affect your privacy? Do you think your privacy is more secure on the Internet or through other lines of communication? Why?
2. Have you experienced one of the consequences of social networking discussed in this section? How might social networking sites affect your current or future employment?
3. What suggestions do you have for restoring privacy at home or in the workplace? What policies are already in effect? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/16%3A_The_Future_of_Mass_Media/16.05%3A_Privacy_Laws_and_the_Impact_of_Digital_Surveillance.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Explain the technology diffusion model.
• Identify technological failures over the past decade.
• Describe the relationship between mass media and new technology.
When the iPad went on sale in the United States in April 2010, 36-year-old graphic designer Josh Klenert described the device as “ridiculously expensive [and] way overpriced.”Connie Guglielmo, “Apple IPad’s Debut Weekend Sales May Be Surpassing Estimates,” Businessweek, April 4, 2010, www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-04/apple-ipad-s-debut-weekend-sales-may-be-surpassing-estimates.html. The cost of the new technology, however, did not deter Klenert from purchasing an iPad; he preordered the tablet computer as soon as it was available and ventured down to Apple’s SoHo store in New York on opening weekend to be one of the first to buy it. Klenert, and everyone else who stood in line at the Apple store during the initial launch of the iPad, is described by sociologists as an early adopter: a tech-loving pioneer who is among the first to embrace new technology as soon as it arrives on the market. What causes a person to be an early adopter or a late adopter? What are the benefits of each? In this section you will read about the cycle of technology and how it is diffused in a society. The process and factors influencing the diffusion of new technology is often discussed in the context of a diffusion model known as the technology adoption life cycle.
Diffusion of Technology: The Technology Adoption Life Cycle
The technology adoption life cycle was originally observed during the technology diffusion studies of rural sociologists during the 1950s. University researchers George Beal, Joe Bohlen, and Everett Rogers were looking at the adoption rate of hybrid seed among Iowa farmers in an attempt to draw conclusions about how farmers accept new ideas. They discovered that the process of adoption over time fit a normal growth curve pattern—there was a slow gradual rate of adoption, then quite a rapid rate of adoption, followed by a leveling off of the adoption rate. Personal and social characteristics influenced when farmers adopted the use of hybrid seed corn; younger, better-educated farmers tended to adapt to the new technology almost as soon as it became available, whereas older, less-educated farmers waited until most other farms were using hybrid seed before they adopted the process, or they resisted change altogether.
In 1962, Rogers generalized the technology diffusion model in his book Diffusion of Innovations, using the farming research to draw conclusions about the spread of new ideas and technology. Like his fellow farming model researchers, Rogers recognizes five categories of participants: innovators, who tend to be experimentalists and are interested in the technology itself; early adopters such as Josh Klenert, who are technically sophisticated and are interested in using the technology for solving professional and academic problems; early majority, who constitute the first part of the mainstream, bringing the new technology into common use; late majority, who are less comfortable with the technology and may be skeptical about its benefits; and laggards, who are resistant to the new technology and may be critical of its use by others.Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1995).
When new technology is successfully released in the market, it follows the technology adoption life cycle shown in Figure 16.7. Innovators and early adopters, attracted by something new, want to be the first to possess the innovation, sometimes even before discovering potential uses for it, and are unconcerned with the price. When the iPad hit stores in April 2010, 120,000 units were sold on the first day, primarily as a result of presales.Sam Oliver, “Preorders for Apple iPad Slow After 120K First-Day Rush,” Apple Insider, March 15, 2010, www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/15/preorders_for_apple_ipad_slow_after_120k_first_day_rush.html. Sales dropped on days 2 and 3, suggesting that demand for the device dipped slightly after the initial first-day excitement. Within the first month, Apple had sold 1,000,000 iPads, exceeding industry expectations.Jim Goldman, “Apple Sells 1 Million iPads,” CNBC, May 3, 2010, www.cnbc.com/id/36911690/Apple_Sells_1_Million_iPads. However, many mainstream consumers (the early majority) are waiting to find out just how popular the device will become before making a purchase. Research carried out in the United Kingdom suggests that many consumers are uncertain how the iPad will fit into their lives—the survey drew comments such as “Everything it does I can do on my PC or my phone right now” and “It’s just a big iPod Touch…a big iPhone without the phone.”Steve O’Hear, “Report: The iPad Won’t Go Mass Market Anytime Soon,” TechCrunch, May 12, 2010, eu.techcrunch.com/2010/05/12/report-the-ipad-wont-go-mass-market-anytime-soon/. The report, by research group Simpson Carpenter, concludes that most consumers are “unable to find enough rational argument to justify taking the plunge.”Steve O’Hear, “Report: The iPad Won’t Go Mass Market Anytime Soon,” TechCrunch, May 12, 2010, eu.techcrunch.com/2010/05/12/report-the-ipad-wont-go-mass-market-anytime-soon/.
However, as with previous technological advances, the early adopters who have jumped on the iPad bandwagon may ultimately validate its potential, helping mainstream users make sense of the device and its uses. Forrester Research notes that much of the equipment acquired by early adopters—laptops, MP3 players, digital cameras, broadband Internet access at home, and mobile phones—is shifting into the mainstream. Analyst Jacqueline Anderson, who works for Forrester, said, “There’s really no group out of the tech loop. America is becoming a digital nation. Technology adoption continues to roll along, picking up more and more mainstream consumers every year.”Jenna Wortham, “The Race to Be an Early Adopter of Technologies Goes Mainstream, a Survey Finds,” New York Times, September 1, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/technology/02survey.html. To cite just one example, in 2008 nearly 10 million American households added HDTV, an increase of 27 percent over the previous year.Jenna Wortham, “The Race to Be an Early Adopter of Technologies Goes Mainstream, a Survey Finds,” New York Times, September 1, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/technology/02survey.html. By the time most technology reaches mainstream consumers, it is more established, more user-friendly, and cheaper than earlier versions or prototypes. In June 2010, Amazon.com slashed the price of its Kindle e-reader from \$259 to \$189 and in 2012 to \$79 in response to competition from Barnes & Noble’s Nook.Jeffry Bartash, “Amazon Drops Kindle Price to \$189,” MarketWatch, June 21, 2010, www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-drops-kindle-price-to-189-2010-06-21. Companies frequently reduce the price of technological devices once the initial novelty wears off, as a result of competition from other manufacturers or as a strategy to retain market share.
Although many people ultimately adapt to new technology, some are extremely resistant or unwilling to change at all. When Netscape web browser user John Uribe was repeatedly urged by a message from parent company AOL to switch to one of Netscape’s successors, Firefox or Flock, he ignored the suggestions. Despite being informed that AOL would stop providing support for the web browser service in March 2008, Uribe continued to use it. “It’s kind of irrational,” Mr. Uribe said. “It worked for me, so I stuck with it. Until there is really some reason to totally abandon it, I won’t.”Miguel Helft, “Tech’s Late Adopters Prefer the Tried and True,” New York Times, March 12, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/technology/12inertia.html. Uribe is a self-confessed late adopter—he still uses dial-up Internet service and is happy to carry on using his aging Dell computer with its small amount of memory. Members of the late majority make up a large percentage of the U.S. population—a 2010 survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau found that despite the technology’s widespread availability, 40 percent of households across the United States have no high-speed or broadband Internet connection, while 30 percent have no Internet at all.Lance Whitney, “Survey: 40 Percent in U.S. Have No Broadband,” CNET, February 16, 2010, news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10454133-94.html. Of 32.1 million households in urban areas, the most common reason for not having high-speed Internet was a lack of interest or a lack of need for the technology.Lance Whitney, “Survey: 40 Percent in U.S. Have No Broadband,” CNET, February 16, 2010, news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10454133-94.html.
Experts claim that, rather than slowing down the progression of new technological developments, laggards in the technology adoption life cycle may help to control the development of new technology. Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster, said, “Laggards have a bad rap, but they are crucial in pacing the nature of change. Innovation requires the push of early adopters and the pull of laypeople asking whether something really works. If this was a world in which only early adopters got to choose, we’d all be using CB radios and quadraphonic stereo.”Miguel Helft, “Tech’s Late Adopters Prefer the Tried and True,” New York Times, March 12, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/technology/12inertia.html. He added that aspects of the laggard and early adopter coexist in most people. For example, many consumers buy the latest digital camera and end up using just a fraction of its functions. Technological laggards may be the reason that not every new technology becomes a mainstream trend (see sidebar).
Not Consumer-Approved: Technological Flops
Have you ever heard of the Apple Newton? How about Microsoft Bob? Or DIVX? For most people, the names probably mean very little because these were all flash-in-the-pan technologies that never caught on with mainstream consumers.
The Apple Newton was an early PDA, officially known as the MessagePad. Introduced by Apple in 1993, the Newton contained many of the features now popularized by modern smartphones, including personal information management and add-on storage slots. Despite clever advertising and relentless word-of-mouth campaigns, the Newton failed to achieve anything like the popularity enjoyed by most Apple products. Hampered by its large size compared to more recent equivalents (such as the PalmPilot) and its cost—basic models cost around \$700, with more advanced models costing up to \$1,000—the Newton was also ridiculed by talk show comedians and cartoonists because of the supposed inaccuracy of its handwriting-recognition function. By 1998, the Newton was no more. A prime example of an idea that was ahead of its time, the Newton was the forerunner to the smaller, cheaper, and more successful PalmPilot, which in turn paved the way for every successive mobile Internet device.
Even less successful in the late 1990s was DIVX, an attempt by electronics retailer Circuit City to create an alternative to video rental. Customers could rent movies on disposable DIVX discs that they could keep and watch for 2 days. They then had the choice of throwing away or recycling the disc or paying a continuation fee to keep watching it. Viewers who wanted to watch a disc an unlimited amount of times could pay to convert it into a “DIVX silver” disc for an additional fee. Launched in 1998, the DIVX system was promoted as an alternative to traditional rental systems with the promise of no returns and no late fees. However, its introduction coincided with the release of DVD technology, which was gaining traction over the DIVX format. Consumers feared that the choice between DIVX and DVD might turn into another Betamax versus VHS debacle, and by 1999 the technology was all but obsolete. The failure of DIVX cost Circuit City a reported \$114,000,000 and left early enthusiasts of the scheme with worthless DIVX equipment (although vendors offered a \$100 refund for people who bought a DIVX player).Nick Mokey, “Tech We Regret,” Digital Trends, March 18, 2009, www.digitaltrends.com/how-to/tech-we-regret/.
Another catastrophic failure in the world of technology was Microsoft Bob, a mid-1990s attempt to provide a new, nontechnical interface to desktop computing operations. Bob, represented by a logo with a yellow smiley face that filled the o in its name, was supposed to make Windows more palatable to nontechnical users. With a cartoon-like interface that was meant to resemble the inside of a house, Bob helped users navigate their way around the desktop by having them click on objects in each room. Microsoft expected sales of Bob to skyrocket and held a big advertising campaign to celebrate its 1995 launch. Instead, the product failed dismally because of its high initial sale price, demanding hardware requirements, and tendency to patronize users. When Windows 95 was launched the same year, its new Windows Explorer interface required far less dumbing down than previous versions, and Microsoft Bob became irrelevant.
Technological failures such as the Apple Newton, DIVX, and Microsoft Bob prove that sometimes it is better to be a mainstream adopter than to jump on the new-product bandwagon before the technology has been fully tried and tested.
Mass Media Outlets and New Technology
As new technology reaches the shelves and the number of early majority consumers rushing to purchase it increases, mass media outlets are forced to adapt to the new medium. When the iPad’s popularity continued to grow throughout 2010 (selling 3,000,000 units within 3 months of its launch date), traditional newspapers, magazines, and television networks rushed to form partnerships with Apple, launching applications for the tablet so that consumers could directly access their content. Unconstrained by the limited amount of space available in a physical newspaper or magazine, publications such as The New York Times and USA Today are able to include more detailed reporting than they can fit in their traditional paper, as well as interactive features such as crossword puzzles and the use of video and sound. “Our iPad App is designed to take full advantage of the evolving capabilities offered by the Internet,” said Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times. “We see our role on the iPad as being similar to our traditional print role—to act as a thoughtful, unbiased filter and to provide our customers with information they need and can trust.”Andy Brett, “The New York Times Introduces an iPad App,” TechCrunch, April 1, 2010, techcrunch.com/2010/04/01/new-york-times-ipad/.
Because of Apple’s decision to ban Flash (the dominant software for online video viewing) from the iPad, some traditional television networks have been converting their video files to HTML5 in order to enable full television episodes to be screened on the device. CBS and Disney were among the first networks to offer free television content on the iPad in 2010 through the iPad’s built-in web browser, while ABC streamed its shows via an iPad application. The iPad has even managed to revive forms of traditional media that had been discontinued; in June 2010, Condé Nast announced the restoration of Gourmet magazine as an iPad application called Gourmet Live. As more media content becomes available on new technology such as the iPad, the iPod, and the various e-readers available on the market, it appeals to a broader range of consumers, becoming a self-perpetuating model.
Key Takeaways
• The technology adoption life cycle offers a diffusion model of how people accept new ideas and new technology. The model recognizes five categories of participants: innovators, who tend to be experimentalists and are interested in the technology itself; early adopters, who are technically sophisticated and are interested in using the technology for solving professional and academic problems; early majority, who constitute the first part of the mainstream, bringing the new technology into common use; late majority, who are less comfortable with the technology and may be skeptical about its benefits; and laggards, who are resistant to the new technology and may be critical of its use by others.
• When new technology is released in the market, it follows the technology adoption life cycle. Innovators and early adopters want to be the first to own the technology and are unconcerned about the cost, whereas mainstream consumers wait to find out how popular or successful the technology will become before buying it. As the technology filters into the mainstream, it becomes cheaper and more user-friendly. Some people remain resistant to new technology, however, which helps to control its development. Technological flops such as Microsoft Bob and DIVX result from skeptical late adopters or laggards refusing to purchase innovations that appear unlikely to become commercially successful.
• As new technology transitions into the mainstream, traditional media outlets have to adapt to the new technology to reach consumers. Recent examples include the development of traditional media applications for the iPad, such as newspaper, magazine, and television network apps.
Exercise \(1\)
Choose a technological innovation from the past 50 years and research its diffusion into the mass market. Then respond to the following short-answer questions. Each response should be a minimum of one paragraph.
1. Does it fit the technology diffusion model?
2. How quickly did the technology reach the mass market? In what ways did mass media aid the spread of this technology?
3. Research similar inventions that never caught on. Why do you think this technology succeeded when so many others failed?
End-of-Chapter Assessment
Review Questions
1. Questions for Section 16.1
1. What are the main types of traditional media, and what factors influenced their development?
2. What are the main types of new media and what factors influenced their development?
3. Why are new media often more successful than traditional media?
2. Questions for Section 16.2
1. What were the main types of media used at the beginning of the 20th century?
2. What factors led to the rise of a national mass culture?
3. How has the Internet affected media delivery?
3. Questions for Section 16.3
1. What are the main information delivery methods in modern media?
2. Why has the Internet become a primary source of news and information?
4. Questions for Section 16.4
1. What are the main advantages of modern media delivery methods?
2. What are the main disadvantages of modern media delivery methods?
5. Questions for Section 16.5
1. What factors influenced the development of the print industry? What factors contributed to its decline?
2. How has the Internet affected the print industry?
3. What is likely to happen to the print industry in the future? How is print media transitioning into the digital age?
6. Questions for Section 16.6
1. What are the current trends in social networking?
2. How is the Internet becoming more exclusive?
3. What are the effects of smartphone applications on modern media?
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Is there a future for traditional media, or will it be consumed by digital technology?
2. Do employers have the right to use social networking sites as a method of selecting future employees? Are employees entitled to voice their opinion on the Internet even if it damages their company’s reputation?
3. Did the USA PATRIOT Act make the country a safer place, or did it violate privacy laws and undermine civil liberties?
4. One of the disadvantages of modern media delivery is the lack of reliability of information on the Internet. Do you think online journalism (including blogging) will ultimately become a respected source of information, or will people continue to rely on traditional news media?
5. Will a pay-for-content model work for online newspapers and magazines, or have consumers become too used to receiving their news for free?
Career Connection
As a result of rapid change in the digital age, careers in media are constantly shifting, and many people who work in the industry face an uncertain future. However, the Internet (and all the various technologies associated with it) has created numerous opportunities in the media field. Take a look at the following website and scroll down to the “Digital” section: www.getdegrees.com/articles/career-resources/top-60-jobs-that-will-rock-the-future/
The website lists several media careers that are on the rise, including the following:
• Media search consultant
• Interface designer
• Cloud computing engineer
• Integrated digital media specialist
• Casual game developer
• Mobile application developer
Read through the description of each career, including the links within each description. Choose one career that you are interested in pursuing, research the skills and qualifications it requires, and then write a one-page paper on what you found. Here are some other helpful websites you might like to use in your research:
• Digital Jobs of the Future: Integrated Digital Media Specialist: www.s2m.com.au/news/2009/11/26/digital-jobs-of-the-future-integrated-digital-media-specialist/?403
• Cloud Computing Jobs: cloudczar.com/
• Top Careers for College Graduates: Casual Game Development: www.examiner.com/x-11055-San-Diego-College-Life-Examiner~y2009m5d27-Top-careers-for-college-graduates-Casual -Game-Development
• How to Become a Mobile Application Developer: www.ehow.com/how_5638517_become-mobile-application-developer.html
• Mobile App Development: So Many Choices, So Few Guarantees: www.linuxinsider.com/story/70128.html?wlc=1277823391
• 20 Websites to Help You Master User Interface Design: sixrevisions.com/usabilityaccessibility/20-websites-to-help-you-master-user-interface-design/ | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Mass_Communication_Media_and_Culture/16%3A_The_Future_of_Mass_Media/16.06%3A_16.6_Mass_Media_New_Technology_and_the_Public.txt |
• 1.1: Media, Society, Culture and You
The purpose of this chapter is to define media, society and culture broadly. Additionally, the term "communication" is defined in its many forms. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with communication theory in more detail. Digital culture is covered in depth in Chapter 2. We will discuss media literacy and media studies in Chapter 3, but we have to learn to walk before we run, as the saying goes.
• 1.2: Digital Culture and Social Media
Media studies refers to the broad category of academic inquiry analyzing and critiquing the mass media, its products, possible effects of messages and campaigns, and even media history. this chapter continues with a deeper discussion of identity in the digital age and covers privacy and surveillance as well as the praxis of digital culture as defined by scholars. The term “praxis” here refers to how a theory plays out in actual practice.
• 1.3: Media Literacy and Media Studies Research
This chapter gives you some tools developed by mass communication scholars to develop your critical eye when viewing messages as products in the mass media. This chapter defines “media literacy” and touches on some key mass communication theories that are absolutely not meant to be left to molder in the digital cloud where this text”book” lives. Take these theories out, apply them and see how they work. Find out how useful they can be and what their limitations are.
• 1.4: Film and Bricolage
Whether you are a YouTube producer or enjoy making Instagram stories every day, you can be an intertextual storyteller with tools readily available on the mass market. The “readily available” part calls to mind the concept of bricolage, which in intertextual storytelling means taking the images, sounds and words readily available to you, along with the recording and editing tools that are also available, and making stories intended for others to appreciate.
• 1.5: Television through Time
This chapter discusses the nature of television content as the medium evolved throughout the second half of the 20th century. It then briefly discusses the role of the television industry in society by examining the ways we watch TV and its possible impacts on our health. Finally, this chapter covers the medium’s influence on popular culture.
• 1.6: Music Recording, "Sharing" and the Information Economy
This chapter about recorded music focuses mostly on the changing industry. But as you consider the industry from an academic perspective, don’t lose sight of your relationship with music. What you enjoy is an expression of yourself and of your personal culture. Preserving the emotional impact of music should concern us all, even if we are more or less enthusiastic about preserving the old order of the recording industry and the interests of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
• 1.7: Radio Broadcasting, Podcasting and "Superbug Media"
This chapter discusses the history of radio broadcasting including its potential as a tool of propaganda, the relationship between radio and the music industry, the social reach of broadcasting, as well as the rise of podcasting. Finally, persevering podcasts have something to teach us about how to make successful digital products and brands.
• 1.8: Digital Gaming
Video games — including arcade games, console games (often with online multiplayer modes), mobile games for smartphones, online-only games including MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) and open environment games like Minecraft — all have narratives to follow and widely varying levels of production value. They rival films as the most immersive medium in mass communication, and they can be much more personal.
• 1.9: Newspapers and Digital News
We live in a digital media environment awash with information. Only a portion of the messages on social media come from professional news organizations that work to reinforce their stories with balanced fact-seeking and fact-checking. Preserving carefully reported, factual news is in the interest of the republic. The slow journalism movement seeks to protect accuracy and care in journalism.
• 1.10: Advertising, Public Relations and Propaganda
As this chapter progresses, it defines the core concept of advertising in more depth. Then, it discusses the history of advertising. It defines two general strategies or approaches known as “above-the-line” and “below-the-line” advertising before examining in detail the “advertising funnel,” or “purchase funnel.” A few other basic theories are introduced. There are sections on content marketing and other forms of persuasion.
01: Chapters
"Society not only continues to exist by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication." — John Dewey in Democracy and Education, 1916
The purpose of this chapter is to define media, society and culture broadly. Additionally, the term "communication" is defined in its many forms. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with communication theory in more detail. Digital culture is covered in depth in Chapter 2. We will discuss media literacy and media studies in Chapter 3, but we have to learn to walk before we run, as the saying goes.
The Role of Mass Media in Society
More than one hundred years ago, John Dewey wrote in Democracy and Education that society is not only supported by various forms of communication but also enveloped in communication. Dewey reiterated what philosophers and scholars had noted for centuries: small groups, larger communities and vast institutions all the things that make up a society function in relation to how communication flows within and between groups.
There are different forms of communication. At the broadest level, communication is an exchange of meaning between people using symbols. The most common symbols we use are verbal and written words, but there are also many forms of nonverbal communication such as American Sign Language. What sign language, verbal communication and written communication have in common is the use of abstract symbols to convey meaning. Whether you say "thank you" in face-to-face communication, send someone a card with the words "thank you" written on it, or use nonverbal cues to express thanks, the meaning is the same.
Interpersonal communication generally refers to the exchange of meaning between two or more people on a personal, often one-on-one, level. Interpersonal communication can be verbal or nonverbal. Most often, it happens in face-to-face settings. It differs from mass communication, which involves sharing meaning through symbolic messages to a wide audience from one source to many receivers. Sometimes, particularly in computer-mediated communication, messages conveyed using computers, it can be difficult to tell the difference between interpersonal communication and mass communication because individuals can send messages intended only for other individuals that might quickly reach large numbers of people. Social media platforms are often structured in ways that allow interpersonal messages to "go viral" and become mass messages whether the original sender intended to address a mass audience or not.
It is not the type of message that determines interpersonal or mass communication. It is the way the message is distributed and the relationships between sender and receiver(s). This text will continue to grapple with the overlap of interpersonal communication and mass communication structures on networked communication platforms, but first, another form of communication commonly studied in academic settings should be introduced.
Organizational communication is the symbolic exchange of messages carrying specific meaning for members belonging to formal organizations. In practical terms, it is the internal communication that helps governments, businesses, schools and hospitals to run.
People working together in organizations get usually things done by communicating directly with one another or in small groups. Organizations cannot function without communication. Organizational communication effectiveness can influence the success or failure of businesses and other social institutions. Thus, communication does not merely happen within organizations; it is an essential part of the way they are structured. Organizational communication is a separate field of study, introduced well in this YouTube video.
Successful communication, whether intended for personal use, for use within an organization, or for a wide audience, can help people to understand each other and to get things done.
If good organizational communication is necessary for groups to function with a formal purpose, mass communication is essential for societies to function. Societies are made up of formal organizations of various sizes. Usually, the larger the group, the more complex its communication structures.
Communication structure refers to a combination of information and communication technologies (ICTs), guidelines for using those technologies, and professional workers dedicated to managing information and messages. In the mass communication field, communication structures are more than computers and transmission networks. The guidelines for using networks to create and distribute messages for mass consumption are a matter of corporate policy as well as law.
It has been noted that a society is made up of small groups, larger communities, and vast institutions. A more complete definition of the term comes from the field of sociology. A society is a very large group of people organized into institutions held together over time through formalized relationships. Nations, for example, are made up of formal institutions organized by law. Governments of different size, economic institutions, educational institutions and others all come together to form a society.
By comparison, culture — the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of groups large and small is not necessarily formalized. Culture is necessary for enjoying and making sense of the human experience, but there are few formalized rules governing culture.
Mass communication influences both society and culture. Different societies have different media systems, and the way they are set up by law influences how the society works. Different forms of communication, including messages in the mass media, give shape and structure to society. Additionally, mass media outlets can spread cultural knowledge and artistic works around the globe. People exercise cultural preferences when it comes to consuming media, but mass media corporations often decide which stories to tell and which to promote, particularly when it comes to forms of mass media that are costly to produce such as major motion pictures, major video game releases and global news products.
More than any other, the field of mass communication transmits culture. At the same time, it helps institutional society try to understand itself and whether its structures are working.
The Mass Media Dynamic
The mass media system is an institution itself. What sets it apart is its potential to influence the thinking of massive numbers of individuals. In fact, the ideas exchanged in organizational communication and interpersonal communication are often established, reinforced or negated by messages in the mass media. This is what it means for societies "to exist in transmission, in communication." Different types of communication influence each other.
But the mass media are also shaped and influenced by social groups and institutions. This is the nature of the mass media dynamic.
Individuals and groups in society influence what mass media organizations produce through their creativity on the input side and their consumption habits on the output side. It is not accurate to say that society exists within the mass media or under mass media "control." Social structures are too powerful for mass media to completely govern how they operate. But neither is it accurate to say that the mass media are contained within societies. Many mass media products transcend social structures to influence multiple societies, and even in societies that heavily censor their mass media the news of scandals and corruption can get out. The mass media and society are bound together and shape each other.
Almost everything you read, see and hear is framed within a mass media context; however, mere familiarity is no guarantee of success. Products in the mass media that fail to resonate with audiences do not last long, even if they seem in tune with current tastes and trends.
The Mass Communication Origin Story
In his book, John notes how, in the early 20th century, the mass media were beginning to connect large institutions in new ways. The production of mass media messages accelerated with the development of the telegraph and the popular newspaper. The spread of telegraph technology that began in the mid-1800s continued through the early 1900s to network the globe with a nearly instantaneous information transmission system. Much of the growth of newspapers occurred as a result of improvements in telegraph technology.
Thus, a primary function of the global mass communication system is to save time. People have a need to understand what is going on in the world, and they desire entertainment. Global electronic telecommunication networks collapse space by transmitting messages in much less time than the older, physical delivery systems.
The dynamic between society and mass media that is so prevalent today developed throughout the 20th century. Starting near the end of the 1800s, communication flows began to move at electronic speeds. More people knew about more things than ever before, but scholars are quick to point out that communication is not synonymous with understanding.
Dewey wanted to focus on educating people so that they could live and work well in societies heavily shaped by global telecommunication networks. For him, education was the meaning of life and the global information and communication system needed to be molded into an educational tool. Many of us still hold out hope for Dewey’s educational goals, but as ICTs have advanced over the past century or two, it has become clear that the mere existence of global mass communication networks does not ensure that societies will learn to coexist and thrive.
This can be difficult for people to acknowledge. Shortly after the widespread dissemination of the telegraph, the radio, broadcast television and public internet access, some form of communication utopia was imagined or even expected. The telegraph collapsed space. Radio enabled instantaneous mass communication. Television brought live images from one side of the globe to the other for even larger mass audiences, and internet access gave individuals the power to be information senders, not just receivers. At each step hope and imagination flourished, but social and cultural clashes persisted. Communication systems can be used as weapons. The evolution of mass communication tools is the story of increased capacity to do the same good and evil things people have always done in societies and between them.
Looking beyond technological utopianism the idea that new technologies (particularly ICTs) will lead to greater social understanding and better conditions for the global population we are left with a tedious but massively meaningful project. We must find ways to coexist with other societies even as we are constantly aware of our differences and of possible threats that may have existed before but now are much easier to see.
Perhaps if we are to make the best of our digital global communication network, it would help to track the evolution of different forms of mass communication. This text very briefly touched on the continuum from telegraph to widespread internet adoption, but the first mass medium was ink on paper.
The First Mass Medium
The first global medium, besides the spoken word, was neither the internet nor the telegraph. In fact, it was not a mass medium at all. It was paper. Via trade routes, messages in the form of letters moved around the world in a matter of weeks or months. It was global communication, but it was slow.
The development of a global telegraph network made it possible for messages to spread in minutes. When the telegraph was wed to mass-consumed newspapers, the world saw the rise of fast, global, mass communication that had the power to potentially influence large groups of people at once.
Books transmitted messages widely and inspired literacy, but they did not establish a channel for consistent, timely communication meant for mass audiences. After the Gutenberg printing press was developed around 1440, the Gutenberg Bible was slowly mass produced and disseminated around the Western world. It opened up access to sacred texts that had been bound up for centuries by large institutions like the Roman Catholic Church, and its dissemination helped fuel the Protestant Reformation. Still, it was an outlier. Most other books, even those that were mass produced from around the 1500s to the 1800s were not disseminated as widely as the Gutenberg Bible. They were simply too expensive.
Nevertheless, mass literacy slowly paved the way for mass newspaper readership to emerge in the 20th century. After the telegraph was invented and developed for wide-scale use and after the cost of printing newspapers dropped, publishers could share news from around the globe with mass audiences. The newspaper, specifically the penny press, was the first mass medium.
What distinguished the penny press was affordability. These papers were published in tabloid format, which used small-sized pages and was cheaper to produce. Penny papers were written for and read by working class audiences starting in about the 1830s. They covered all manner of current events. Soon, major institutions such as political parties and unions developed their own papers to cover the topics that suited their agendas and to promote the cultural values that they held dear.
Mass Media Growth and Consolidation
As mass production of all sorts of manufactured goods grew during the 20th century, so did advertising budgets and the concept of brands. Brand advertising became fuel for the mass media, and as profitability rose, newspapers were bought up and organized into chains throughout the 20th century. Many newspapers grew their audience as they merged.
Partisan papers gave way to a brand of news that strived for objectivity. The profit motive mostly drove the change. To attract a mass audience, newspapers had to represent various points of view. This pushed some of the most opinionated citizens, particularly strong advocates for workers, to the fringes of mass discourse. Some advocates developed alternative media offerings. Others went mostly unheard or plied their craft directly in politics.
At the same, throughout much of the 20th century, the journalism workforce became more professionalized. Professional norms, that is the written and unwritten rules guiding behavior decided on by people in a given field, evolved. Many full-time, paid professional journalists stressed and continue to stress the need to remain detached from the people they cover so that journalists can maintain the practice and appearance of objectivity. Journalists emphasized objectivity in order to remain autonomous and to be perceived as truthful. The norm of objective reporting still strongly influences news coverage in newspapers as well as on most mainstream radio and television news networks.
That being said, the practice of maintaining objectivity is being called into question in our current hyper-partisan political media environment. Other strategies for demonstrating truthfulness require journalists to be transparent about how they do their work, about who owns their media outlets, and about what investments and personal views they may have. Chapter 9 covers news norms and their evolution in greater detail.
At the heart of the ethical discussion for professional journalists is a sort of battle between the need to be autonomous to cover news accurately with minimal bias and the need to be socially responsible. Social responsibility in the study of journalism ethics is a specific concept referring to the need for media organizations to be responsible for the possible repercussions of the news they produce. The debate goes on even as more and more platforms for mass communication are developed.
Beyond advancements in ink-on-paper newspapers (including the development of color offset printing), technological developments have contributed to the diversification of mass media products. Photography evolved throughout the 20th century as did motion picture film, radio and television technology. Other mass media presented challenges and competition for newspapers. Still, newspapers were quite a profitable business. They grew to their greatest readership levels in the middle-to-late 20th century, and their value was at its high point around the turn of the 21st century. Then came the internet.
Stewing in our Own Juices
With the rise of global computer networks, particularly high-speed broadband and mobile communication technologies, individuals gained the ability to publish their own work and to comment on mass media messages more easily than ever before. If mass communication in the 20th century was best characterized as a one-to-many system where publishers and broadcasters reached waiting audiences, the mass media made possible by digital information networks in the twenty-first have taken on a many-to-many format.
For example, YouTube has millions of producers who themselves are also consumers. None of the social media giants such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Qzone and Weibo (in China), Twitter, Reddit or Pinterest is primarily known for producing content. Instead, they provide platforms for users to submit their own content and to share what mass media news and entertainment companies produce. The result is that the process of deciding what people should be interested in is much more decentralized in the digital network mass media environment than it was in the days of an analog one-to-many mass media system.
The process of making meaning in society that is, the process of telling many smaller stories that add up to a narrative shared by mass audiences is now much more collaborative than it was in the 20th century because more people are consuming news in networked platforms than through the channels managed by gatekeepers. A mass media gatekeeper is someone, professional or not, who decides what information to share with mass audiences and what information to leave out.
Fiction or non-fiction, every story leaves something out, and the same is true for shows made up of several stories, such as news broadcasts and heavily edited reality television. Gatekeepers select what mass audiences see, and then edit or disregard the rest. The power of gatekeepers may be diminished in networks where people can decide for themselves what topics they care most about, but there is still an important gatekeeping function in the mass media since much of what is ultimately shared on social media platforms originates in the offices and studios of major media corporations.
On social media platforms, media consumers have the ability to add their input and criticism, and this is an important function for users. Not only do we have a say as audience members in the content we would like to see, read and hear, but we also have an important role to play in society as voting citizens holding their elected officials accountable.
If social media platforms were only filled with mass media content, individual user comments, and their own homegrown content, digitally networked communication would be complex enough, but there are other forces at work. Rogue individuals, hacker networks and botnets computers programmed to create false social media accounts, websites and other digital properties can contribute content alongside messages produced by professionals and legitimate online community members. False presences on social media channels can amplify hate and misinformation and can stoke animosity between groups in a hyper-partisan media age.
Around the world, societies have democratized mass communication, but in many ways, agreeing on a shared narrative or even a shared list of facts is more difficult than ever. Users create filter bubbles for themselves where they mostly hear the voices and information that they want to hear. This has the potential to create opposing worldviews where users with different viewpoints not only have differing opinions, but they also have in mind completely different sets of facts creating different images about what is happening in the world and how society should operate.
When users feel the need to defend their filtered worldviews, it is quite harmful to society.
De-massification
The infiltration of bots on common platforms is one issue challenging people working in good faith to produce accurate and entertaining content and to make meaning in the mass media. De-massification is another. Professionals working on mass-market media products now must fight to hold onto mass audiences. De-massification signifies the breakdown of mass media audiences. As the amount of information being produced and the number of channels on which news and other content can be disseminated grows exponentially, ready-made audiences are in decline.
In the future, it is anticipated that audiences, or fan bases, must be built rather than tapped into. One path to growing audiences in digital networks is to take an extreme point of view. Producers of news and entertainment information on the right and left of the political spectrum often rail against mainstream media as they promote points of view which are more or less biased. This kind of polarization along with the tendency of social media platforms to allow and even encourage people to organize along political lines likely contributes to de-massification as people organize into factions.
The future of some mass communication channels as regular providers of shared meaning for very large audiences is in question. That said, claims that any specific medium is "dead" are overblown. For example, newspaper readership, advertising revenue and employment numbers have been declining for about 25 years, but as of 2018, there are still more than 30 million newspaper subscribers. Mass audiences are shrinking and shifting, but they can still be developed.
Convergence
As mass audiences are breaking up and voices from the fringe are garnering outsized influence, the various types of media (audio, video, text, animation and the industries they are tied to) have come together on global computer and mobile network platforms in a process called convergence.
It is as though all media content is being tossed into a huge stew, one that surrounds and composes societies and cultures, and within this stew of information, people are re-organizing themselves according to the cultural and social concerns they hold most dear.
According to one hypothesis, in a society dominated by digital communication networks, people gather around the information they recognize and want to believe because making sense of the vast amount of information now available is impossible.
This text covers several mass media channels including social media, film, radio, television, music recording and podcasting, digital gaming, news, advertising, public relations and propaganda because these are still viable industries even as the content they produce appears more and more often on converged media platforms.
What we see emerging in networked spaces is a single mass media channel with a spectrum of possible text, photo, audio, video, graphic and game elements; however, the sites of professional production still mostly identify as one particular industry (such as radio and recorded music, film, television, cable television, advertising, PR, digital advertising or social media). Some of these are "legacy" media that have existed as analog industries prior to convergence, while others originated in digital media environments.
For the foreseeable future, we should expect legacy media producers to continue to hold formidable power as elements of larger media conglomerates, which acquired many media companies as a result of industry deregulation. We should also expect audiences to continue to fragment and digital media start-ups trying to build audiences out of fragmented communities to be common even if they are difficult to sustain.
What this means for social structures and for cultural production is disruption, limited perhaps by legacy media traditions and corporate power.
Melding Theories
The world of mass media has witnessed the convergence of media content on digital platforms, the ability of individuals to engage in one-to-many communication as though they were major broadcasters, and the emergence of structures that allow for many-to-many communication. These developments force us to rethink how separate interpersonal, organizational and mass communication truly are.
From a theoretical standpoint, these are well-established approaches to thinking about communication, but in practice, certain messages might fit into multiple categories. For example, a YouTube video made for a few friends might reach millions if it goes viral. Is it interpersonal communication, mass communication or both? Viral videos and memes spread to vast numbers of people but might start out as in-jokes between internet friends or trolls. The message’s original meaning is often lost in this process. In a networked society, it can be difficult to differentiate between interpersonal and mass communication. For our purposes, it will be helpful to consider the message creator’s intent.
As a user, it is essential to realize the possibility that interpersonal messages may be shared widely. As professionals, it also helps to realize that you cannot force a messge to go viral, although most social media platforms now engage in various kinds of paid promotion where brands and influential users can pay to have their content spread more widely more quickly.
We must also understand that advertisers treat digital communication platforms much the same way whether they appear to users to be interpersonal or mass media environments. Users can be targeted down to the individual on either type of platform, and advertisers (with the help of platform creators), can access mass audiences, even when users are intending only to participate on a platform for purposes of interpersonal communication.
Scholars are still working to define how these platforms mix aspects of interpersonal and mass communication. Here is one takeaway: If you are not paying to use a platform like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (Google), Instagram or Snapchat, you are the product. It is your attention that is being sold to advertisers.
The Big Picture
Society functions when the mass media work well, and we tend not to think about the technologies or the professionals who make it all possible. Interpersonal communication can function with or without a massive technological apparatus. It is more convenient, though, to be able to text each another. When interpersonal communication breaks down, we have problems in our relationships. When organizational communication breaks down, it creates problems for groups and companies. But when mass communication breaks down, society breaks down.
Cultural Production
There is another way of looking at the mass media that needs to be mentioned after looking in some depth at the structural changes going on in and around the field of mass communication. Mass media channels are also huge engines of cultural production. That is, they make the entertainment that helps us define who we are as large and small groups of people. To quote from Dead Poets Society: "We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." If you replace "reading and writing poetry" with "creating culture," you get a sense of the importance of cultural production. We can define culture as a collection of our knowledge, beliefs and practices. In practice, culture it how we express ourselves and enjoy life’s experiences.
In media, there are three main types of cultural works, those associated with "high" culture, popular culture and folk culture. (Some scholars discuss "low" culture, but it is argued here that "low culture" is just another way of describing the low end of pop culture.)
High culture is arguably the best cultural material a society has to offer. Economic class often comes into play in defining what is "high culture" and what is not.
Pop culture is the vast array of cultural products that appeal to the masses.
Folk culture refers to cultural products borne out of everyday life identifiable because they usually have practical uses as well as artistic value. It is often associated with prehistoric cultures, but that is because the folk culture, pop culture and high culture of prehistoric peoples were often one and the same. Their best art may also have been an everyday object like a bowl or a basket or a doll or a mask. Don’t confuse prehistoric art with modern folk art.
Modern folk art has the specific quality of trying to capture what is both beautiful and useful in everyday life.
Folk music tends to rely on "traditional" sounds and instruments. Topically, it focuses on the value of everyday existence. Folk music is often built around narratives that carry morals much the same way fairy tales do. Fairy tales are probably the best example of folk literature.
So much of the interpretation and the value of cultural production is culturally relative. This means that an object or work’s value is determined by perceptions of people in different cultural groups.
In modern society, mass media often drive our perceptions. It is important to recognize that different cultures have different moral values and to acknowledge that some practices should be universally abhorred and stopped, even if they are partially or wholly accepted in other cultures.
The relationship between culture and mass media is complex; it is difficult to distinguish modern culture from how it appears in the various mass media. Culture in the developed world is spread through mass media channels. Just as society forms and is formed in part by messages in the mass media, so it goes with culture. Cultural products and their popularity can influence which media channels people prefer. Conversely, changes in media and ICTs can lead to changes in how we produce culture.
When we discuss digital culture in the next chapter, we will continue to break down different levels of culture and the relationship between cultural forms and mass communication in the networked communication age. To begin to understand the mass media, their role in society and how they shape culture and are shaped by cultural preferences, it helps to think about how the mass media may influence you. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You_(Poepsel)/1.01%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You.txt |
Origin in Anarchy
The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.
Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Alphabet Inc.
Until the end of 2017, Eric Schmidt was the executive chairman of Alphabet Inc. Alphabet emerged out of Google to become a large holding company that would manage Google and several related properties including YouTube and Calico (a biotech company). Schmidt has a Ph.D. in computer science from Berkeley. He serves on advisory boards for Khan Academy, an education company with strong ties to YouTube, and The Economist, a global news magazine with both digital and print products. Schmidt’s résumé suggests he is intellectually outstanding and that he cares about technology, education and the mass media. If one of the biggest brains of our time, and the former leader of one of the few corporations with direct influence on the way the internet is shaped, describes the internet as “anarchy,” it’s a good indication that things are in flux in the digital world.
Of course, we should analyze critically any statements coming from someone whose primary purpose it is to maximize profits for their company. At the time he made these statements, Schmidt was running Google. The loyalties of executive-level leaders presumably rest with the corporation that signs their checks and provides their stock options. Google has an interest in making you feel that the internet is a confusing place since their search engine is one solution to the confusion. (However, if you rely on autocomplete, Google’s suggestions may not only be confusing; they may even be morally reprehensible.)
Still, Schmidt’s characterization of the internet as a place of anarchy is accurate. And as we seek to define digital culture and to discuss the cultural relevance of social media in this chapter, we must recognize that there is no grand plan. The only constant in digital culture is change, which may sound cliché, but the underlying ICT structures shift so often that it can be difficult for cultural trends to take hold.
Chapter 1 of this text defined society and culture in the context of the field of mass communication. It covered the distinction between interpersonal communication, organizational communication and mass communication, and then it delved deeper into concepts relating to mass communication. The purpose of the first chapter was to start a discussion about how evolving information and communication technologies (ICTs) can influence the mass media and contribute to social and cultural change in the process.
A Brief Overview
If you are anticipating a roadmap of neat, organized plans for how the evolution of culture on digital platforms will unfurl, you’re gonna have a bad time. Instead, this chapter offers a brief, lively discussion of how we define digital culture and what we might expect from it as it emerges in online spaces, mobile apps and platforms.
Additionally, this chapter includes a breakdown of the roles social media platforms may play in influencing culture.
If you acknowledge that cultures have always been in flux, then perhaps the concept of a digital culture emerging online amidst anarchy will look less like disruption and more like evolution (Spoiler Alert: Reveals the plot of The Last Jedi). However you classify it, the cultural impact of the merger of the mass media and digital networks is vast, and that is the topic of this chapter.
This chapter begins with a definition of “digital culture” that comes from the media studies portion of mass communication literature. Media studies refers to the broad category of academic inquiry analyzing and critiquing the mass media, its products, possible effects of messages and campaigns, and even media history. Chapter 2 then continues with a deeper discussion of identity in the digital age and covers privacy and surveillance as well as the praxis of digital culture as defined by scholars. The term “praxis” here refers to how a theory plays out in actual practice.
This chapter also identifies different levels of culture (a concept borrowed from anthropology) as they relate to cultural products reaching audiences through digital mass communication channels. In other words, we ultimately answer this question: If we take existing theory for describing the levels of culture and apply it to digital culture, what are some immediately recognizable traits?
Finally, social media are defined from a scholarly point of view with particular attention given to the cultural potential of digitally networked social platforms.
Digital Culture Defined
Scholars argue whether we can understand what the spread of digital networks will mean for relatively well-established cultures in the tangible world, or predict with any certainty how cultures will evolve on digital platforms. There are two basic schools of thought. The first argues that existing cultures might find themselves essentially recreated in digital form as more and more life experiences, from the exciting to the mundane, play out in digital spaces. The second school of thought posits that the dominant digital culture emerging now is a separate culture unto itself.
It seems likely that neither version of these imagined forms of digital culture will dominate; instead, we will likely see a combination of the two. Parts of existing culture will appear online as they do in the physical world and parts of digital culture will seem completely new, previously unfathomable because they could not or would not appear in the tangible world.
Before we delve in with prognostications about where digital culture is headed, let us first define our terms. Digital culture refers to the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of people interacting on digital networks that may recreate tangible-world cultures or create new strains of cultural thought and practice native to digital networks.
For example, an online fandom and a real-world fan club are both made up of people who are geographically separated but share a common interest. If a fan club were to “go online,” networked communication platforms might make the experience better than it was in the physical world. Before the advent of the internet, most fan clubs produced a newsletter, offered connections with pen pals, and provided early opportunities to buy tickets and merchandise. Online, fans can create deeper relationships with one another. They can connect and communicate on official channels or make their own unofficial groups where they need not communicate through a central authority or gatekeeper. Fan and star interactions can be direct, one-on-one interactions on multiple social media channels. There may be an official, organized fan group, but many other avenues can appear on relatively open platforms with few rules.
The cultural product at the core of a fandom might still be a “legacy media” product. Legacy media are any media platforms that existed prior to the development of massive digital networks. Yes, there are people who are “Instagram famous” or “YouTube” famous, but the biggest stars in our cultural world still have many ties to legacy media. Musicians, film stars and comic book heroes come to mind. What other types of “legacy media” stars have huge online fandoms?
Online fandoms may simultaneously expect less centralized authority over the fan experience and more direct access to their heroes. They often expect to see transparency during the creative process, such as Instagram or Twitter posts with “secret” messages for longtime followers or behind-the-scenes videos as albums and movies are made. Fandoms might demand to hear key information first or to have special access via social media.
Similar things could be said of fan clubs in the age of snail mail. Essential elements of the culture of fandom — gaining access to artists and finding friends in a community — have not changed as much in kind as they have in degree.
Is this an example of the transition of an existing cultural form (the fan club) to digital environments, or is online fandom something truly different from a snail mail fan club? This is a good question to debate in the classroom.
It is worth noting that there are also niche fandoms that probably would not exist without the aid of digital networks. With virtually unlimited communication space, there is room for incredibly rarified fan groups to form on platforms such as Tumblr, and they are not always socially positive communities. In many cases of hyper-specific fandoms, it is difficult to argue that these cultures existed in the physical world and simply “moved online.” Being digitally networked is what makes it possible to find people with particularly narrow shared interests, for better and for worse.
Digital Dynamic
Even with the presence of niche online groups, digital culture cannot currently be separated from the influence of physical-world cultures. We can say two things about the relationship between online and physical-world cultures at this time. First, the growth of interaction on digital networks influences “traditional” cultures. Second, longstanding cultural traditions are influencing digital culture as it takes shape. The ethics and norms established in the physical world shape our views about behavior and values in digital networks. The term norm refers to a behavioral standard. Mutual influences of what is considered “normal” in online behavior and well established physical world norms are emerging in a dynamic fashion. Sometimes they clash.
One example is online dating. Dating in real life (IRL) is changing as more and more people use dating apps and websites. Previously, dating was limited to the people you were likely to meet. You could meet friends of friends. You could meet people at school, at parties, at bars or on blind dates. Your options were limited geographically and by how outgoing you were, how much time you wanted to spend looking, and who you trusted to set you up. The personal ads in newspapers were often considered sad places for losers. Using a mass medium to find your true love was often considered a risky last resort.
When online dating first became available, it was often compared to posting and perusing digital personal ads. This was a cultural perception based on previous experiences, behavior and expectations from a pre-Internet culture.
Over the course of approximately ten years (1998-2008), what once was considered odd, creepy or desperate in many parts of the Western world came to be considered commonplace. Apps and sites like OkCupid, Tinder, Match.com and eHarmony have millions of users. Culturally, many of us have accepted this new digital form of dating. It’s not for everyone, but online dating does not carry the stigma it once did.
Even Tinder, which has a reputation as a “hook-up” app, maintains popularity and cultural significance as it is referenced often on other media platforms.
Whatever it may be in a given culture, sexual morality still exists, even if new technologies make hooking up easier and new capabilities challenge old norms of what dating should be.
This is the dynamic at the heart of this chapter. Digital technology can influence knowledge, beliefs and especially practices around dating. This can, in turn, shape the way people think about dating in general, not just in digital environments. The “old” cultural norms and morals can still be applied to judge those who use digital apps for casual hookups, but the new culture can push back, so to speak, and change how people think about dating even if they never use dating apps themselves.
We have discussed how the digital culture and physical world culture dynamic functions, but we have not yet defined digital culture. For that, we must look to scholars who have spent years trying to pinpoint what emergent digital culture seems to be.
Individualization, Post-nationalism, and Globalization
We turn to Mark Deuze, a scholar from the University of Amsterdam, for a complete definition. He seeks to provide a preliminary definition of “digital culture” in his 2006 article, “Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture.”
In his analysis of academic literature, Deuze finds that scholars often make assumptions when trying to explain how digital culture works. The main he identifies is the idea that culture moves to digital networks more or less intact. There was, a decade ago, a lack of explanation about what happens to culture in digital environments.
How much might culture change when certain practices move online? How often can existing cultural beliefs and expectations be transferred intact? Deuze does not think digital culture is merely a recreation of physical world culture in online spaces, but he does not have a good answer for what has been emerging. He analyzes independent media sites, blogs and radical online media outlets to see what these new forms of communication demonstrate about digital culture.
That these forms are not meant to represent all culture but rather a cultural vanguard. They are (or were) the tip of the spear of newly evolving digital cultures. These sites are often progressive politically, so this is not as much a prediction of what will happen with all digital culture as it is a discussion of what is possible. Deuze maintains that the real practice of digital culture is “an expression of individualization, post-nationalism, and globalization.”
Individualization
Deuze finds individualization in blogs most frequently written by one person and focused on a specific topic or small geographical region. Individualism, as it is used here, refers not only to an individual’s ability to act as their own publisher online but also to a social condition in which individuals are free from government control. It means that even in authoritarian nations such as North Korea, Russia, China and Iran that try to control the behavior of their citizens, individuals may seek freedom of expression on the internet, although it comes at a greater risk.
Beyond Deuze’s observations, evidence of individualism online comes from partisan news sites such as The Drudge Report and HuffPost. Both are named for individual founders. They are digital mass media outlets that started largely as personal points of view.
The importance of individualized expression on social media is clear. We appear as individuals on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr. This increases our reach. Each of us can potentially connect with every other individual on a given social media platform, but these platforms also raise questions about surveillance and privacy.
Digital Individualism vs. Privacy
Eric Schmidt once said about online privacy and Google, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” While this might make sense in a free society, there are many places in the world — North Korea for example — where government surveillance can utilize corporate invasions of privacy to crack down on dissent and severely limit freedom.
Suppose someone living in North Korea would like to use a social media channel such as Twitter to connect with like-minded people without government officials finding out. Should Twitter protect those users? What if a state threatens legal action or violence against Twitter employees? Would social media channels give up their users?
There is a difference between government surveillance (that is, state-sanctioned data gathering and analysis on massive scales) and corporate data aggregation for targeted marketing purposes. Usually, by accepting the Terms and Conditions of apps and web services, you opt in to having your data stored, crunched and analyzed by corporations. Legally, you are responsible for that decision. Technically, the data gathering platform is not supposed to identify you as an individual, but so-called “safe harbor” laws can be ineffectual.
Should Google protect your searches and refuse to divulge information about your habits to governments, even if they share that data with other companies for marketing purposes? Should Google give you a way to hide your online activity? Is there a way for the liberty-loving Southeast Asian to have his privacy protected while still enabling Western governments to watch out for terrorists? These questions relate to larger issues of freedom and individualism in digital culture.
Throughout its history, the United States of America has taken pride in its First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights as guarantees of liberty. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, many Americans accepted new levels of scrutiny, particularly in digital environments. Support for strong leaders increased until very recently. Concerns about the global rise of authoritarianism have people questioning government surveillance and corporate surveillance as they may limit our ability to engage as individuals in digital culture.
Eric Schmidt’s statement implies that privacy in digital networks is limited. This sentiment is echoed by Mark Zuckerberg, who has suggested that privacy is dead. What this means is that physical world behavior is expected to adapt to the demands of digital culture because the capabilities of digital culture also carry with them unique risks that we are not necessarily adapted to deal with.
Our experience with the anarchy of online mass communication platforms is quite limited. As we learn what government surveillance and corporate invasions of privacy are capable of, it may continue to deeply affect our physical world behavior.
Many would agree with the sentiment, “If you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about,” but even advocates for a more open digital society want their privacy. Zuckerberg bought several properties around his house to keep his physical location secure. Eric Schmidt does not want people to know where he lives. He generally does not invite the public into his private life, and, one might assume, does not want people to examine why his former wife said she felt like a “piece of luggage” when married to him. Such information about Schmidt’s personal life is easy to find online and could be used against him, but should we care? Does it matter in the broader cultural sense?
This text argues that privacy does matter. The vast majority of us are not using digital platforms to break laws or to interact in negative ways with others and yet we still have aspects of ourselves that we would like to remain private. Has a parent or guardian ever snooped on your Facebook account or followed your Instagram? We have incredible freedoms and amazing digital communication capabilities as individuals living our lives in the new digital culture. It comes with a price we have yet to grasp.
Terms and Conditions
The film Terms and Conditions May Apply details the ways our private information, such as our emails and texts, can easily be related to our public information on social networks. The filmmakers note that the knowledge and hardware needed to snoop on people are bought and sold all over the world and are often unregulated.
Are we becoming more open because of the ways social media function? Is there anything wrong with that? Are we surrendering our privacy in ways that cannot be undone?
One of the major cultural challenges of the network society will be to deal with people in power who would like to use our information against us as a means of control. It has already happened in some of the countries where the Arab Spring revolutions took place (Egypt, for one).
You never know what you might need to protest in the future, but we’re beginning to see tools deployed to pre-empt protest and other acts of dissent. What this means for our efforts to define digital culture is that digital culture can free us as individuals, but it can also imprison us.
We can use the internet and smartphones to help us to get questions answered and to draw attention to ourselves in good ways. We can coordinate with others for fundraisers and to have parties. Digital communication networks are amazingly sophisticated tools that can help us connect as individuals to form groups to celebrate all sorts of interests, political and otherwise.
On the other hand, if individuals believe they have no privacy, digital networks could become virtual wastelands where innovative collaboration is hindered and where corporate commercial speech and government surveillance dominate.
Capitalism depends on risk-taking, and if you kill risk-taking online, you have hindered the entrepreneurialism that the network society offers. We scholars will study for decades to come how individual behavior changes and how relationships morph in a digital culture that discourages behavior we want to keep private while simultaneously encouraging levels of sharing that border on exhibitionism. How can we maintain privacy and gain attention, which is so often the currency of the open Internet? This is an interesting dilemma that arises in an individualistic digital culture.
Post-nationalism
Post-nationalism is another aspect of digital culture that Deuze notes in his article. It may seem unrelated to our previous discussion of individualism and privacy in digital culture, but in fact, it is an analysis of the ways individuals represent themselves online.
Most simply, “post-nationalism” in digital culture means that one’s country appears to matter less as an influence on behavior and values online than it does in the tangible world, perhaps because we can be free of our national identities when engaging in digital networks with people from around the globe.
This does not mean that we should expect to see an end to nationalism in the tangible world. Quite the opposite seems to be true: As post-nationalism appears in digital spaces, nationalism is on the rise in global politics. It might seem odd that people drop their nationalism online but demand it in physical spaces, but if you look at the way culture is expressed online, it is clear that for many people their nationality has little to do with their online identities.
For example, your country may be important to you, but it may not be one of the ways you define yourself in social media environments. You can love America without talking about it all of the time on Facebook or Twitter. Remember as well that national boundaries may be felt more readily in the daily lives of Africans, Asians, Europeans and others living in nations that are geographically smaller, more tightly packed and culturally distinct. In digital spaces, these cultural differences can evaporate.
Although war and immigration are highly influential on the current cultural climate in the physical world, the perception of evaporating culture in networked spaces may help drive the sense that physical world cultures are being threatened.
Recent political developments, however, make it somewhat more difficult to think of digital culture as post-nationalistic given the rise of online nationalism — particularly white nationalism in Europe and the United States. White nationalism is a brand of nationalism related to white supremacy, but it is an identity connected to the nation-state nonetheless. A nationalist’s primary modus operandi in digital culture may not reflect what nation states ultimately become in the 21st century, but rather what they wish it were. Even so, there is evidence that some factions will use digital spaces to promote a return to nationalism.
Does this mean that post-nationalism in digital culture is a false notion conceived in the early 2000s that has no bearing on culture today? Perhaps, but it is more likely that we are seeing a backlash against the rise of a global post-nationalist space online.
Globalization
Digital culture, Deuze posits, reflects a globalized or globalizing world. Behaviors, interests, and relationships cross international boundaries. The economic structure of digital networks, including the mass media system, is global. For example, multinational conglomerate corporations tend to dominate the media industry, not just in the United States but around the world. Books, academic articles and simple infographics show that most mass media companies fall under the ownership of large corporate firms. It is not accurate to say this represents all media or that “the media” are being controlled, but it is accurate to say a significant level of influence can be attributed to a handful of media corporations in most developed parts of the world.
Mass media consumers should be aware of the environment in which media products are produced, but this is not to say that the globalization of mass media is always a negative thing. When it comes to culture, globalization has its supporters. Here is a site in English about K-pop music. The music comes from Korea, but the fanbase is spread worldwide, and the site can reach a global audience only because of the global nature of digital networks. It works only because computer servers are connected by wires all over the globe to make this bit of culture, like many others, available to the entire globe.
There exists a global point of view in both the physical world and in digital culture which is open to all kinds of cultural production as long as it is interesting, funny and shows great talent. There are videos that go viral globally, although it is not always clear why. (If we had the formula, we’d include it here.) All we can say at this time is that you can reach the world with any online message and, for whatever reason, some things are globally likable and “shareable.”
A Place Called Gangnam
Humanity’s recently developed ability to develop a globalized point of view and to establish a common digital culture is the reason you have heard (and likely tired) of “Gangnam Style.” Ironically, PSY, who performs the song, is kind of an anti-pop star within Korea. The song makes fun of the country’s higher class, a conspicuously wealthy subculture from a place called the Gangnam District. But PSY is a global success. He is popular, many argue, because he is quite funny and because he is not the prototypical K-pop hero. He comes from a particular national cultural tradition, but he also transcends it by being absurd. Thus, as a distinctly individual performer, he personifies a type of post-nationalism and the globalization of digital culture.
Individualism, post-nationalism and globalization go a long way toward defining the emergent “digital culture.” For more information, consult Deuze’s original article.
Digital Culture in Practice
Deuze makes one more observation not about what digital culture is but rather how it works. Deuze argues that the production of digital culture will be carried out through participation, remediation and bricolage.
Participation means that every individual will have the ability to contribute to online media. Professionals and amateurs will work together much more often than they did on “legacy media” products and projects.
Because people do not want to work for free, they will not flock to an online platform simply because it has been opened up for contributions. If anyone could build a Facebook, there would be hundreds or even thousands of competing platforms. As it stands, there are perhaps ten major social media platforms worldwide, if “major” means they are home to more than 200 million members.
It is also clear from social networking sites, Reddit, and similar social news sharing sites that people will contribute to a platform even if it is not necessarily well-policed or easy to use. In digital culture, it helps to be the first to be big. Success breeds success in an economy based on attention, and what dominates tends to be emotional issues, as satirized here.
Consistency also seems to help, but what matters most is the ability to consistently draw an audience. Think of a person trying to become a YouTube influencer. They must publish interesting content regularly for months or even years before they develop a following that they might be able to sell to advertisers. Once the YouTube star does begin to peddle products, they run the risk of alienating a portion of their audience.
Participation is an essential part of digital culture. It can be easy and fun to do it for free. If you want to make a career out of it, it takes professional-level commitment, and the resulting content often favors what is popular and emotionally gripping rather than what is informative or socially beneficial.
Remediation means that old media are made new again in digital spaces. Television becomes YouTube. Radio becomes podcasting, Spotify and Pandora. Newspapers become … online newspapers! The new media take elements of the old media and repurpose them, while “legacy” media firms copycat digital media trends, buy out media startups, or try to forge new paths at significant expense.
In the practice of digital culture, media are remade in digital environments in a process that combines the appealing parts of existing forms of media with additional functionalities made possible by new ICTs and digital networking capabilities. The author’s own research argues that attempts by legacy media organizations to create new businesses online face many institutional hurdles. Remediation is constantly happening, but that does not mean existing media companies can determine how to monetize the practice in a sustainable way. We should expect considerable remediation innovation to come from startup companies and individual tech entrepreneurs with few ties to legacy media.
A good example of remediation is taking classic movies or video games and showing them to young people to record their reactions for YouTube. Reaction videos of all kinds take media products people are familiar with and show them to the unfamiliar so that viewers can judge their reactions. This new media product repurposes old content with an added element designed to pique our interest; however, remediation does not always add much value.
Bricolage is a French term not easy to translate literally to English. A translation offering deep context might be: Do it yourself by combining elements found elsewhere. Much of digital culture is an amalgamation of existing content and new cultural work being done at home by people with amateur skills and affordable but capable tools, such as smartphones and tablet computers. Even basic tools are quite powerful. Smartphones come with front- and back-facing cameras as well as HD-quality video. The computing power of a smartphone is more powerful than a mainframe computer was 70 years ago. Independent producers have video and audio editing software options and can create professional looking, popular media products on their own with little formal training.
Professionalism
What is formal training for, then? It prepares you to transition from making professional looking and sounding media products once in a while to consistently making professional quality media. Formal training prepares you to think strategically about where industries are going so that you know not only how to make mass media products but where to place them and how to use and possibly develop your own communication platforms.
Formal training includes an education in history and ethics. Amateur producers are skilled at chasing trends and gaining popularity, but they often ride cultural waves that last from a few months to a couple of years. Planning for multiple media shifts and seeing digital cultural trends as or before they emerge requires an education in more than the tools and tricks of the trade.
Deuze in Sum
Deuze’s analysis suggests that barriers between professionals and amateurs are breaking down. Old media are made new again in digital culture, through a process of making digital media collages, so to speak. (The word “bricolage” is related to “collage.”)
Thus, in practice, digital culture is democratizing (though not fully democratic, of course). Amateurs can create media products that challenge the popularity of cultural production made by corporate conglomerates valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. What emerges in terms of popularity, though, is not necessarily high in quality or accuracy. Quality and accuracy are the hallmarks of professional communication (although not all professionals behave as they should).
Levels of Culture in Digital Media
Let’s take a step back and look at the definition of culture again. In the first chapter, this text defined culture as being made up of the knowledge, beliefs and practices of a group of people. We need to tweak that definition a little. It is more accurate to say that the knowledge, beliefs and practices of a massive group of people at a certain time and place defines common culture.
Three levels of culture exist in anthropology literature, and they apply to the ways culture is expressed in the mass media. The three levels of culture are personal culture, group culture and common culture (similar to pop culture).
Any kind of culture, whether it is personal, group or common culture, relies on shared knowledge. There must be shared experiences and shared stories about those experiences for us to have a common culture. If we did not have shared experiences, cultural references would not make sense. Thus common culture can be arrived at when individuals and groups tell the same stories, or when mass media reach mass audiences with the same messages at the same (or about the same) time.
The more people who know about a song, film, work of art or event with cultural significance, and the more information that they know about it, the more likely it is that event will become part of the common culture. The mass media influence common culture, although it is not correct to say that they directly shape it. There are many other institutional influences on common culture such as governments, churches, families and educational systems.
In fact, messages in the mass media may not be as influential now as they were in the mid-20th century when millions of people watched the same TV shows each week at the same time and read the same major metropolitan daily newspapers and national magazines. Demassification has affected the ways common culture is established and fed.
The mass media influence may have less power to influence common culture directly, but it is still relevant. Think about any major global news event of the past few months. When an event is big enough that it is shared across all media platforms, especially cable television, broadcast television and social media channels, it can form a piece of common culture. If several events occur or if an event has a broad enough global impact, it can enter the global collective memory, the shared cultural memory of a group of people.
Group culture is what we used to refer to as a “subculture.” It is the knowledge, beliefs and practices of a subset of people considered to be part of a larger culture. Group culture is distinct in some ways from the shared, broader common culture. Group culture might center on religious beliefs and practices, ethnic norms and interests, or food, music and other forms of material production. Groups can be as large as all Chinese-Americans and as small as the remaining St. Louis NFL fan culture.
You have a say in defining your personal culture — the knowledge, beliefs and practices held most dear to the individual. You may find yourself identifying with many group cultures or taking most of your interests from the dominant common culture. Do you take your cultural cues about what to think about and talk about from television, social media or small group cultures with which you identify? This much is your prerogative. You can choose your personal culture. It is based both on what you believe in and what cultural products you consume.
America, ‘Merica, Los Estados Unidos, Etc.
There is a common culture in America, but there is no single, dominant, common culture across global digital networks. There may be a tendency for people to believe that the group cultures they interact with most often online constitute the “real” digital culture, but as yet there is no clear consensus about what our shared digital culture is or even if we will develop one.
Algorithms in search engines and social media platforms determine much of what we find when we search the internet and what we see when we look at news and information feeds from our friends. Do algorithms constitute common culture? They may shape it, and they may be influenced by user preferences, but they are not always designed for truth, accuracy or information literacy. They are most often designed to give consumers whatever makes them consume more of what the platform wants them to consume. Google usually wants you to spend money with its advertisers. Facebook wants your time and your data so it can sell your information to third party advertisers.
What shapes digital culture is often in a “black box”: It is the proprietary information of very large corporations, and the public may or may not have access to the code. Even if we did have it, it would be difficult to explain exactly how algorithms work. There are times when the corporations that deploy algorithms seem surprised by how they function in the hands of massive numbers of users.
Major events that cut across algorithms and show up on almost everyone’s news feed and in almost everyone’s search results are still likely to have an impact on common culture. Major events are likely to shape personal, group, and common culture if they are significant enough. What kind of cultural impact does a given event have? It depends.
The impact of a school shooting near Miami might be felt differently in Florida than in California because of proximity and because the gun laws in each state are quite different. In other words, something can enter the common culture but still be perceived quite differently by individual members of the public.
Norms
By now you should understand that the cultural impact of messages in the mass media at each level — personal, group and common culture — is related to the shared knowledge that existed before the event.
Events are often going to be perceived differently by people identifying with different small group cultures within a larger common culture. Events will usually be interpreted differently by individuals within a small group culture, depending on an individual’s beliefs about and personal experiences with the issue at hand.
A person’s response to current events as they appear in the mass media is also related to the existence and strength of shared beliefs about the way they think things ought to be. We call those beliefs cultural norms.
There is no single, agreed-upon set of norms that everyone in a given group culture adheres to. If you have lived your whole life as part of the dominant culture, and you do not recognize the existence and struggle of various cultural groups, it can be difficult to recognize reactions in digital media spaces that do not relate much to what you see in your physical world. Conversely, if you have grown up being oppressed as part of a small group, you may find it hard to understand how others identifying with the dominant portion of a common culture can miss the cruelty present in some cultural norms they don’t think twice about.
Exposure to other groups’ cultures in a network society can bring about both greater understanding and greater anxiety. This is something that will be worked out, for better or for worse, over the next several decades as digital culture evolves. Figuring out how groups with different cultural interests, norms, and values can get along while being constantly exposed to one another’s views in the free-for-all of network society is the challenge of emergent digital culture.
One response is to run to echo chambers, to partisan spaces that feel safe for certain group cultures and for our personal cultural beliefs and priorities, but this practice can only deepen the divide between cultural groups.
In the early years of working to establish a common culture in the network society, we have managed to inundate ourselves with information from all manner of cultural groups and to isolate ourselves from views that contradict our own group cultural norms. This is anarchy. This is culture without a strong social structure to hold it together.
The question facing mass communication scholars that members of our common culture also face is whether the institutions of the physical world can or should try to control how digital culture is shaped. You have the power to decide if digital culture should be regulated and how. This may be the most important civic responsibility you have, but it is also a matter of cultural power.
Social Media and Social Capital
What do you think it means for society that networked communication platforms can make anybody a mass communicator? One answer is that there is great potential for social change because society, as Dewey said in Chapter 1, is not just transmitted by communication, it exists in it.
That means every individual with a computer or a smartphone has the potential to disseminate messages that influence broader society. Think of the Arab Spring revolutions of 2010-2012. Think of #Ferguson protests in the summer and fall of 2014. Think of the way candidate Donald Trump bypassed mass media outlets to reach voters and to set a separate news agenda in 2015 and 2016. Individuals and small groups are now able to coordinate and to lead social movements using networked communication technologies.
You have probably heard the term “social movement.” In a sense, a social movement is a change in society brought on by communication. What is different about the world of networked communication is how interpersonal messages and message campaigns can shift in an instant to being mass messages or massive campaigns. This makes digital networks battlegrounds because networked public communication platforms are centers of power now more than ever.
Just as they can influence and even disrupt social structures, individuals and small groups can shape culture using social media channels. This makes our communication system as ripe for abuse by outside forces as it is for use by legitimate citizens. Governments, corporations and rogue dictators all have an interest in learning our secrets, and they could potentially hold them against us.
We cannot underestimate how important this is will be in the mass communication field. Individual, group and broader social secrets — including consumer behavior, political behavior and even personal thoughts and interests — are easier to discern and possibly manipulate than ever before because of the vast amounts of data collected about us from our social media and other internet habits. This can have a profound effect on our behavior and on our society, and we are not prepared as a society to defend ourselves against attacks.
Before you get discouraged about digital culture and privacy, and before you get inundated with all of the possibilities and implications of digital culture, consider Clay Shirky’s Ted talk, “How social media can make history.”
Shirky outlines the power of social connectivity and applies the concept of social capital. The basic definition of social capital is the potential to get help, not just financial assistance, from the people around you when needed. Social media platforms can be great places to build social capital. Thus, they have the potential to be constructive or disruptive. It depends on how you use them. Watch the video for a complete definition.
Interpersonal communication, organizational communication and mass communication are separate areas of academic interest, as stated in the first chapter, but our ability as consumers and as producers to alternate from one to the other is as powerful as it has ever been. Being connected to each other almost at all times by digital networks creates the capacity for relatively quick mass social action. People are beginning to use this power to pull society in different directions. Large numbers of people can be organized and we could see social shifts and rifts develop more quickly than they can be put back together. It will be up to individual users and groups of users to decide how to respond to such social and cultural changes.
Participatory Media
A major shaper of culture and society is the news media. There will be separate sections on the evolution of news in later chapters, but in the context of digital culture, it bears noting that the role of news media within broader media landscapes is also shifting.
Apart from the ability of social movements and cultural movements to arise and take shape on social media platforms, there is also the potential for public opinion to be influenced quickly and deeply when mass media outlets operated in the same digital networks as influential individuals and groups.
You may contribute to news information by volunteering. One of the biggest stories to gain national attention in 2014 that was filmed and posted by a citizen journalist was the story of Eric Garner, who was seen being put into a chokehold by NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo. Reports said that Garner had asthma and that he died of a heart attack. Here the term “citizen journalist” refers to a person who is not a paid professional but who delivers news to audiences nonetheless.
It is doubtful that the story would have received national attention had it not been for the video bystander Taisha Allen took with her mobile phone. When she shared that video, and it went viral on social media channels, she made the mass media story possible.
Allen probably had several reasons for sharing the video of Garner, and she was probably aware of the potential social and cultural impact of the video. You do not have to be a media literacy expert to know that such a video would receive broad attention and generate controversy. Allen chose to share the video because she thought people needed to see what had happened.
Further solidifying the cultural significance of the video, within days of the story breaking, Spike Lee had re-cut a scene from his groundbreaking film Do the RightThing where the character Radio Raheem is choked to death by an NYPD officer. He interspersed his original film clip with bystander video of Eric Garner’s death. This almost instant connection between a post made by a citizen using social media and a bit of modern classic film speaks to the rising power and cultural influence of amateur media. Individuals can affect major producers in a mutual effort to shape social norms and structures as well as cultural influences.
We should expect more and more professionals to make these kinds of connections with amateurs and bystanders in the future. Mashups of professionally made mass media messages and citizen-generated messages are likely to proliferate. Can you think of video footage from individuals present during major news events that shaped the news and public opinion?
The events in Ferguson, Missouri followed a similar path as the Eric Garner story: Social media accounts of the killing of Michael Brown were shared virally almost immediately after the incident. Social media activity on YouTube, Twitter and other channels helped shape the way events unfolded. This drove the way the story was covered in the national media in the early reporting, but backlash inevitably followed.
Much of the work done by citizen journalists will be controversial. Media professionals working in news and other fields will have to use discernment in deciding which views to share because in a sense sharing is promoting, even if one disagrees with the sentiment of the tweet, video, or post.
No piece of media that is meaningful on a cultural level is going to be captured and disseminated with universal agreement about its importance or its meaning, but for society to function and for culture to serve its purposes we need to agree in a general sense on what’s real and what is not. The real danger in the rise of the power of individuals and small groups in digital culture is that they can pull larger groups away from looking for fact-based discourse. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You_(Poepsel)/1.02%3A_Digital_Culture_and_Social_Media.txt |
“Understanding knowledge as an essential element of love is vital because we are bombarded daily with messages that tell us love is about mystery, about that which cannot be known. We see movies in which people are represented as being in love who never talk with one another, who fall into bed without ever discussing their bodies, their sexual needs, their likes and dislikes. Indeed, the message is received from the mass media is that knowledge makes love less compelling; that it is ignorance that gives love its erotic and transgressive edge. These messages are brought to us by profiteering producers who have no clue about the art of loving, who substitute their mystified visions because they do not really know how to genuinely portray loving interaction.” — bell hooks from her book All About Love: New Visions
The Academic Approach to Studying the Mass Media
If you have been reading the chapters of this text in order, by this point you will be aware of the powerful role the mass media play in society, but you may not yet question whether society benefits from this arrangement. In general, the mass media could do a better job of representing all sorts of groups and group cultures. The mass media could also represent abstract concepts like love, trust and greed in more meaningful ways. This is not to say that the mass media have failed in this regard, but there is much room for improvement.
As active audience members, as hybrid producer-users or “produsers” (to use a term coined by Axel Bruns), you must not only be selective but also critical of what you consume. Whether you become media professionals or not, it will ultimately be your job as media consumers to remake the mass media in ways that better represent the depth of human experience.
Whether your interest is a religion, a fandom, or an abstract concept like love (one of the greatest of abstractions), you have the power to participate in the media production redefining how others understand it.
No, this is not a book about love. Yes, love and related concepts are commodified in the mass media; however, the disruption that has echoed in political spheres and often in the ways family and cultural group members speak to one another about politics also opens up space for critical thinking. That is, the same disruption described in Chapter 2 that allows for social upheaval also allows for a time of reflection and critical thinking about how society and its media function.
This chapter gives you some tools developed by mass communication scholars to develop your critical eye when viewing messages as products in the mass media. If massive numbers of “produsers” can reshape the media landscape, we have to re-think the role of mass media professionals. Assisting people in the process of meaning-making — that is, making mass media with audiences instead of for them, and aiding them in their own communication efforts — could open up a new purpose and new industries for those who are mentally prepared and daring enough to take the lead.
This chapter defines “media literacy” and touches on some key mass communication theories that are absolutely not meant to be left to molder in the digital cloud where this text”book” lives. Take these theories out, apply them and see how they work. Find out how useful they can be and what their limitations are.
This text presents an image of entire societies and cultures swimming in a sea of media. Consider these concepts your first set of snorkel and swim-fins.
Media Literacy Defined
Media literacy is a term describing media consumers’ understanding of how mass media work. It includes knowing where different types of information can be found, how best to evaluate information, who owns the major mass media platforms, how messages are produced, and how they are framed to suit various interests.
In a global society that gets most of its information through digital networks, it is incredibly important to know how and by whom media messages are made so that as consumers we can discern how the mass media are being used to shape our opinions. We can reply to or comment on messages in the mass media, or we can demand a seat at the table when messages are being constructed. This is the nature of participatory media outlined in the previous chapter. Being media literate gives us the tools to participate well and with purpose.
It is important to consider your role in contributing directly to mass media content. Your contributions to cultural trends and social change in the mass media can sometimes happen without your knowledge. If you post regularly to Facebook or other social media platforms, your data are being aggregated, and that information is used by advertisers, researchers, and news services to find out what you like and what you are like, as well as to create ads and political messages tailored just for you.
You are more than your preferences and the media you consume. You are encouraged to play an active role in shaping your digital identity beyond the one that has already been created for you.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is media literacy put into action. Besides contributing to the creation of meaning by making your own mass media messages (perhaps in collaboration with professionals), you can ask who owns major mass media corporations. Scholars have found that more than half of the mass media channels available to mass audiences in America are owned by only five corporations or firms.
My own research, conducted with two research partners in graduate school, has shown that just by making people aware of the nature of media ownership, you can encourage them to be skeptical of mass media content.
This text has already established that mass communication is what makes society in the physical world work. Information, often in the form of messages in the mass media, permeates institutional interactions and passes between all of us in our homes and schools and businesses. The information conveyed in the mass media gets interpreted in organizational, group and interpersonal communication contexts. These systems influence each other, but mass media messages tend to envelop and permeate other forms of communication. Thus, if you learn to be skeptical of the information you receive in the mass media, you learn how to critique the whole global social system.
Critique this Book
Reading closely, you will have undoubtedly found value judgments in this text already. You may be inclined to assign political values to this text in our hyper-partisan cultural environment. You are welcome to do this. You are encouraged to do this. You must think critically about the cultural values expressed not only in this text but also in your other textbooks and in the history and literature you read.
But you also must think critically about your preferred media outlets. Where do they get their information from? Who owns them? No single revelation about the mass media will tell you everything you need to know. You have to begin to see nuance and to think for yourself what aspects of the mass media matter most to you, what things you think should change, how you might change them, and what you can live with.
It is part of the responsibility of citizens now to critique messages that come to us via mass media, as well as messages from leaders who bypass mass media gatekeepers and fact checkers. It is also a sound career strategy for those who go into the mass communication field to learn to be able to critique messages, messengers and owners in the corporate mass media field of work and play. To know where the mass media industry is headed, you must be able to think critically about where it comes from.
Much of the rest of this book breaks down different mass media channels and looks briefly at the history of how each came to be, what and whom each channel serves, and how convergence in a digitally networked society might affect the future of each medium. This text also returns several times to “big picture” questions about the dynamic relationship between media and society as seen from the perspective of the various mass communication channels and platforms.
The Dichotomy Between the Media and the “Real World”
For nearly the dozenth time in this text already, your author has referenced a “dynamic.” The mass media reflect our social norms and expectations and, dynamically, they shape our norms and expectations.
To the extent they are shaped by mass media, our perceptions of reality are very much artificial — but not entirely so. How artificial is too artificial? Different individuals and different cultures differ in the amount of nonsense they can tolerate.
The real challenge to us as young media professionals and scholars is to try to determine what is artificial in the vast array of messages delivered to us at all times by the mass media. One of the best ways to do this is to get off of social media platforms and talk to people in person. We should also dig a bit into the information we consume and ask, “How do they know?” Whenever a message comes to us from a mass media outlet or from a friend’s social media post, the media literate individual seeks to know what underlies each claim.
The question is not whether you believe it. The question is: On what grounds is a message in the mass media or in social media believable?
Now that people are constantly using technology and even wearing it, it is becoming more difficult to separate messages mediated by professionals, who pledge ethically to adhere to disseminating factual information (such as most journalists), from poorly-supported, opinion-only content or outright misinformation, which may be spread far and wide by friends and family.
We are living in a media age where we may not trust our own family members’ social media posts. Things they think are important might not only be unimportant to us, they might be distasteful or even wrong. There are real-world consequences to sharing misinformation on social media platforms. Question the sources’ sources. Talk to people in tangible spaces apart from social media platforms, and you can learn to see what is supported by fact in the physical world and its digital networks.
The Bad Dynamic
Your media choices matter. In the network society, when mass media content is ubiquitous on mobile phones and is often projected into public spaces, it can be difficult to differentiate between your independent preferences and the opinions you are encouraged to carry by advertisers who constantly bombard you.
Without human interaction outside of the deluge of electronic information, it can be nearly impossible to figure out for yourself if what you like is a response to the quality of the media content or if you are responding to carefully targeted marketing campaigns.
The system of checks and balances in which you can compare your real life experiences to what you see and hear in the mass media may break down. A pessimistic view is that we may enter a constant state of depression on a social level because we are cognitively incapable of comprehending all of the information presented to us and we lack ways of taking regular “reality checks.”
Feelings of isolation and inadequacy coupled with cognitive overload create the potential for a host of social issues. Additionally, the images we see in ads and the perfected versions of themselves people present on social media usually do not reflect applied critical thinking.
The “bad dynamic” that comes into play is one where glossy identities are carefully constructed and protected while our real identities rapidly disintegrate. We may establish a society where many people have identity issues, and those issues are constantly worsening. It may seem at times as though we are headed for a massive collective mental breakdown.
What good is media literacy? Thinking critically about the mass media and content spread on social media helps us critique constructed images and accept our own shortcomings. If we look for ways to relate to one another besides our overlapping common culture interests, we may find deeper connections are possible. We can share imperfections and tackle doubts, but only if we acknowledge them in our media world first.
What follows are a set of mass communication theories arrived at through the analysis of facts and data by thousands of scholars over the course of nearly 100 years. As an academic field, mass communication is young, but there are several theories, or guiding abstractions, that can help us to see how our society is structured and what roles the mass media play in society at all levels.
Critical Media Theory
There are many critical theorists among mass communication scholars. They work to develop better analytical theories that teach us how to analyze messages in media systems and the mass media and help us to discuss with clarity what is beneficial and what is harmful to society.
Academic work is about digging deep. Scholars will often analyze one medium at one period in time to explain how certain groups or ideologies are depicted.
Marxist critical theory questions the hierarchical organization of society — who controls the means of production and whether that control benefits society or only small groups of people. Every society has and needs leaders, and one of the most important functions of society is to manage a functioning economy. At question in Marxist critical thought is how the rules of each economy, including the global economy, are set up. Do they benefit most people? Do they allow for merit to be rewarded? Do they create a system of fair competition? Are they set up for collaboration and mutual benefit?
Most scholars who apply critical theoretical models would hesitate to call themselves Marxists. Marx was both a scholar and a revolutionary, a term which academics rarely self-apply. Most Marxist critical thinkers suggest changes that society could make to be more inclusive and fair for a greater number of people, but what is fair will always be debated. There is no single line of Marxist thought. There is a small number who demand complete change in the global economic system, and there are thousands of critical theorists calling for more narrow or specific changes based on their observations in their areas of expertise — not just mass media analysis but all kinds of social analysis.
Historically, Marxist thought has been employed by dictators, often using mass media channels, to take power and often to wield it in horrendous ways. Marxist thought also guides the reasoning of some mainstream economists who help manage social democracies, which historically garner more good will than dictatorships. Scholars working with the critical theoretical point of view often note broad ways for society to improve as well as practical solutions that might help (although getting leaders to listen is another matter). Making cogent arguments and convincing people to hear them are very different things.
That said, ideas about questioning hierarchies and asking for whom social systems really work are still central to modern critical theory. This is what Marxist critique in media studies is all about: looking at symbols and underlying messages in all forms of media and discerning what purposes they serve, and asking whether they represent exploitation, corruption or any other social ill often found in closed hierarchies.
Symbolic Interactionism
Another critical theoretical perspective is symbolic interactionism. The general idea comes from George Herbert Mead and suggests that people assign symbolic meaning to all sorts of phenomena around them. Our behavior is guided and influenced by our perceptions of reality and the symbols around us.
Mass media extend and limit our senses. When our senses are extended, we can become overwhelmed by the amount of information coming in, so we look for symbols, and we categorize ideas according to those symbols to make the messages easier to understand.
We sometimes apply the symbols ourselves, but in many (or even most) cases, the people editing messages in the mass media purposefully use symbols as a shorthand way of communicating. Not everyone understands every symbol or perceives them the same way. Symbols have a cultural context, but this is not much of a limiting factor in American society where there is a vast shared common culture and targeted marketing can tailor which images to deliver to which individuals.
You are encouraged to think critically about the symbols you see and ask whether they are meant to manipulate you. We will not stop using symbols in communication; however, if you ask, “Why am I being shown this symbol at this time,” you can take a practical step in critically analyzing media.
An example would probably help.
When asked to come up with an advertising campaign, college students often select a familiar category of beverage: energy drinks. RedBull uses the symbol of wings to show that an energy drink can pick you up and help you to move more quickly through your work. You can fly where you had stumbled. But that is not the only reason associate wings with Red Bull. Wings are a symbol of angels, saviors, and other powerful beings. If an individual has reservations about consuming something that may be unhealthy, moral symbolism and images of power are designed to subconscious guilt or misgivings.
It is up to you to critique images in the mass media as you see fit, but you should develop the skill and practice applying it.
Agenda-Setting Theory
Agenda setting is one of the most simple mass communication theories to understand, and it is one of the most widely cited.
It argues that the mass media tell us what to think about. In other words, the mass media help people to set their own agendas.
The idea is not that mass media companies come up with a specific agenda and then preach it to the masses; rather, mass media outlets learn what people are interested in and find similar topics based on what has been learned in the past. Then, the messages that appear in the mass media tell audiences what topics they should care about and how to prioritize them.
This is a dynamic process, and there is no evidence of a singular media agenda. All one needs to do is to flip through cable television news channels to see vastly different points of view presented to mass audiences at all times.
Instead, agenda setting highlights certain topics and stories and those topics become the public’s agenda based not only on what appears in the mass media but what people accept, care about and share more widely.
Messages in the mass media may or may not succeed in directing us how or what to think, but with great success, they tell us what we should be thinking and talking about.
The examples are easy to find. Many mass media outlets talked more about Ebola during October of 2014 rather than the midterm elections. People came to discuss Ebola more often than the elections despite the fact that the election might have a more direct effect on them than Ebola ever would. The assumption may be that professionals in the mass media are pushing an agenda about a scary world, but in most instances, they are promoting news they know people care about based on previous responses to similar topics.
For an agenda to be set, messages have to appear in the mass media, and they have to be accepted by massive numbers of audience members. The acceptance of messages in the mass media is known as salience. Here is how agenda setting theory works: Various mass media outlets have agendas for coverage that they develop. It may take years for a film company to develop a brand. News organizations change their coverage agenda several times a day. An agenda is just a list of issues a media outlet wants to discuss and a prioritization of those issues.
Research has shown thousands of times that those agendas are passed on to audiences. This is tested by surveying people about what issues they think are important and comparing that list to the issues that had been in the news and entertainment media in the weeks before taking the survey. The topics and the relative levels of priority are often (but not always) passed along.
Agenda setting still works even as the processes of de-massification continues, but the influence of mass media outlets may be diminishing. The theory is based on the assumption that there are mass audiences all consuming similar messages, but mass audiences are diminishing. That said, the messages people share on social media between one another often originate in mass media channels.
Gatekeeping Theory
Gatekeeping theory describes a practice where a person acts as a filter, deciding what information will be disseminated for public consumption via the mass media. A good example is an editor in a news organization looking at many stories from a newswire.
Newswires put out hundreds of stories per day. The same newspapers that publish wire stories from other areas may contribute stories to the newswire if something interesting to a broader audience should occur. Only a handful of wire stories make it into a TV news broadcast, onto a newspaper’s website or into the paper itself.
In television news, producers act as primary gatekeepers. Only a dozen or so national and international news stories make it into the average big city daily newspaper, where the task falls to an editor. The person with the job of selecting and editing wire stories for a news organization has to decide which news stories are noteworthy to the local audience. The practice started in the 19th century with the marriage of the telegraph to the newspaper, and it continues as text, images, video and information graphics are shared through digital networks.
The way gatekeeping works has changed significantly over the past two centuries. Now, we often think of gatekeepers guarding a gate with no fences because on the internet anyone can post almost anything. Mass media news outlets are no longer people’s only major source of news and information about the world. Social media platforms carry both messages produced by both mass media outlets and individuals free to share almost whatever they like online. Of course, sharing something online does not guarantee it will be popular. There are plenty of YouTube videos with very few views.
And where there are mass audiences, there is still plenty of gatekeeping going on. Humans do much of the work planning what goes into major newspapers and network news broadcasts as well as entertainment products for that matter.
On social media platforms and in search engine content, however, the task is increasingly managed by algorithms — sets of procedures or rules for computers to follow.
In the future, we expect to see fewer human gatekeepers and more gatekeeping work done by recommendation engines and the like. You are unaware of the full extent of Netflix’s available content because you only see what your preferences suggest you should see. The same is true for Google searches and advertisements pulled from databases filled with vastly different ads designed to target different individuals at precisely the right time.
There is also a new theory to be aware of that concerns the flip-side of gatekeeping. “Gatewatching” describes people who consume all sorts of news and other information and who stay current with new information as it arrives. It is as though they are watching professionally produced media messages come out of the gate and then almost immediately these media consumers post links to Reddit, Twitter, Facebook or other social linking sites and social media platforms.
Gatewatching is when someone takes a message already published, by professionals or amateurs (but more often by professionals working for mass media outlets), and shares it for others to see. It is not uncommon on Reddit to see stories from the national and international media ranked alongside funny cat videos and random thoughts people had in the shower. On the one hand, putting the power of gatewatching in the hands of users is a way for people to set agendas for one another. On the other hand, information-as-popularity-contest can promote biased views and can shut out not just what is politically unpopular but what people consider to be boring, which severely narrows the scope of discussion.
Try to consume mass media or social media for a day without seeing or hearing about pop music stars, Kardashians, major sports figures or odd news from far-flung places. It is a challenge, even if you tailor your social media experience to avoid trending topics.
Framing Theory
Framing is a basic mass communication theory with widespread implications. It suggests that the way a news organization (or an entertainment producer, for that matter) frames a story is purposeful and meaningful and can influence how people think about the topic. A news frame refers to the way a story is presented including which sources and facts are selected as well as the tone the story or message takes.
An example is the period leading up to a war. If the United States has plans to go to war, it can be framed as a risky proposition, a patriotic endeavor or a morally righteous thing to do.
For any major news story, there are usually a few dominant frames that emerge. The author of this text was a television reporter at the time of the buildup to the Iraq war, and our station framed the issue as a matter of patriotism. There were patriots and there were protestors. Our station built a “Wall of Heroes” to display photos of marines, soldiers, airmen and sailors killed in action. While any given story about the buildup to the Iraq war might have been objective, the decision to build a display wall framed our coverage in a certain way. The display remained on view for approximately 18 months. The station then stopped keeping track in that highly visible, demonstrably patriotic way, even though the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continued for 15 more years on a reduced scale.
Whether you agree or disagree with the idea of remembering those who died in Iraq through local television news broadcast tributes, the point is that stories are framed by how they are covered. It matters what sources are selected for news stories and which sources are left out. It matters which terms are used and how prevalent they are. Framing analyses delve into news content to identify various themes and to show which ones receive preferential treatment.
Surveys of news and entertainment media consumers will reflect which frames were most salient; that is, not only which stories but also which frames stay in the minds of audience members.
Limited Effects Paradigm
A paradigm is a collection of theories from the social sciences, which are themselves collections of facts supporting an abstract idea meant to explain the phenomena of human behavior. A theory is supported by empirical facts. It’s not the same as when your buddy shotguns three beers and says “You know…I have a theory.” Social scientific theories are meant to be big ideas that help predict behavior or the results of certain behaviors.
In the field of mass communication, the limited effects paradigm is so-called because there are different kinds of theory relating to different media that all show the same thing: It is a complicated task to tie one set of messages to massive shifts in human behavior. Even small shifts in behavior like deciding to purchase one smartphone over another are only partially influenced by messages in the mass media. There are simply too many other factors influencing behavior to say that a certain set of mass media messages caused behaviors across a mass audience.
Influence is another matter. The mass media work in tandem with other social stimuli to influence all sorts of behavior. If there were no influence, there would be no reason for mass media advertising or government propaganda. It is because they work that both are a constant presence in the global mass media environment. At question is how much influence certain messages can have and under what conditions is the influence stronger or weaker.
The limited effects paradigm started as a response to theories such as the hypodermic needle theory. After Germany lost World War I, mass communication was just starting to emerge as its own discipline. One of the first theories American scholars of mass communication had was that propaganda infects a population like a needle injecting a viable virus into the body.
Scholars thought that propaganda turned Germany into an imperialistic, nationalistic country (that is, Nazi Germany), but propaganda never works that easily. When the Nazi Party unified the country between World War I and World War II, a large portion of the population, welcomed the shift in social policy, despite the accompanying racism and violence. It did not take as much convincing for many Germans, as many in the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust would like to think. Using many kinds of authority, the Nazis committed atrocities. Mass communication enabled it, but the theory that propaganda could, more or less by itself, create that kind of situation has not held true. There were social weaknesses and social structures in place that paved the way for the Nazis, who could not have risen to power by media influence alone.
This does not mean that the mass media have no effects. It would not make sense to argue that communication permeates society and then to suggest that it has little to no effect on people. What the limited effects paradigm suggests instead is that information does not sway people as often as it is assimilated into existing patterns of thought. And those patterns of thought are shaped by all sorts of social forces, not just mass media campaigns. To reiterate, other social forces at play include religion, family, education, economic status, health, crime and incarceration.
Changing people’s minds is difficult. Motivating behavior is difficult, and there are many variables guiding human behavior. Thus, the core concept is that the mass media have limited effects on society. Small effects are measured in mass communication studies all the time, and influencing thoughts is generally understood to be easier than influencing behavior.
Limited Capacity Processing Model
The Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP), which we’ll call the Limited Capacity Model for short, is a theory that states that our cognitive abilities are limited, so we are unable to process all of the information that we see, hear and read.
Since we cannot perceive and understand everything, parts of our brain act as filters that either disregard information, very rapidly process it according to our long-held assumptions, or force us to pay attention to it. We can force ourselves to pay attention to information as well, but it is difficult (which you might notice while reading textbooks).
The theory goes deeper than this and explains how we process information when we do attend to it. The three stages are encoding, storage and retrieval.
Encoding is when you voluntarily or involuntarily pay attention to a message and its underlying symbols.
Once attention is paid, a message can be stored, or, recorded in our memories. Not all messages are easily retrieved, or, recalled when we wish to remember them.
Some are retrievable only in part, or they may be altered in the storage and retrieval process. There are voluntary and involuntary types of encoding, and what we store and how we store it has a lot to do with what is already in our minds. It is generally easier to store something when it connects to familiar thoughts.
All of this amounts to a quantitative approach to studying memory in the context of mass media messages. It does not presume effects.
In fact, since a message has to be encoded, stored and retrieved before it can influence behavior, the limited capacity model is part of what explains the limited effects model.
Even if we had all the useful information in the world, our brains could not store and use it all. Thus, even the best advertisements, political campaigns and in-depth news documentaries are up against the limits of our minds.
Keep this in mind as you think critically about the messages you see and share. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You_(Poepsel)/1.03%3A_Media_Literacy_and_Media_Studies_Research.txt |
“Walt Whitman once said, ‘I see great things in baseball. It’s our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us.’ You could look it up.” — Annie Savoy, played by Susan Sarandon, from the film Bull Durham
More than Merely Movies
The LA Times did look up the reference quoted at the end of the film Bull Durham and found that Whitman’s sentiments were represented more or less accurately. What appears in the film is a distillation of a longer paraphrase—made by Horace L. Traubel, a noted Whitman biographer—of a statement Whitman probably did make. The line in Bull Durham captures the essence of the quote, even if it is a paraphrase of a paraphrase. This is often what great films do. They take what is available in reality and distill it down so viewers can understand it the first time. When you make a copy of a copy, things get blurry, more difficult to decipher. Films often do the exact opposite with elements of culture. They reduce present reality and essential past experiences into distilled intertextual products—mediated messages that combine various types of text into one.
A movie combines moving pictures (video, film or animation), sound, graphics, special effects and, of course, written text, which is most often spoken as dialogue. It can be delivered as a disembodied voice speaking over video in what is called a voice-over, or text can appear in graphic form as actual text on screen. Each element from video to sound to graphics and special effects is considered a text. The various texts are sewn together in a multi-layered story.
Movies are popular because of the stories they tell and the way they tell them. The most popular films have a compelling narrative, fantastic special effects, great cinematography, supportive, realistic sound effects and often a great score. Compiling and combining texts for mass audiences in major motion pictures is incredibly difficult to do well, but with digital technology, many millions of people can create intertextual stories on their own.
Whether you are a YouTube producer or enjoy making Instagram stories every day, you can be an intertextual storyteller with tools readily available on the mass market. The “readily available” part calls to mind the concept of bricolage, which in intertextual storytelling means taking the images, sounds and words readily available to you, along with the recording and editing tools that are also available, and making stories intended for others to appreciate.
This chapter covers the film industry and bricolage together to emphasize that all mediated messages, whether they are an individual’s latest Instagram production or a major motion picture studio’s latest multimillion-dollar gamble, are exercises in bricolage.
This chapter first discusses film as an industry and as a modern mass media platform. It goes on to examine the potential cultural influence of filmmaking and the implications of this potential for filmmakers. The chapter unpacks the concept of bricolage in the context of filmmaking. Finally, this chapter considers the role of passion in crafting messages for mass media audiences.
Filmmakers are some of the most passionate, creative people in the mass media industry. They balance knowledge and skill in managing many types of media production. At their best, they are enthusiastic about storytelling and about professionally mastering many aspects of the art form. At their worst, filmmakers (including producers, directors and others in the industry) are controlling manipulators who apply their efforts recklessly and for personal gain. There is a reason some of the worst outrages leading to the Me Too movement happened in the film industry. It is an industry where powerful people, usually men, have for too long used their power to do awful things without repercussions. This issue will be addressed before the chapter’s conclusion.
A Brief History of Film
This section draws heavily from a text called Movie-Made America by Robert Sklar who points out that popular films in America were the first modern mass medium. Since this text considers the penny press the first mass medium, it will be necessary to clarify. The penny press arose around the end of the First Industrial Revolution. By the 1830s, many people in newly-developing nations had left the agrarian life and moved to cities to work for wages in some form of manufacturing. The penny press was identified as their mass medium because large numbers of people consumed the same newspapers at an affordable cost. They shared collective narratives about what was happening in the world that editors considered important. (Readers were privy to the agenda-setting function of the mass media; however, the penny press was often a regional mass medium. Different city, different paper.)
Fifty years later, the Second Industrial Revolution progressed with advancements in the textile, steel, automotive and war industries, which continued through World War I and World War II. Sklar argues this industrialization made the film industry viable. After working 10- or 12-hour days to keep up with demand and to make enough money to survive and perhaps thrive, people were looking for quick, easy and relatively affordable entertainment. Motion pictures shown on big screens in theaters built for sizable audiences fit the bill.
What made filmmaking a mass media industry was the ability to show the same film to large audiences again and again. Films also presented a new way of telling stories. Early filmmakers experimented with the art form and actively sought to make their work different from anything that had come before. In art and culture, a purposeful break from the past is one way of defining modernity. Thus, film was the first modern mass medium. The very first movie parlors, however, were not capable of projecting film.
Early Moviegoing
According to Sklar, when the film industry arose at the turn of the 20th century, films were first exhibited as short motion pictures viewed in kinetoscopes. In the image of the kinetoscope shown in this chapter on a book’s cover, you can see an open cabinet. Inside the cabinet is a long, winding film. To watch a movie, you would lean over the top of the closed cabinet and peer into the viewfinder. It cost a nickel. Most often, immigrants and working-class people frequented nickelodeons, which is what the parlors and theaters housing kinetoscopes were called. In the United States, film brought American culture to immigrants and immigrant culture to other Americans in an exchange that helped foster social change.
The Developing Movie Industry
Nickelodeons were not profitable enough to sustain the industry in the long term. Recognizing that showing films was more profitable when movies were projected for many viewers at the same time, filmmakers rushed to create films that looked best in that format. When film was taken out of the box and projected on large screens, it opened up the medium to become the mass market industry it is today. From the perspective of theater owners, it was better to show one film from one protected projection machine to an audience of paying customers than to have people fill up a parlor and wait in line to climb on top of the equipment one at a time. As film became a mass medium, concerns over content and the medium’s potential to influence public opinion grew.
Movie Ratings
In the 20th century, producers quickly learned that motion pictures could be the most powerful propaganda tool in the world. By bringing modern messages to mass audiences, films were (and still are) able to shape public opinion through culture. Their reach extends beyond influencing trends: Films are massively popular emotional and educational cultural products that can influence the shape and direction of social structures.
Early on, messages in the medium were not subject to government or church approval, which concerned the leaders of these institutions. The battle for control over the industry has never stopped. The current rating system used in the United States is a voluntary system. That is, the government does not censor films. The industry regulates and censors itself through the maintenance of a movie ratings system, which is not without controversy.
Because films can have massive economic, cultural and social impacts, it should always be expected that powerful groups will try to exert their influence over this medium.
Movies and Culture
There are dozens of journals that examine the relationships between film and culture. Films influence popular culture, group culture and just about everyone’s personal culture. If your professor or instructor were to name an abstract emotion, a major industry or a popular sport, you could probably think of a film that deals with that aspect of culture or society. Think about gender norms, religious sensibilities, economic inequality, gay rights, militarism, environmentalism, family values, popular history, patriotism, cultural violence, liberty, race, global technology, artificial intelligence or sheep farming. There is a movie for almost every group culture. Social issues often drive filmmakers, but they may also pursue stories about popular issues to attract the broadest possible audience. Filmmakers often balance the desire to highlight the social and cultural issues they care about with the need to make money in a global cultural industry.
Filmmaking Practice
The American film industry employs more than 2 million people, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Filmmakers and studios are protected by the First Amendment to discuss almost any topic they choose. The marketplace is often a more limiting factor than other forms of social or cultural influence. Many great stories are not made into films because it is too costly to produce a major motion picture to risk box-office losses. It is the right of the film studio to pursue profits, but many filmmakers consider their work a vocation or calling. The driving artistic and economic forces often compete wherever movies are made.
Filmmakers today gain experience by making commercials, music videos, television shows, independent movies and even web series posted directly online. Young filmmakers rarely work with actual film. It is far more expensive to shoot film than video. The most common format at the time this book is being revised is SD (secure digital) media. The file type and codec depends on the camera. Many filmmakers shoot video on DSLR cameras and enjoy the ability to switch lenses for different conditions or effects. This type of media can store large files, and in the future SD storage may increase as high as 128 terabytes per card. As video quality increases, so does the need for greater storage capacity. Video formats such as 4K and 8K are known as ultra high definition. They enable filmmakers to capture and show incredibly detailed images.
Successful filmmakers not only have to know the tools of the trade, but they must also be good at networking. Films may cost up to a billion dollars to make and to promote. Filmmakers must demonstrate they can work well with others before a studio will take such a large chance on their talent. Because so much social and cultural influence and financial risk rest on a few flagship films each year, the controls are generally only given to proven filmmakers. To truly represent the voices of women, minorities, immigrants and other cultural groups in our society, there need to be pathways in the industry to producing, directing and promoting major films. For example, even before news broke about the many women who have been sexually assaulted in the industry, Hollywood had drawn mass attention for problems with industry sexism. Perhaps for the industry to be a better place for women personally, it needs to be a better place professionally. For this reason, there must be a variety of industry entry points if Hollywood is truly going to offer diverse points of view told from diverse groups of people. An entry point is a position in an industry that an individual can use to gain the experience needed to move up the career ladder. All of the technical skill in the world is of little use if there are not pathways to powerful positions.
Storytelling
Filmmaking tools and practical career preparations give options and opportunities to professionals, but they do not make films better by themselves. In other words, a technically skilled filmmaker might still fail because the industry is about storytelling. You might like a film with great special effects more than you like one without any, but the development of a new special effects technology does not make every film that employs it a good one. You can probably think of a bad movie with relatively good special effects (Spoiler alert: Lots of Michael Bay). Likewise, there are great classic films with almost no special effects. The tools are only as good as the people wielding them.
As suggested, films can play an important social and cultural role. They can communicate political agendas and can push issues to the forefront of media attention. Filmmakers and studies, on the other hand, may also go out of their way not to make political statements. Whether a film communicates directly or more subtly, the most successful films combine great technical skill with a combination of trusted and innovative storytelling techniques.
A key goal of movie marketing is to make people anticipate a film so much that they feel they have to see it on the opening weekend for fear of missing out. For people who do not often go to movies, one key indicator they use to judge a film’s success is its rank at the box office. It takes the support of both regular movie fans and those who only see a few films a year for a movie to be a true blockbuster. The best and most successful films combine great technical prowess with innovative but approachable storytelling. The best filmmakers have to be able to get professional work out of hundreds or even thousands of people working on a single project. They must be able to manage actors, special effects crew members, film crews and marketing professionals, to name a few. Filmmakers must also have a sense of the interplay between texts. The best storytelling is multifaceted and emotional but sufficiently connected to reality to be relatable.
Bricolage
Every motion picture that succeeds at being intertextual — that is, every film that combines a variety of types of text into a tapestry for audiences with a good story behind it — is a matter of bricolage. The term “bricolage” is related to the French word for “tinkering” and calls to mind the word “collage.” Most readers of this text will have made several collages in school with the idea being to create art or to depict a concept using available materials rather than drawing or painting something from scratch using a single medium. Bricolage refers to a do-it-yourself tinkering process where you make something new out of other things.
You might argue that new films are made with new technology, not existing film clips or video files. You might also point out that special effects, 3D projection, and IMAX technology are not cheap, and the materials to make modern blockbusters are not going to be found simply lying around. You would be correct if movies were only storage media they are shot on, the computers they are edited in, and the 3D glasses you wear in the theater. But in reality, every film is made with limited resources using the existing tools and the talent available at the time. Every film is, to some extent, a pastiche, a reference to the films that came before. Bricolage is about taking the tools, materials and talents available to you, tinkering with them and making something different that has its own meaning. It is like a college student making dinner from leftovers. Turkey and Swiss cheese with pancakes for bread? Why not? Throw some chili on it. Wash it down with a light beer. Bricolage.
Some bricolage is better than others. Major motion picture filmmakers do a kind of bricolage. They simply have more expensive tools. Often, it is said, films are written three times. First, the script is written. Then the film is shot and brought to life by the director, actors, film crews and effects crews. Finally, a film is rewritten in editing. This notion that films are written as scripts, revised in the shooting process and written a third time in the editing booth comes from this video summarizing how the original Star Wars was saved in editing. Filmmaking is a collaborative, iterative process, which means it may take many people many tries to create a successful story.
The Limits of Passion
Some students will be impressed by Quentin Tarantino’s assertion, “I didn’t go to film school. I went to films.” It is tempting to think that all you need to know about filmmaking can be learned by watching films. That is certainly the start of developing a passion that can drive a career, but there is a case to be made for a formal education.
College is where you learn how to think strategically. You learn how to work with other professionals-in-training. Working through college for four years or more, you gain stability and personal connections. You may not all end up as filmmakers or mass media professionals, but the critical thinking and problem-solving skills you learn from a liberal arts background prepare you to evaluate sources of information. You learn how to ask where people selling you a story got their information. If you learn how to learn, how to analyze media critically and how to make your own work as professional as possible, you will be prepared for shifts in the industry that might otherwise sap your passion.
Passion is like a pit bull. It can be a friend, companion and protector — something to rely on when times are tough. Passion that is mistreated, ignored, or that knows only about the darker, more violent side of life, can get out of its owner’s control. There is no specific, perfect formula for cultivating your passion. Choose one and apply it in every college course you possibly can. If your education works for you, your passion can be tamed and it will always with you.
Before he was known as a screenwriter and before he had directed anything, Quentin Tarantino was doing more than just watching movies. He worked with people who made films. His work at a production company enabled him to get his script for True Romance to film director Tony Scott. Without his production company experience, no one would have cared that he knew everything there was to know about kung fu movies and westerns. He would have been a very knowledgeable video store clerk in a world where video stores were about to die.
So Wrong for so Long
When Uma Thurman talked about Harvey Weinstein’s attempts to sexually assault her, she told a story dozens of other women shared about Weinstein’s abusive, criminal behavior. The prevalence of sexual assault in Hollywood was a driving force behind the global Me Too movement of women as well as men sharing stories of sexual assault and abuse. Abusive behavior, mostly on the part of men in the workplace, has been tolerated in Hollywood and in other corporate and institutional cultures for far too long. Sometimes it was even joked about. Most often, it was allowed to be part of the business of entertainment.
In a better future for film and other forms of media making, sexual assault would not be tolerated, and people of all genders and backgrounds would support each other against those who abuse their power to reinforce their dominance and for sexual gratification. Laws did not do enough to protect women from predators, but speaking out has started to make a difference in a culture that has tolerated harassment, abuse and rape. For the film industry to truly be one of free expression and thoughtful cultural and social meaning-making, it cannot be a place where more than half of society is objectified and dehumanized regularly.
Uma Thurman also noted in her opinion article about Harvey Weinstein that she was objectified to the point that Quentin Tarantino pushed her to risk her life when shooting a car chase scene. Her story was about sexual objectification and assault but also about the way men, in particular, devalue women in many aspects of life. If Hollywood can change, its stories change too and the social and cultural impacts of that movement would be felt like waves emanating from this time for future generations. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You_(Poepsel)/1.04%3A_Film_and_Bricolage.txt |
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” Groucho Marx
Television Revolution
When you talk to a parent, grandparent or great-grandparent about life at home before television, they will probably tell you that they listened to the radio and read books, magazines and newspapers. They may also mention spending time together telling old stories and listening to music on a record player.
It is no wonder that when television was first becoming America’s medium of choice in the 1940s and ’50s, plenty of thoughtful people questioned the influence it could have on society. Television’s least-common-denominator sensibility concerned many, and some thought the entire entertainment industry was trying to turn the country Communist. Concerns about propaganda abounded. The previous chapter briefly covered the powerful cultural impact films can have. Of concern during the Cold War was that television would take that same power into people’s homes on a platform that was constantly updated and sometimes broadcast live. Just as with film, the battle for control over the influence of television has existed as long as it has been a mass medium. It is difficult to underestimate television’s cultural impact.
Besides those who saw television as a threat to spread Communism throughout the West, there were others who were not so radically against television but who preferred to talk about the importance of reading instead. They saw television not as a tool of the intellectual, global left but as anti-intellectual. You will still encounter people who voice with pride — and often an air of superiority — that they do not own a television. They imply that everyone else may be rotting their brains, but not their family. Condescension about the television and its content dates back to the dawn of the medium. Groucho Marx, depicted above, was an early film and TV star, and even he joked about the lack of quality programming. Of course, television isn’t all bad. At every stage of the medium’s development, there have been thoughtful, intelligent shows and there has been dreck — that is, waste or trash that serves to fill time but not to inform meaningfully.
This chapter discusses the nature of television content as the medium evolved throughout the second half of the 20th century. It then briefly discusses the role of the television industry in society by examining the ways we watch TV and its possible impacts on our health. Finally, this chapter covers the medium’s influence on popular culture and explores how the 2000s and 2010s may have brought about the golden age of television while simultaneously opening up pathways for audience collaboration and shared cultural influence in what is perhaps the most culturally influential medium in human history.
Television Content in the 20th Century
This is a not dichotomy between the good old days of quality mass-market television and the modern garbage made to fill airtime on hundreds of digital channels. Rather, there has always been a dichotomy between informative programming and shows made purely for entertainment and distraction. As with all dichotomies, the boundary between the two is blurred.
Not every show on the low end of the intellectual spectrum is dreck. Even intellectually stimulating programs have moments of pandering. Television content generally strives to be popular and profitable first, entertaining second, and informational third, if at all. Consider some of the top-rated shows of each decade in the 20th century after television became popular. There were informative, educational programs and there was silly and mundane fare in each decade. The 1940s saw the debut of Meet the Press, a news discussion show that is still on the air, as well as Howdy Doody, a children’s puppet show that set the tone for future children’s programming but lacked some of the educational elements that came with Sesame Street and similar shows. In the ’50s, the masterful journalist Edward R. Murrow led a journalistic team of titans with See it Now, a classic news documentary show. But he also hosted Person to Person, a celebrity profile show that bordered on tabloid TV. In the 1960s, Murrow made Harvest of Shame, a revolutionary television documentary about the oppression of farm workers. In the same decade, Mister Ed featured a talking horse that cracked jokes through a barn door. Producers persuaded the horse, a gelding named Bamboo Harvester, to “talk” by putting peanut butter on his teeth. At issue is not the existence of silly shows but their relative popularity. For every major in-depth documentary about poverty in America or some other heady topic, there were at least a dozen sitcom series that portrayed a peaceful, suburban, consumption-driven life even as American society underwent cultural and social upheaval.
In the 1970s, the sitcom M*A*S*H gained great critical acclaim. It showed that a television show could entertain and inform. It satirized the Vietnam War through comedy, although it technically was a depiction of the Korean conflict. The show discussed war propaganda, PTSD, the honor of service and camaraderie in battle. It ran for 11 years, longer than the Korean and Vietnam Wars put together. M*A*S*H can be compared to another classic ’70s sitcom, Three’s Company, a farcical show about three single people living together as roommates in post-60s sexual revolution Santa Monica, California. Both shows depicted social and cultural change, and both aired successfully for decades in reruns, but M*A*S*H represents television in rare form, both entertaining and poignant.
In the 1980s, Hill Street Blues was a serious, police drama that demonstrated the difficulty of fighting crime in an unnamed modern American city by tackling deep subjects and showcasing a gritty production style. In contrast, Married…with Children was a purposefully shallow show designed to offend by depicting a grotesque caricature of an American family. Hill Street Blues ran for seven seasons. Married…with Children ran for 11. In the 1990s, Homicide: Life on the Street depicted grit, violence and crime fighting in Baltimore in the vein of Hill Street Blues. Homicide was based on a non-fiction book titled Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon. Simon went on to create The Wire, one of the top-rated television shows of all time that also depicted crime and crime fighting in Baltimore. While Homicide was popular, Friends dominated American pop culture and had a global influence. Friends showed an imaginary version of New York where six twenty-somethings, some of whom had no discernible employment, could afford spacious apartments and daily lattes. This is not to take issue with shows that paint a rosy picture of life. Instead, the point is that popular television content is made to entertain, not inform. The most entertaining and popular shows of the 20th century were not poorly made, nor were they necessarily detrimental to society as mainstays of the culture. They were, however, usually void of thoughtful social content. Television, the most popular mass medium in the world, often serves to distract.
Television and Society
The shallow nature of some of the most popular television content in the 20th century raises a broader question about mass-media content in capitalist society. Can we expect a media system based on profit-making to focus on serious issues? Perhaps we should not expect the majority of television content to be informative or to treat social issues with nuance. After all, in the chapter on film, it was noted that hard working people attended movies in part because they craved instant gratification and movies were affordable. In the early days of television, the television set was expensive, but the content was free and delivered over the airwaves from broadcast towers to antennas. To make money in this media environment, producers considered popularity first. Advertisers supported the medium and cared above all else how many “eyeballs” they could reach.
Scholars will often suggest that a “balanced” television diet is best. In other words, we should not expect for-profit television producers to forego revenues to deliver mostly informational content. Rather it is on us as consumers to seek out quality programming and limit our “guilty pleasures” when viewing TV. Ratings suggest most people are just fine watching shallow television, and many will binge-watch TV for days. As consumers, we will probably have more success holding ourselves to better consumption standards than we will have trying to hold producers to more positive social standards. In a crowded marketplace of broadcast, cable, satellite and streaming television, quality content stands out.
Industry Shifts
Cable television started as a way to reach rural consumers and grew, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, into a nationwide service delivering paid content. It presented more options and a trustworthy wired connection — but at a cost. As cable networks consolidated into monopolies, costs went up and service quality often declined. Still, most Americans continue to consume broadcast and cable television. Market penetration of some form of television service, including over-the-air TV, stands at almost 96% according to Nielsen, the television ratings specialists.
According to industry estimates, pay television services (such as cable and satellite TV) are now in fewer than 80 percent of U.S. homes as people begin to “cut the cord.” Broadband internet service now reaches more than 80 percent of homes, suggesting that it is displacing paid television service. American cable consumers may be comfortable transitioning to broadband because so much television content is now available online. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO GO and other broadband-based streaming services deliver television content with high production value. YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch and other streaming services deliver niche video content. Certain platforms for television delivery may be in decline, but consumption of video content remains strong.
Television’s impact on society is debated by scholars. Long-term studies have associated higher rates of television viewing with lower rates of high school completion. Watching television has been shown to make attention spans shorter. Media studies scholars do not agree on whether television “cultivates” a sense that the world is a violent, scary place, even when crime rates are low. Findings for that hypothesis seem to depend on how each study is carried out and how data analyses are structured. Alternatively, educational television can have a positive impact as an intervention for children in poverty. Too much television has the potential to affect us negatively. Doctors often recommend limiting screen time, particularly for children. The way we consume television has changed a great deal since the medium was introduced.
Appointment Viewing versus Binge-watching
Appointment viewing refers to the phenomenon of people watching television shows at the same time each week or each day. When most people watched television broadcast over the air or on cable, they generally had two options. They could watch the show live as it aired, or, once the VCR was invented, they could record programs to watch later. A major concern during the mid-20th century when appointment viewing was most popular was that people might not watch serial narratives on television because they would have to wait a week between episodes. If they missed an episode or two, they could feel lost and stop watching the show.
Thus, appointment viewing and episodic TV went hand in hand for a majority of shows during the 20th century. Episodic television shows usually featured a different story with each episode. Soap operas, however, were serialized. They told an ongoing story with several threads, and each episode picked up where the last one left off, but they aired almost every weekday, and the stories were not known for being complicated.
The logic against making serial television dominated the 1980s and 1990s, but in the 2000s dramatic shows such as The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, MadMen, Deadwood, Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, Six Feet Under, Lost, 24, Homeland, Game of Thrones, Westworld, Stranger Things, and The Handmaid’s Tale became increasingly popular. DVRs (digital video recorders) and streaming services contributed to the popularity of these dramas and to the habit of binge-watching — consuming several hours of video content in a single viewing or in a very limited time frame.
The upside is that many shows now present intricate plots with long-building character arcs. Many former filmmakers, screenwriters and actors now prefer to do television rather than film because television allows for more intricate storytelling. Not everything in popular television needs to have the potential to reach a global audience interested in action, superheroes and sexy, simplistic love stories. While it is true that many independent films pursue visual storytelling as an art form, such releases are limited. In many ways, television (including shows broadcast on streaming services) now leads the way in attempting to make cultural and social impacts. Of course, instant gratification television still exists. So-called “reality television” is still popular, as are game shows and myriad live sporting events, but it can still be argued that the highest form of the visual storytelling art may now be seen on the small screen.
Television and Health
Streamable television content may be as socially relevant as ever, but it encourages binge-watching, which can contribute to health problems. The content itself might not harm your health, but binge-watching and general overconsumption lead to unhealthy sedentary lifestyles. Researchers have found links between increased television viewing and obesity, smoking rates, and generally low fitness levels. Netflix, Amazon and Hulu are engaged in a fierce competition to create the most binge-worthy content, which means that binge-watching is not going away any time soon. Again, mitigation of the social impact of television will fall on the consumer’s shoulders.
Socially, television is an incredibly powerful medium. Most media studies scholars agree that it has the potential to enable shared social understanding. Televised images of atrocities helped encourage the Civil Rights Movement and the end of the Vietnam War. Educational and informational programming is required of broadcasters, and many consumers find valuable shows amidst the information glut; however, the future of television might be darker than the present age of quality and variety.
As television content moves online and streaming services become more popular, there is a massive corporate push to give internet service providers (ISPs) the kind of control over content that cable television providers have had in the past. The end of net neutrality could make streaming services more expensive, and though it is not likely to happen rapidly, internet access could be divided into tiers of websites and web services with ISPs charging more for the most popular sites. If the most binge-worthy, least intellectually valuable content becomes the affordable option for most people, the social impact of the new internet-television regime could be negative for generations to come.
Television and Culture
The cultural impact of television could be implied from the discussion of content through the decades. Regular television viewers make connections with storylines and characters. We can consume an eclectic mix of video content or focus only on the genre that interests us most. There are hundreds of digital channels and seemingly endless amounts of streaming content available at all time. The question is not whether there is something interesting to watch but what type of content interests us the most. There is more to the medium than the dramas and distractions of the 20th century. There is no single television culture emerging in the 21st century since mass audiences have an incredible variety of choices; however, for children of the 20th century, there are many shows that millions of people hold in common. Thus, we are transitioning from a time of a shared “TV culture” to a time of various digital content cultures.
For children of the 20th century, television is so ingrained in our culture there are shared references to shows that have not aired for 20 years, and there have even been shows about watching TV. Specifically, the HBO show Dream On depicted a grown man who recalled old television shows when his short attention span sent him off into daydreams. Popular television shows in 20th-century American culture were so familiar to mass audiences that there are still common tropes from as many as 50 years ago that most viewers would recognize. The image of the dull husband and his feisty wife echoes through the decades from The Honeymooners through The Simpsons, King of Queens and Family Guy. The crime procedural has been so popular for so long, it often seems as though an entire generation of TV stars have made at least one appearance on Law & Order. Other tropes are noted in “The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular,” another example of television culture referencing itself.
We now use all manner of devices to connect to television content. Over-the-air television is gaining in popular support as people cut the cable cord. Streaming services, as stated, are beginning to dominate the landscape. Smartphones and tablets offer ways of consuming streaming television as well as amateur video programs as well as the opportunity for a second screen experience, which refers to watching something on television and interacting with the show or with fans of the show on social media and other Web platforms. The convergence of media platforms opens up new ways of engaging with video content and the people who produce it.
The cultural implications of participatory or collaborative television — the phenomenon in which content producers work with the audience to produce, alter or enhance content, including to decide the outcomes of televised competitions — are not yet known. It is expected, however, that the practice will continue to grow. Audiences often enjoy having a say in the direction or the outcome of a program. Digital platforms measure audience engagement as something they can market to advertisers, which encourages the practice. This also puts some responsibility on the part of consumers to positively influence the content they help shape.
As television and broadband internet services merge, it is worth noting that the prediction of the union of television and computers is as old as the personal computer. Internet-ready televisions might have become more popular than add-on streaming devices such as Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Roku, or Google Chromecast, but television manufacturers hesitated to add full internet functionality for fear of viruses. Also, consumer demand for connected TVs was not strong enough for manufacturers to offer built-in technology. For the consumer, it matters little whether the television connects directly to the internet or whether a relatively inexpensive add-on is needed. In whatever manner you connect to converged digital video content — that is, the media products formerly known as television — you have access to perhaps the most influential cultural tool in history. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You_(Poepsel)/1.05%3A_Television_through_Time.txt |
“I definitely wanted to earn my freedom. But the primary motivation wasn’t making money, but making an impact.” — Sean Parker, Napster co-founder, Spotify board member and former Facebook president
The Recording Industry as Harbinger of Digital Disruption
By reputation, the recording industry is rife with schmucks and cheats, gangsters and goons. It is also one of the most important cultural industries of all time. Popular music reflects and shapes our culture, provides a soundtrack for our lives and loves, and builds the emotional framework for our best and worst moments. Some music producers have a reputation for being unscrupulous and for caring more about making money than making music. Mob involvement in the industry is well-documented. This is not to say that the industry is completely corrupt; it is true, however, that corruption is an ongoing problem.
Still, most of us have a favorite genre of music and at least a dozen favorite artists. It is rare that you will love a film but hate the soundtrack. It is more rare, perhaps, to find a person who cannot tell you which songs were popular when they were in high school and what kind of music they would like at their wedding reception. For a speed run through the history of popular recorded music, check out this video. The link goes to a YouTube presentation tracking the “Evolution of Popular Music by Year.” The list of performers can be found in this blog post, which notes the gender balance in pop music over the years, as well as a few other brief highlights.
This chapter about recorded music focuses mostly on the changing industry. But as you consider the industry from an academic perspective, don’t lose sight of your relationship with music. What you enjoy is an expression of yourself and of your personal culture. Preserving the emotional impact of music should concern us all, even if we are more or less enthusiastic about preserving the old order of the recording industry and the interests of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Recording Industry History
The RIAA built a reputation for suing individual users of file sharing sites for making songs protected under copyright available to other users. A discussion about recorded music in the digital age quickly becomes a discussion about copyright. The RIAA is a trade organization. It was formed to protect record labels and their products. It fought file “sharing” — the free digital distribution of music files, most often in MP3 format — with limited success in the early 2000s. By suing consumers for making music files available online, the Association cracked down on digital music piracy somewhat, but it also angered a generation of music consumers. Around the same time that the RIAA became known for suing users for sharing music, it was sued for alleged antitrust violations related to downloading services the industry had launched. Specifically, record labels were accused of artificially inflating the prices of music downloads on services they had established. Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided to let the case proceed in 2011, it appears from an exhaustive web search that the case is still pending. Music distributors lost a separate \$143 million case that found they illegally inflated the price of CDs in the late 1990s. The RIAA is both a staunch protector of artists’ copyright-protected material and a monopolistic trade group.
A Detour Through Disney to Discuss Copyright
View the video below for a unique take on what copyright is and how it currently functions. The film does not argue that the illegal downloading and sharing of music files is fair use, but it does suggest that intellectual property copyright protections might be designed to protect corporate profits over creative endeavors.
Screenshot from “A Fair(y) Use Tale,” a YouTube video discussion of the concept of fair use.
There will always be a battle between creators, who value the disruption of previous regimes in favor of developing new products on new platforms that remediate previous works, and original producers, who want to preserve the right to earn money from their creative works. As a reminder, remediation is taking existing media content and concepts and using them in new media platforms. It may include mashups of existing content, sampling, stacking and compiling. Remediation works with many forms of media, but much of the content that cutting-edge creative producers want to use is still under copyright. At issue is under what circumstances is remediation considered fair use of material under copyright and under what circumstances does remediation violate copyright. This text does not offer a simple answer. Please note, however, that this text itself is presented on an open platform with a CCBY copyright license. The author was not paid for creating this text, but if others can rework parts of it into profitable products, that is allowed. This ensures that this text will always be available for all to use, repurpose, build on or subtract from. The author works in a nonprofit academic setting, and the incentive is to earn tenure by publishing this and other works. This form of publishing under a Creative Commons license is growing in popularity, but it cannot be expected of those working in for-profit media industries.
At the root of copyright law is whether a new work hurts the market value of the original work (assuming the original is not yet in the public domain). This question is sometimes settled on a case-by-case basis. Before students as would-be disruptors begin to think the system is unfair, they must remember that their own products will be protected by copyright. Weak copyright law makes it easy for works to be altered slightly and republished with little or no gain going to the creator. Aspiring mass communication professionals often find themselves tied in conceptual knots over how to think about copyright law. A few suggestions: Obey it without letting it stop you from producing works you love. Work around violations and assume your digital work will be open to disruption and copying the moment it is made public.
The film Downloaded directed by Alex Winter (Ted of Bill & Ted fame) documents the battle between the founders of Napster and the RIAA in the first major intellectual property battle of the digital age. The entire recording industry was shaken up by young college students who identified as hackers. The RIAA won the battle against Napster but lost the war against digital music sharing and the formation of digital music platforms. Apple’s iTunes legitimized digital music sharing. Spotify and Pandora created legal means for people to consume mass amounts of digital content for free. For a fee, you can usually access most of the music you want, and you can create playlists from massive music databases that put pre-digital download music collections to shame.
On the other hand, there has been something of a backlash against digital music downloading as a new generation of audiophiles discover the LP record as a means of owning physical copies of the music they love. Records can be owned and cherished, but they are also cumbersome. Digital music is ubiquitous but the sound quality is often lacking, and maintaining a digital library takes effort and often an investment in cloud storage. One way or another, if you want to hold onto recorded music for your own personal use, you are probably going to have to pay. Even if you use YouTube as your own personal music collection, when you search for a specific song you will often pay with your attention by watching pre-roll ads.
The recording industry and many artists would argue that of course music should not be available for free. It costs time and effort to create popular professional music. On the other hand, the recording industry is notorious for not paying artists. Much of the money to be made in professional music comes from live performances and merchandise sales. An option for artists is to release their music for free and use it to garner attention and bring people into live shows where they can sell apparel, artistic LPs and CD box sets to “true” fans for a greater percentage of the profit.
As consumers, you should be aware of where your money goes when you pay for music and who benefits from the attention you pay to advertisers when you do not pay for music. The popularity of Pandora and Spotify helped drive radio broadcasting conglomerates to act more like streaming services. The iHeartRadio app, for example, is a paid app that gives you a digital connection to a host of radio stations. It takes something that was free — over-the-air radio — and makes it a paid service, albeit with added features and convenience.
The broadcast industry will be discussed more in the next chapter. For now, it is enough to understand that in the history of broadcasting in the United States, there is a long tradition of production and distribution companies either directly collaborating or being one and the same. The people who made radio also made recorded music or had close relationships with those who did, and they could determine what music and other programming went over the air. This is different from agenda setting where messages in the mass media can set the bulk of the public’s political agenda. This is a matter of keeping messages off the air that are considered too disruptive or radical. In some countries, the airwaves are directly regulated by the government. In the U.S., closely watched monopolies give the appearance that the government is not censoring music, but in essence, the monopolies do it for them. Before there were Napster “pirates,” there was pirate radio. The freedom for an individual to play the songs they want to play when they want to play them over the airwaves for public consumption has not existed since the very early days of radio. Consider this the next time you build and share a Spotify playlist (or, if you’re old school, make a mixtape).
Music monopolies existed with government support and were justified as being necessary, particularly during times of war when leaders wanted to keep tight control over messages. When political will built up in support of splitting mass media monopolies in favor of protecting the intent of the First Amendment, antitrust laws were used; however, if history shows anything it is that powerful people in media seek to consolidate their power. In other words, we should expect music broadcasters to attempt to form monopolies, even as existing radio broadcasting conglomerates such as iHeart Radio face hard times.
Music, Culture and Lessons of Disruption
The film “Downloaded” is more than just a history of Napster. It briefly traces the transition of the media field from an industrial manufacturing production model to a digital service model. The next few sections of this chapter explore this evolution.
The implications of this shift are difficult to explain in a few passages, but some important details are the social nature of Napster; the rhetoric of “sharing”; the age and sophistication of the innovators in the Napster versus RIAA case; and the response from industry bosses, artists and the public.
The recording industry is one of the first media industries to undergo this dramatic change in their primary focus from producing tangible goods to producing digital media and trying to profit from it at similar levels. It was difficult for the established corporate interests — especially the record labels, record executives and the RIAA — to switch from the industrial production of CDs and other materials to the production of digital music for download and streaming.
The transition was disruptive for the creators of Napster too, who took years to recover after losing to the RIAA in the epic lawsuit covered in the Downloaded film.
The recording industry was not by any means the last industry to be challenged by digital technology. It is necessary to very briefly trace the history that undergirds this discussion for readers to understand what is meant by “manufacturing model” and “digital service model.”
Industrial Production and Media
As referenced in Chapter 4, the industrial manufacturing boom in America and the mass media revolution took place at about the same time.
Before the manufacturing boom of the early 1900s came the early Industrial Revolution. It took approximately half a century to take shape, beginning in the late 1700s and continuing through the early 1800s.
Steam power became viable in the mid-1800s. Electrical power was used in manufacturing in the late 1800s, which further accelerated the revolution. Electricity production and its application increased immensely throughout the 1900s.
The Industrial Revolution was largely made possible by a shift to capitalism. It was often a matter of rapid and dangerous development, but at times, manufacturing growth progressed more steadily. A lack of regulation under capitalism has helped manufacturing to grow quickly in some parts of the world, but unregulated manufacturing takes a toll on people and the environment.
Average incomes increased greatly during the Industrial Revolution, but so did wealth disparity.
One thing media professionals should note is that averages do not always mean much to the average person. If average gains for a group include a small group of very high numbers and a large group of low numbers (a long tail, so to speak), average gains are not really felt by the average person.
At any rate, economies built on manufacturing grew rapidly. Between World War I and the end of World War II in the United States, manufacturing grew incredibly quickly and successfully. Radio’s first major use was not to broadcast music and news but to coordinate ship movements in WWI. After WWI in 1919, the United States helped facilitate the development of the Radio Corporation of America to take control of the industry away from Guglielmo Marconi’s corporation. Marconi, who played a major role in the development of radio broadcast technology, went on to support fascism in Italy. RCA in the USA had a government-protected monopoly, but it must be noted that control over broadcast technologies is about more than commercial interests.
Strategic military interests also depend on advancing communication technologies. Government entities and private corporations are always locked in a dance of control over emerging and developing ICTs. Entrepreneurs can get caught up in the dance or, perhaps worse, be left without a partner and without access.
The Modern Era started with the end of World War II in about 1946. Modern communication technologies from recorded sound to the telephone, radio and television continued to develop in part as military technologies, but the products of recorded music and later on of videotapes were manufactured goods. Prices could be set in a monopolistic environment by the respective industries because owning the music or the movie required someone to purchase a physical copy.
Before the digital revolution, there was a transition to the service economy.
Manufacturing vs. Service
The mindset of the mid-to-late 20th century was one where manufacturing mattered most. In 1960, for example, the split between manufacturing and service jobs in the US was about 40 percent manufacturing and 60 percent service.
This means that 40 percent of the jobs were ones where people made and sold goods. The service economy had more people in it, but manufacturing jobs paid better and provided a base of consumers for the service and manufacturing economies to build on.
As of 2010, the split was about 15-85. That is, only 15 percent of U.S. jobs are currently in manufacturing. The other 85 percent are in the service sector. The globalization of labor and communication has made this possible. Specifically, large multinational corporations can now coordinate multiple levels of manufacturing in many places at once. Communication aids this process. So does the ability to transport materials and finished goods cheaply using oil-based fuels.
The downside of having access to cheap goods is that wages are stagnant in the US. Without good-paying jobs, there is not as much money in the consumer economy as there was. This explains why personal debt is at an all-time high.
With the loss of manufacturing jobs, states do not have the same income tax base that they used to, so they often drastically cut support for colleges and other services. This is part of the reason why college costs more than it used to. The transition to the service economy played a significant role.
Is this text suggesting that you push for a return to manufacturing and give up on the service economy? No. In fact, the service economy as it developed in the late 20th century may be coming to an end.
In the United States, the manufacturing model of media production still holds much power in the recorded music, newspaper, magazine and book industries. It would be foolish to ignore that power, but it would be more foolish to tell you to prepare for those modes of production when your working world may be two evolutions beyond the manufacturing age.
From the Service Economy to the Information Economy
Although it is difficult for people accustomed to a manufacturing economy, the transition to the service economy makes sense in the network society. What is perhaps most difficult to comprehend is that even major service industry sectors are being disrupted by digital technologies.
As a society, we have shifted our focus from making and selling goods to providing services. The service industry includes computers and technology writ large; the health industry; tangible trades such as plumbing and carpentry; the restaurant, tourism and hospitality industries; as well as for-profit education.
Of major concern now is that our society and economy are not yet fully adjusted to a focus on the service economy even as it is being disrupted by digital technologies and the information economy.
This is the point of studying the recording industry at this stage. It was doubly disrupted, if you will. It did not just shift from a focus on providing manufactured CDs to a focus on services. If this had been the case, it might have looked like a renewed focus on live performances and music curation in the form of niche radio broadcasts and even personal music advising. Instead, it is as though the industry skipped a step from the transition to the service economy and shifted directly to the information economy. The information economy is one where manufacturing and services still exist, but they are dependent upon information and communication technologies for strategic planning capabilities, managing transactions, the moving and storage of currency, and, ultimately, for the ability to automate as many tasks as possible. If a task is information-oriented or is simple enough to be broken down into a few automated steps (such as driving a taxi — I mean an Uber), it probably will be.
What will be left for workers? Consider the recording industry. Live performances can make money. The production and sale of merchandise (often specialized or limited in nature) can turn a profit. You can do a complex task with tangible goods or you can learn to manage the systems that automate digital work. In other words, if you can master not only mediated message production but also platform maintenance, you might have a job with growth potential.
You can find work in fields that marry manufacturing to the information economy or that merge the service and information economies well. This is your choice for a job with a future. High school and college guidance counselors may or may not articulate this clearly, but this is what industries that have already been disrupted by the information economy have to teach us.
Get a Jobby-Job
What are some examples of the marriage of the service economy and information economy in the mass media field? Spotify has already been mentioned. Facebook does not produce content. It provides a service where all sorts of content produced elsewhere can be shared.
Facebook is the Napster of news. It often goes unnoticed, though, because news content on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms stand alongside all other types of messages, professionally mediated or not.
The point is that it pays to be a platform rather than a content producer. The experience with the information economy that we have in the mass communication field suggests that the best bets for developing, getting, and holding jobs in the network society is to work in fields providing services of convenience and personalized attention.
Today, people expect personalized products, or better yet, the ability to personalize products or experiences for themselves. If you go to work in a media company, you will likely spend much time looking for a happy medium in which people feel personally attended to but your company does not have to make a new product for every consumer.
Reddit is a good example of a customizable platform that interests individuals and all kinds of social groups. That said, even successful online communication platforms struggle with growth and profitability. A company’s financial success is necessary to pay good wages to a large number of employees; this, in turn, provides for a successful middle class, bolsters the consumer economy, and supports the service, manufacturing and information economies. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You_(Poepsel)/1.06%3A_Music_Recording_Sharing_and_the_Information_Economy.txt |
“We thought we were doing this little experiment, and it became this huge thing.” — Sarah Koenig, host and co-producer of the Serial podcast
Podcasting Echoes the rise of Broadcasting
The Serial podcast is a true crime drama that calls into question the efforts of Adnan Syed’s defense attorney as well as several elements of the case against him. Syed was convicted of murdering his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee in January 1999. The podcast analyzes, among other things, the use of a questionable timeline and questionable witnesses by prosecutors as well as the failure of Syed’s defense attorney to use a witness who could have provided him with an alibi. As of 2018, Syed expects to get a new trial, but listeners are split on whether Syed is guilty. Among other issues, the podcast questions whether Syed’s alibi would hold up in court. The story was released in serial fashion (that is, one piece at a time), in the autumn of 2014. Listeners were enthralled. This podcast more than any other helped establish the platform, and advertisers learned that podcasting could be a viable mass medium.
The ability to engage with murder mystery stories is not new. Serial dramas have appeared since the early days of mass book publishing, but basing a podcast around a real-life murder adds an element of voyeurism that makes some question the podcast’s social impact. The reporting was journalistically sound, but what happens when online audiences dissect real tragedies? Such podcasts are potentially dehumanizing for the story’s subjects even as they show the platform’s potential. The social and cultural reach of podcasts now rivals that of radio. It is a broad reach indeed.
This chapter discusses the history of radio broadcasting including its potential as a tool of propaganda, the relationship between radio and the music industry, the social reach of broadcasting, as well as the rise of podcasting. Finally, persevering podcasts have something to teach us about how to make successful digital products and brands.
Radio’s Reach
Radio is more than the music or “talk” you are stuck listening to because your auxiliary cable shorted out. It is a means of transferring great numbers of messages, most of which are created and disseminated by professionals, to large audiences. Radio does more than entertain and inform mass audiences. It enables other industries (such as shipping and delivery services) to work efficiently. The technology serves police and other first responders, as well as various military functions. This is not to mention the cultural aspect. Pop music on the radio was for almost a century the soundtrack of American life. Across the world, people make a tradition of gathering around their radios to experience the World Cup, particularly in areas without reliable satellite television or broadband internet service. Historically, radio was the most reliable medium to experience global events. Listen to this update from the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and imagine what it might have been like to experience the game from half a world away. The power of radio broadcasting is to connect people instantly across vast spaces. As a broadcast medium, it helped shape modern society and culture. Radio brought huge audiences together to listen to the same programs at the same time and made it possible to sell airtime, which would not exist without the medium. In other words, radio created what is now an \$18 billion advertising industry out of thin air.
Radio Propaganda
Radio created a market where there had been none, but there is a downside to the reach of broadcasting. Radio’s mass appeal and quick adoption in the developed world made it possible to influence the public opinion of whole populations at once. One of the most disturbing uses of radio was to spread Nazi propaganda before and during World War II. With the technology, the Nazis could reach across national boundaries and try to gain sympathy in German-speaking communities across Europe. The Nazis also made it illegal to listen to broadcasts from other countries, particularly Great Britain. Broadcast technology has the power to influence and mobilize masses of people, but it is important to reiterate the limited effects paradigm (covered in Chapter 3). Several cultural and social forces have to be at play for messages in the mass media to help mobilize people to commit genocide. While radio can be used as a propaganda machine, people still have to believe the propaganda. Mass media broadcasting is a tool. It can be used for good or ill, and the conditions and proclivities of the audience affect the level of influence the broadcast media can exert.
Broadcast Technology
Radio waves can transmit sound and speech. Radio communications have helped direct ships and armies and win world wars. Broadcast radio intended for mass audiences created a need for information that was not present before. With radio, news can be instantaneous. People heard about developments in World War II as they were happening, which was not possible only decades earlier during World War I. Some thought this would bring an end to war because people would be too close to the pain and devastation of large-scale conflict to have the stomach for it. This proved to be an insufficient deterrent.
World-altering promises are made with the introduction of almost every new mass medium. Similar things were promised with the dawn of television and the spread of home internet access. James W. Carey calls the notion that communication technologies will bring about peace and understanding the “rhetoric of the electrical sublime.” New communication technologies do not lead to social utopias. They are both beneficial and disruptive.
The technology of radio followed the development of the telegraph. The world was already connected. Telegrams communicated complex messages in series of dots and dashes, but by working wirelessly, radio seemed more like magic. In recent generations, the spread of wi-fi internet access and wireless electrical charging give some sense of what it felt like to experience wireless radio for the first time. With the development of small, cheap batteries, the transistor radio brought rock-and-roll wherever the audience wanted to go. Radio made the instantaneous transmission of mass messages portable.
In the early days, though, radio receivers were prohibitively expensive and large. They were pieces of furniture that, for the most part, only wealthy early adopters could afford. David Sarnoff, who led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and later NBC, was one of the first to envision commercial broadcasting. He was instrumental in the development of commercial radio receiver production. It was necessary to generate demand first. In the early days of radio, broadcasters tried all sorts of things to make use of this new medium. Plays, opera performances and live music performances were broadcast.
As radio receivers became household items and radio broadcasts became more reliable, radio broadcasters (the large ones in particular) demanded better industry regulation. In the United States, regulation favored commercial outfits over public broadcasting. In other countries like the United Kingdom and France, regulations gave the government more control and responsibility for reaching audiences. To this day, public broadcasting is still more popular and influential in Western Europe than in the United States. Listen to this BBC Radio documentary about the Beatles to get a taste of British public radio. In the U.S., Regulation of the airwaves by the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) and later the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) helped settle who would broadcast on which channels, but the most powerful broadcast towers in the world are of little use if people do not tune in.
According to Vinylmint (also linked above in reference to David Sarnoff), the marriage of recorded music and radio came after radio had become a popular medium for delivering live music and the Great Depression had killed the value of many record companies. Three developments helped to establish the ratio as a popular, immediate, in-home mass medium: the development and promotion of affordable radio receivers, the popularization of radio through broadcasting live music and radio dramas, and the marriage of the recording and radio broadcast industries.
Broadcasting’s Influence on Recorded Music
In the early 20th century, sheet music was more popular than recorded music. When sheet music was shared widely, certain songs gained popular status. This is what defined pop music from the 17th through the 19th centuries. The radio was invented around the turn of the 20th century with contributions by Guglielmo Marconi and Nikola Tesla, among others. Then, in the 1940s and 1950s, pop music as we know it was born. Much of pop music in America was first performed by black artists and was then appropriated by white artists. Blues, jazz and rock-and-roll music all originated in black American culture. There is a long history in pop music of artists from a dominant social group taking someone else’s cultural expression and profiting from it.
Different types of music have qualified as pop music throughout the 20th century. Jazz, rock-and-roll, psychedelic rock, R & B, disco, glam rock, metal, grunge, rap, electronic dance music and other forms too numerous to categorize have all qualified as “pop” and have often competed with one another for dominance. Changing technologies drove changing tastes. The addition of the electric guitar, synthesizer and computerized sampling are just a few key developments of the 20th century. Radio broadcasting brought technological advancements in sound into homes, and the recording industry relied on radio to promote sales so that people could own the music that was most meaningful to them. The disruption that altered the recording industry is covered in Chapter 6. Podcasting did not disrupt radio broadcasting. In fact, podcasting in some ways revives radio traditions, such as the successful radio personality, the for-profit news and talk show, and shows with a deep appreciation for niche music. In the late 2010s, the most profitable content on broadcast radio is conservative talk radio. It is bombastic and often mean-spirited, but it is popular among a relatively powerful sector of society: older, white men. Podcasting opens up avenues for all manner of expression. The audience for a podcast selected at random may be small, but in the aggregate, there are millions of listeners, and this platform for audio communication is growing with young audiences just reaching the age where they have some disposable income.
Podcasting
The term is derived from blending “iPod” and “broadcasting,” although Apple no longer manufactures the iPod and most podcasts are not broadcast over the airwaves. Because alternative terms such as “mobile audio blogging” do not exactly roll off the tongue, “podcasting” remains in popular use. Podcasting can be traced to the popularity of blogging in the early 2000s. Bloggers wrote about niche topics, and some of them developed sizable followings. Podcasting is in some ways a natural extension of this form of direct communication with organically cultivated groups. It caught on with wider audiences in 2004 as broadband internet penetration increased rapidly and as more and more people owned iPods or iPhones capable of storing and playing back several episodes at a time. Expectations for podcasting as an industry rose and fell for about a decade until 2014. This article in Wired notes two important occurrences that year. First, the Serial podcast demonstrated podcasting’s ability to reach beyond niche audiences to become a truly national media phenomenon. Second, Apple created a separate iPhone app dedicated to downloading and listening to podcasts, which help boost the prominence of the entire field.
Many of the top podcasts are National Public Radio shows rebroadcast or repackaged in podcast form, but several successful shows originated as podcasts. This list of some of the top podcast episodes of all time draws from a wide variety of topics, including health, money, mindfulness and communication. Like magazines, cable television and niche news sites of the past, podcasts often develop in niche environments. Only a tiny percentage reach mass popularity. Here is one of 2018’s top podcasts about the state of the War on Terrorism. You can find it online as part of a visual presentation, on iTunes or via other podcast apps. The methods of accessing podcasts vary widely. Even novice smartphone users can find podcasts through popular apps. Podcasts rise to popularity by word of mouth or by reaching enough critical mass that they are referenced in other media platforms. We often learn about live music based on which bands are popular locally and regionally. Instead of being organized geographically, podcasting is often organized by topic. Comedians, talk show hosts, academics and other experts, scientists, engineers, philosophers, writers, musicians and many others have podcasts serving various functions. Their podcasts may or may not be promoting other products, services or digital media properties. They may be fiction or non-fiction. What links the vast majority of podcasts is they begin as passion projects. They are cheap to produce and free to download, and they grow niche audiences before, sometimes, making it big. Podcast advertising will soon be a \$500 million industry. Observations on what helps a podcast thrive can teach us the keys to success that we expect will translate to a variety of emerging digital media platforms.
“Superbug” Media
Podcasting as a medium seems to have stumbled on a sort of “superbug” model of mass media production and audience building. Think about bacteria and our unending desire to kill them with anti-bacterial soaps, wipes and hand sanitizers. Only the strongest, antibiotic-resistant bacteria survive attempts at eradication. Successful podcasts function similarly. Those that survive the media free-for-all often build mass audiences rather than tapping into them on legacy media platforms.
Superbug media products are the opposite of viral media. A virus develops and spreads via a host, and if it does not spread to another host relatively quickly, it dies. Either the host system kills it, it kills the host, or it leaves the host and dies. Generally speaking, viruses do not work in symbiosis with their hosts. We can vaccinate ourselves against viruses, and this happens with viral media messages too. If we view a new video on social media with some of the elements of viral videos we have seen before, we may ignore it. We inoculate ourselves against things that waste our time. Novelty is part of the joy of viral content. Thus, copycat content has a difficult time spreading. This makes audience-building on digital platforms difficult. You cannot reliably produce viral content. Exponentially more media products are created than go viral, no matter how hard the creator tries.
The “superbug” process is different. Bacteria can often survive without a host. They can lie dormant for years with very little to sustain them and then return to devastate populations. In the human body, there are about as many bacteria cells as there are human cells. Some bacteria are not only beneficial but also necessary. Bacteria can be localized, while viruses tend to attack an entire system. The media equivalent of successful superbug bacteria is a podcast that grows inside a niche population, sometimes rising and falling in popularity before reaching a mass audience who then looks into the back catalog to see what the podcast is all about. What follows is a summary of the nascent theory of “superbug media.” For now, it is a list of characteristics that will be explicated to conclude this chapter. This is not a media studies theory arrived at through extensive peer review. These concepts are meant to describe phenomena that appear to be happening all around us. Over time, the author hopes to publish more about this topic and begin to test these concepts as a cohesive theory built on empirical facts. That said, here is the working definition: Superbug media products are those that survive and thrive in highly competitive environments with limited initial access to traditional media resources. They are persistent, adaptive, independent, niche and symbiotic.
• Persistent
Media creators should expect to be producing a podcast or other form of a superbug media product for a year before it becomes recognized. Audiences expect good, consistent, free content as a starting point when selecting which media products to adopt and support. To have a chance at long-term survival, a potential “superbug” media product should be published at least weekly. A mix of regular themes combined with fresh guests, topics, and additional media content appears to work best. Another feature of persistent “superbug” media is that they fend off challengers. You never really know how many people are researching a certain area or producing podcasts or apps in a particular field until you try to produce your own. Often, there are many market players you were not aware of. Some may operate in “regions” of the network society or intellectual community. It is your job to know the field and to know the competition from the outset when you are striving to create a “superbug” media product, such as a podcast, a web application, a smartphone app, a niche advertising agency, a PR firm or a news agency. Whatever it is that you make, your brand needs to be ready to fend off both existing and up-and-coming competitors.
• Adaptive
Successful podcasts and other “superbug” media products adapt to new environments. They may start out as audio podcasts but later become video posts because the content demands it. They may begin with interviews or content displays from people in the producers’ close circle and then expand to bigger names and better content as the development of the media brand progresses.
• Independent
Potential “superbug” media products often begin as independent productions from makers with personal passion. That is, they start out almost entirely as products of culture and only later, with time, success and reinvestment, do they begin to resemble institutional productions that are designed for long-term survival and capable of helping their producers and owners to thrive. Some “superbug” products, brands, and even platforms might emerge from existing institutional production houses or even major corporate conglomerate media companies, but they must be given the freedom to adapt if they are to last long. This raises a question: What defines success for a superbug? There are, perhaps, three tiers of success. The first is when a “superbug” project breaks even and no longer costs more to produce than it makes. The second is when it earns enough money to reasonably support one person for a year, which is a major milestone. The third tier is when the project earns enough money to warrant hiring a number of people and occupying some space in the physical world. What has been described here might also be thought of as the process through which a cultural product becomes part of an institution.
• Niche
Growing mass audiences is different from reaching ready audiences in “legacy” broadcast settings. It helps to begin by focusing on a niche audience with the potential for mass appeal. The choice of topic is a personal one; however, what differentiates future commercial efforts from passion projects is the consideration given to market potential. Consider the topic of strategic landscaping planning: A podcast or app dealing with the issues faced when trying to manage a common household yard might grow to reach millions, whereas a podcast about formal French gardens will probably start in a niche and stay there. Neither media product is broad, general interest news, but one fits a more narrowly-defined niche. If it is your goal to produce something for your cultural passion, you can work in whatever niche interests you; for something to qualify as having “superbug” media potential, there must be plenty of room to grow.
• Symbiotic
For many “superbug” media products to ultimately reach success, they will need to join with other independently produced brands or allow themselves to be swallowed and possibly rebranded under the umbrella of a large conglomerated media company. Symbiosis comes when the small, upstart media product and the larger “host” corporation help one another to grow. Often, a large media company will have money to invest in updated equipment and marketing, but for every Beyoncé, there is a Destiny’s Child. The process of entering into a symbiotic relationship changes both the host and the “superbug.” This might be unappealing from the aspect of pure cultural production, but on the other hand, it is often helpful and necessary from the institutional point of view. Again, creators are free to produce their passion project online, but the descriptive theoretical definition of “superbug” media is that it survives and goes on to thrive in a hostile environment.
An easy way to remember this material is that it takes PAINS to build an audience on a digital platform. Cultural production is at the heart of much of what we do in the mass media, but institutional demands are never far behind for those who want to create successful products or for those who may not want to make their own “superbug” media outlets but who are looking for good places to work.
The final lesson of this chapter is this: Regardless of whether you plan to start your own media product or create a “superbug” of your own, when looking for work in the mass communication field, you owe it to yourself to look for companies that are capable of producing products and brands that can survive in this environment. At your internships and your first jobs, ask yourself if the company seems like it could produce a “superbug” if it had to. If the answer is “no,” you may need to look somewhere else for an enterprise that can create a media product with that rare mix of cultural meaning, social impact and financial success. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You_(Poepsel)/1.07%3A_Radio_Broadcasting_Podcasting_and_Superbug_Media.txt |
“All your base are belong to us.” — CATS, villain from the Sega Genesis game Zero Wing
Digital Games are Stories Users Co-Create
When the “All your base” meme spread across the internet in late 2000 and early 2001, YouTube had not been invented yet. Web videos were slow to play when they played at all, and photoshopped images designed to create jokes or memes were relatively new. But something about the meme’s use of music, mashed-up photoshopped images and familiar real-world objects resonated with a generation of young adults who grew up with Japanese video games that sometimes had odd translations when they were reproduced for the American market. Users realized that the internet, a medium that functions as a convergence of all other media platforms, was capable of making us laugh and feel nostalgic. It was capable of transmitting culture.
Zero Wing, the video game at the heart of the meme, was a popular arcade game that was “ported” to (that is, recoded for) the Sega Genesis video game system in 1991. It was not the most popular arcade or SEGA game by any means, and yet something about the “All Your Base” meme was familiar to kids who grew up playing early home systems. The graphics were familiar. The orange background flashes were commonplace, as was the look of the cyborg villain. The hastily-translated Japanese-to-English text was not unusual for games of that era. If you had grown up in the 1980s and 1990s, it felt like part of your childhood had come back. Only this time there was an electronic music soundtrack and a collection of photoshopped images. Millions got the reference in what was one of the first internet memes to gain mainstream media attention.
Digital Gaming as Digital Culture
The meme’s intent may have been to make us laugh at the old games we thought were cool when we were kids. We laughed at how much 8-bit and 16-bit graphics had enthralled us. We remembered how the gameplay had excited us and we felt nostalgia for the 8-bit or “chiptune” music. (If you want, you can make your own chiptune music here.) Video game culture was a leap for children who grew up watching television. It gave players control over the actions of characters on TV. It engaged us in intertextuality, and the quality improved as the immersion increased. The environments, tasks, graphics and music evolved. Game creators pulled users into the story. The text itself did not always have to make sense: You could still understand the story because you were part of the game. Now there are digital games that allow us to enter digital space and interact with digital cultural to make our own cultural productions. We can remake games within games. Relatively affordable access and open platforms enable users to represent in the digital world almost every aspect of life in the tangible world.
Narratives and Platforms
Video games — including arcade games, console games (often with online multiplayer modes), mobile games for smartphones, online-only games including MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) and open environment games like Minecraft — all have narratives to follow and widely varying levels of production value. They rival films as the most immersive medium in mass communication, and they can be much more personal. Both films and video games have high production values and immersing narratives, but video games allow consumers to play as an avatar and interact with the story to change the plot and the environment (within limitations). Video games now make more than double what movies make globally at the box office. Children who grow up with popular games today might not have much reason to be nostalgic 10-20 years from now because many popular games (such as Minecraft) are platforms that might remain accessible as they evolve.
If you want to learn how to reach individuals with a mass-marketed product, look to video games for guidance. By building in gaming options, character customization, extra levels and maps, collaborative online gaming and, in the case of Minecraft, broad swathes of digital space where users can explore their creativity, the same games can create differentiated, personal experiences for millions of people. Mobile games built on GPS technology such as Ingress and Pokémon GO from Niantic are a hybrid of shared and individuated experiences. Pokémon trainers can see and catch the same Pokémon in the wild. They can collaborate to fight Pokémon in raids, but some rare variants are distributed randomly, which can give players an incentive to trade with one another and engage in the game’s social aspects. Video games have cracked the code of how to be both a mass media product and a personalized experience.
The most successful mass communicators in the future will not only create products filled with messages for mass audiences. They will also create platforms and worlds where users can interact with each other and the communication environment, not unlike the world depicted in Ready Player One. The closest precedent for this might be when science fiction writers create universes with distinctive planets, atmospheres, topographies, sights, sounds, and even cultural norms and rules (as in the Star Trek universe, for example). “Choose Your Own” adventure books gave readers a chance to experience a level of choice in literature. Text-based games such as the Zork series gave computer users a similar experience. What we see now is an immersive graphical space with sights and sounds to match the imaginations of video game designers and developers. When a game is built to be its own creative digital platform or space where content can be created and shared, it becomes a space where much of the creative effort falls to the user. This can be viewed both as an opportunity and a responsibility.
Games and Behavior
Most of us who play video games enjoy a certain level of control. Video games are different from most forms of mass entertainment. Films, popular television shows, books and other works of creative fiction (besides the choose-your-own variety) tell you who the characters are, where they are located and what their capabilities and limitations are. In video games, you control your avatar. In role-playing games (RPGs) such as Dragon Age, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Divinity, players’ choices directly and deeply influence the narrative. Because these games offer a wide array of narrative paths, your choices create a varied gaming experience. While it is true that your choices in RPGs are always drawn from a finite set of options, the results of your in-game behavior give you a measure of power.
There are game worlds where cultural norms within the game are quite close to those most people experience in the physical world. There are other games where most of your actions, even negative ones, are without consequences. It is not clear that consequence-free video games create a real-world culture where people do not care about ethics or values. Time and time again research has shown that violent video games have no direct correlation with violent behavior in the physical world. Games like the Grand Theft Auto series are usually considered an escape rather than an example of how to live. Additionally, many social science and health studies suggest that we do not take cues from violent video games and practice those same behaviors in our real lives. Some studies show correlations between gameplay and short-term thoughts of violence, but this type of research only addresses temporary changes in mood. Direct impacts on long-term behavior from specific video games do not appear frequently enough in sample populations of gamers to suggest that games cause violent or other antisocial behaviors.
Then again, the long-term social influence of deeply immersive, violent games may not be fully understood. Many researchers who work with cultivation theory think there is a long-term social effect of this type of media content and behavior, even if limited experiments, surveys and other research tools have failed to capture it. Following a researcher named George Gerbner, cultivation theory scholars often suggest that changing perceptions can change cultural values over time and that those changes can lead to long-term behavioral changes. The concern is that society over time has changed to become more accepting of anti-social behaviors. Historians might argue, but there are scholars who contend that based on our mass media environment we might expect, perhaps, to reap what we sow.
Behavioral Theory
Developed by Albert Bandura, Social Learning Theory looks on its face like a “monkey-see-monkey-do” theory, but it goes deeper than suggesting we imitate the behaviors we see in the mass media. Bandura posits that our behavior creates an environment that then helps determine group and individual behavior. In other words, Social Learning Theory seems to support the big picture concepts behind cultivation theory. Bandura’s argument is that the social environment shapes actual behavior and that messages in the mass media over time create the environment; however, the argument is not that media influence must shape behavior. Media influences often moderate or influence other behaviors that were already occurring.
Following Social Learning Theory, we can imagine a dynamic where behavior shapes our social environment and, at the same time, our environment provides limits for acceptable behavior. The mass media dynamic is part of this bigger dynamic of social influence. If the idea of this dynamic is difficult to grasp, try thinking about a sports team. A team shapes each individual player’s behavior to some degree, but the players as individuals, pairs, and other groups-within-groups also influence the team, its mood, and the outcome of contests. Team influence and the environment of the group can set limits on individual behavior, but individuals are always free to excel or fail.
What does that leave us with? How do we reconcile the concepts of limited media effects with these ideas about how mass media — including many video games — shape the social environment? We have to place media effects in the broader context of the social sciences. In the study of social behavior, many factors including parents, friends, school, church, our neighborhoods, income level, opportunity and romantic relationships may influence our behavior, but they do not have to. It is not likely you will ever pin down a single cause for a certain behavior or set of behavioral trends. Instead, consider that there are many complex and sometimes chaotic social influences rather than causes. If you stop looking for causes, you can begin to look at which influences are stronger than others and how different social influences might act together to influence people. You might also consider your media environment and your own behavior as objects under your control and try to take responsibility for your consumption, your behavior and the relationship between the two.
Video Game Narratives
Besides social influences, video games make a cultural impact as well. One way that culture is influenced by video games is through the narratives they tell. All sorts of video games create stories. Whether you are playing as a plumber trying to save a princess, building a world out of blocks with little backstory, or going on an epic quest in a realm where distinctive characters have their own motivations, there are commonalities between good video games and the narratives of classic literature and film. In narrative storytelling, there are elements such as setting, characters, plot and themes that combine to make meaning for readers, viewers or users. Video games deserve credit for crafting narratives often as intricate, emotionally gripping and revealing as other forms of creative production.
Here are some questions to ask about a given video game narrative: How much control does the design of the game exert over the player and the gameplay? Are you a single character or part of a team? What is your mobility within the game, and is that a feature of gameplay?
Game design sets the stage. The narrative is the story. The two work together, and, depending on your interests, one may interest you more than the other. If you view a video game with a critical eye, you can appreciate worlds, characters and plot twists and the effort that goes into game design. If you view a game primarily as a player would, you might only see it at face value as boring, fun, immersive, and so forth. You can use almost all of the terms you use to describe great films and novels to describe contemporary video games.
Often, game design is where technological genius comes into play. The way a game environment is built matters almost as much as what you do in a game; however, we have all seen a special effects movie that was only a special effects movie. If the story falls flat, we will probably not recommend the film to our friends. Conversely, video games that start with compelling stories but have poorly executed design and functionality may be almost unplayable. The best works create compelling worlds and stories. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You_(Poepsel)/1.08%3A_Digital_Gaming.txt |
“In the very first month of Indian Opinion, I realized that the sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper press is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many of the journals in the world would stand the test? But who would stop those that are useless? And who should be the judge? The useful and the useless must, like good and evil generally, go on together, and man must make his choice.” — Mahatma Gandhi from his book The Story of My Experiments with Truth, 1982
Threats to Ethical Journalism are Threats to Democracy
Since the website Newspaper Death Watch was founded in early 2007, at least 15 metropolitan daily newspapers have kicked the ink bucket. The “death watch” site focuses on metropolitan daily newspapers — those that cover large cities or a few geographically connected smaller cities. Since small-town newspapers come and go more often and typically do not set the news agenda for hundreds of thousands of people, they are not tracked by the site. Nevertheless, any time a newspaper stops publishing it removes a vital community resource.
When people lament the decline of newspapers, it is not only the ink on paper they worry about. The loss of news-gathering staff and editors hurts democracy because our political system is built on the assumption that citizens need information to make informed decisions, to vote and to communicate with elected officials. In the United States, the professional news media are under attack by politicians, particularly those on the extreme right. As the song goes, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” Mistrust of the free press leads to the destruction of free speech and the erosion of personal liberty.
In the book The Elements of Journalism, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel write of the clampdown on the media in Soviet-influenced Poland in 1981. The Polish government declared martial law and stopped the free broadcast of news, replacing it with state-controlled media. When the state media shows came on, people protested by walking their dogs to city parks and discussing current events. They also used video cameras to create their own documentaries. They used journalism made by regular people, known as citizen journalism, to express their desire for freedom and to stay informed. Kovach and Rosenstiel argue that the Polish people used journalism to support democratic liberty.
It should not have to come to this in America. Free speech and the norms of professional journalists are worthy of popular protection. We live in a digital media environment awash with information. Only a portion of the messages on social media come from professional news organizations that work to reinforce their stories with balanced fact-seeking and fact-checking. Preserving carefully reported, factual news is in the interest of the republic. The slow journalism movement seeks to protect accuracy and care in journalism. Consider learning more about this form of news: It is both a professional movement within the mass communication field and a social movement.
News Norms
As was briefly mentioned in Chapter 1, news norms are the standards that guide professional journalists. The term “norm” refers to a behavior that rational people agree is (or should be) considered normal in society. Journalists are open about their information sources. When they do not disclose the name of a source, they explain as much about the person as they can and they explain why they are not able to say more. Journalists have two major truth strategies that they employ: objectivity and transparency. The objectivity norm refers to efforts to keep individual biases out of the published news and to consider the information presented by sources with an open mind during the information gathering process. No one is completely objective, and no news outlet is, either. Note the difference, however, between opinion content and news content coming from news organizations.
Newspapers will often publish opinions, and this is within the norms of journalism so long as it is labeled as such and it presents a fact-based opinion. Differentiating between opinion content and news content can be difficult for audience members. It is the responsibility of news organizations to explain what they are doing. This is the transparency news norm put into action. Demonstrating transparency in information gathering and publishing requires showing audiences how the news is made. In some cases, it even means inviting audience members to join in the process of reporting professional news stories. Transparency goes beyond presenting two or more extreme points of view on a news topic and calling it fair. Instead, journalists explain the epistemology of news, or how they know what they know. The evolution of news norms is in part a response to the challenges audience members face in trying to figure out whom to trust.
Evolving Ethics
Another norm in newspapers and digital journalism that is rapidly changing is the absolute separation of news and advertising. It used to be called the separation of “church and state” in news: Keeping advertising influence apart from news judgment was as essential to the practice as was the actual separation of church and state in American governance. To retain an objective point of view when covering a community, journalists often tried to ignore news organization revenues and their sources. Now, as news organizations become smaller, journalists often have to be aware of advertisers’ identities and their interests in particular audiences. Journalists have to care about the business.
It goes against codes of ethics to publish news information in direct support of an advertiser, but journalists are increasingly paying attention to what stories and topics are popular. Reactions to this development vary widely. To some, this is the death of ethics in the industry. To others, the idea that advertising and journalism were ever completely separate is a joke. Advertisers, at least in local news environments, are community businesses. They are stakeholders just as other readers are. They should be included as sources of information and opinion. At issue is how much power local businesses should wield, when they should be able to wield it, and whether anyone is harmed when they do. The calculus should perhaps be different for national news organizations who are swayed by huge multinational firms when journalists pay too much attention to the wishes of advertisers.
The concern under this new ethical line of thinking for local journalism is that now advertisers will hold even more sway than they did in the past because revenues are down and news organizations are looking somewhat desperately to sustain the work. Journalists have to work to build audiences without falling into sensationalism and without allowing advertiser influence on news content. It is a daily battle, but it will likely be essential for news organizations moving forward. Appealing to audiences, however, does not mean choosing partisan favorites and feeding audiences what they want. This is a recipe for allowing bad faith into professional news content.
Cable News, Bias and Polarization
The rise of partisan cable news channels has helped to create echo chambers where news consumers can find and then primarily rely on information that confirms their biases. Social media algorithms also feed echo chambers by showing us more content from people we already agree with. These algorithms tend to serve us content resembling what we have already enjoyed in the past, thereby creating a filter bubble. All in all, this makes it a challenge for us to consider other points of view. Combined, echo chambers and filter bubbles in a partisan information environment can create separate realities depending on the politics of groups being served.
The hyper-partisan, divided media landscape creates a problem for news organizations striving to be objective. No matter how they report the news, the facts they present may seem to run contrary to the misinformation or highly-opinionated information people are used to seeing on their social media feeds. This is not to equate misinformation with opinion content. The two are not equivalent. Deeply-held opinions can still be based on facts. Misinformation is dangerous because it is presented in bad faith. That is, the people presenting the information know it is not true and present it regardless. This is several steps beyond having an opinion. This is lying. It happens in echo chambers and sometimes bleeds into otherwise objective news outlets disguised as an equal side of a partisan argument.
What is lost when news consumers fail to think critically about the news and opinion information presented to them is not only the prestige of the newspaper and digital news industry but also the shared narrative. People used to disagree with different opinions being presented in the news, but they generally agreed that what they saw on the news was actually happening. Audiences could disagree on prioritization of information and they could take issue with the frames applied to the news without questioning whether anything and everything was “fake.” Now there is a tendency to trust what is emotionally appealing rather than what is rationally argued or factually accurate. The problem with this should immediately be obvious to anyone following 21st-century American news and politics. People are swayed by passion and opinion, and it is incredibly easy to feel informed by consuming massive amounts of information from social media streams even if those streams are filtered to appeal to our emotions.
People are often overwhelmed when trying to rationally comprehend constant flows of emotional information. The challenge for news consumers is to build and select the best filters. We must take an active role in filtering our own information rather than allowing social media and search engine algorithms to reassure us constantly. It has always been a citizen’s responsibility to be informed. It has never been easier to find information. It has also never been more difficult to navigate information flows, to borrow a concept from noted sociologist Manuel Castells. The idea that we live in an environment of information flows is meant to differentiate our information environment from previous ones where the spread of information was not both instantaneous and massive. Before the global spread of the publicly available high-speed internet access and near constant access to mobile data we had to seek out information. Now, it envelops us. Instead of pulling information into our lives like water onto dry land, we are up to our necks in information and few of us are strong swimmers.
The Importance of Journalism
The good news is that teaching people to be media literate can do something to mitigate this situation. This may be an essential role of journalists in the future. The challenge for contributing to an informed society is no longer to bring people new information but rather to help people to navigate information flows. If the task previously was to source and carry potable water for people, the job of journalists in the future may be to help people navigate oceans of saltwater themselves until we can find fresh water together.
Newspapers and their digital counterparts do not seem poised to do this work alone. The loss of jobs in the past 20 years has been devastating. Local television news outlets are often trusted more than national news outlets. If nothing else, audiences can see that the people delivering our news live in the same community, root for the same sports teams and are subject to the same weather and traffic. Generally speaking, though, local television stations do not employ nearly the number of reporters that newspapers did when they were strong.
The bread and butter for local television news is breaking news and events coverage. Reporting consistently on in-depth issues takes resources and will require a shift in focus for most local television news outfits. Investigative journalism in television newsrooms is on the rise, but having an I-team is not the same as having a half dozen reporters covering City Hall, the statehouse, the local education scene and the business community. Local general assignment television reporters often get their news from newspapers. Television reporters then look to update a story beyond what was published in the newspaper. The term for this is intermedia agenda setting, and it has been seen at the national level as well as the local level. For television stations to capitalize on the trust audiences have and help them navigate the information environment, the industry will have to evolve quickly.
Digital news organizations will also try to pick up the slack. In the 21st century, we have seen the rise of news organizations originating on the Web or as mobile apps. The challenge for BuzzFeed, Vox and other online news operations is to be taken seriously and to maintain strong enough revenues to stay afloat. The digital media environment is notorious for being good for Google and Facebook and bad for everyone else. We continue to examine alternate revenue sources besides advertising. Students interested in being well informed are encouraged to subscribe to the digital versions of their local trusted news outlets.
The Future of Digital News
The future of newspapers and digital news organizations, including the future of broadcast news (as it will be the next to be affected by digital convergence), may be to have news outlets splitting themselves into two-headed monsters. They must keep up with breaking news and be where audiences are in the network society to serve as guides in the sea of information, and they must also be socially responsible community members serving as a check on power by doing original in-depth reporting.
Tools such as Google Analytics, Chartbeat, Adobe Analytics, and others help newsrooms track how they are reaching audiences. The threat is that these tools will direct newsrooms rather than the news information itself being each organization’s compass. As a vast industry, journalism can serve with a renewed sense of purpose if it orients itself to guide rather than lecture media consumers. People eventually learn when they have been lied to, and we have the ability to create a record of who told the truth and who did not. In order to hold people’s attention, we need to perform the services they need most. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You_(Poepsel)/1.09%3A_Newspapers_and_Digital_News.txt |
“What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.” — Don Draper, fictional advertising executive from the AMC series Mad Men
Think Critically about Where Persuasion Becomes Propaganda
Advertising is a relatively straightforward process, right? Companies develop brands and specific products they want to sell. They need to make consumers aware of their brands, products and those products’ features, so they develop creative campaigns to promote them and often pay ad agencies to do the creative work and place the ads in front of mass audiences. The basic definition of advertising is a message or group of messages designed with three intentions: to raise awareness in the population about brands, products and services; to encourage consumers to make purchases; and, ultimately, to inspire people to advocate for their favorite brands. A brand advocate is someone who is so supportive of a product or service that they publicly encourage others to buy it. There are paid brand advocates, of course, but in a networked communication environment, even unpaid individuals with modest followings can become influencers — people who promote products on their social media streams. Consumers who have been so successfully persuaded to purchase and enjoy a product that they try to persuade others to buy it too extend the reach of advertising potentially exponentially.
A company is a business entity that produces several types of product, whereas a brand is a term used to label a specific product or a limited family of products. It is important to differentiate between the two. For example, PepsiCo owns the Pepsi brand but also Frito Lay, Gatorade and Quaker, among others. Under the Pepsi brand, there are several products such as Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Wild Cherry and many other variations around the world. Advertising most often focuses on brands and products rather than the companies and large corporations that own them.
As this chapter progresses, it defines the core concept of advertising in more depth. Then, it discusses the history of advertising. It defines two general strategies or approaches known as “above-the-line” and “below-the-line” advertising before examining in detail the “advertising funnel,” or “purchase funnel.” A few other basic theories are introduced. There are sections on content marketing and other forms of persuasion. The big picture of marketing is briefly addressed before the chapter concludes with sections on public relations and propaganda.
Advertising Defined
On one level, advertising is a simple concept. Mass media professionals craft messages to help sell products by raising awareness and pushing people to make actual purchase decisions, but in the network society and the age of targeted marketing, the ability to reach individual consumers who fit precise sets of characteristics is incredible. More is expected of advertisers than to put interesting messages in front of the “right people” based on general demographics. Brands may advertise during certain TV shows or publications to reach a particular type of media consumer. This more traditional form of mass media advertising is still a multibillion-dollar industry, but with data-driven targeting capabilities, brands can reach people based not only on general demographic characteristics but on specific behaviors as well. The combination of detailed demographic information, search and digital media usage behaviors and physical world behaviors (such as whether someone has entered a Walmart or Macy’s in the past week) makes advertising in the information age more powerful, sometimes more meaningful and often more ethically questionable than in the past. The level of targeting that is possible is incredible and would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. Advertising has always been about tapping into consumers’ existing needs or about creating a need and inserting a product to fill it. Now, there is a greater ability than ever to identify and create a need not only for interested members of a mass audience but also for specific individuals in real time based on their online and physical world behavior.
The History of Advertising
Before delving into a discussion about the future of advertising, it might help to survey the history of the field. Advertising in the modern sense emerged between the mid-19th and early-20th centuries. At the same time that the concept of brands was developing, mass-media platforms such as daily newspapers and radio broadcasts grew their audiences and spread their influence geographically. Corporations, conveniently, grew large enough to have massive budgets to spend on advertising. The promotion of products dates back thousands of years, but the modern advertising explosion tracks explosive growth in industrial manufacturing from roughly the mid-1800s through the entire 20th century.
HubSpot has a deck of 472 slides that presents a narrative about the history of advertising. Some highlights are referenced here. One key point made in this visual history is that non-branded newspaper ads would often outnumber branded ads in the early days of the newspaper industry. As uniformity in mass-produced goods became the norm and brand differentiation became possible, so did the need to communicate it.
Ayer & Son is credited with being the first ad agency to work on commission. In other words, it is known as the first modern ad agency. It was founded in Philadephia in 1869. Today there are about 500,000 ad agencies in the world of all shapes and sizes. They employ ever-evolving techniques to try to stay ahead of information weary consumers.
Categorizing Advertising Methods
From the mid-20th century on, advertisers conceptualized their work by breaking it down into one of two strategic categories: “above-the-line” and “below-the-line” methods. Put simply, “above the line” (ATL) refers to methods of advertising that target mass audiences on mass media platforms with messages usually designed from a one-to-many point of view. Often, “above the line” implies that the ad or ad campaign — a series of related ads meant to work in tandem — appears on legacy media platforms. (Recall that “legacy media” has been defined previously in this text to refer to platforms in existence before the transition to digital.) ATL campaigns most often include television, radio and print ads as well as sponsorships. A sponsorship is when a company pays to support an event or a mass media production in exchange for having its brand promoted alongside the activity or content. The organizing concept for ATL advertising, as the term is used today, is that the ads target a mass audience primarily on “legacy” media platforms.
“Below the line” (BTL) advertising refers to more one-on-one marketing approaches which can include targeted social media campaigns, direct mail marketing, point-of-sale ads, coupons and deals, and email and telemarketing appeals. This is not an exhaustive list of ATL or BTL methods, but these examples demonstrate that ATL has more in common with the concept of mass communication introduced in earlier chapters, and BTL has more in common with interpersonal communication, also as previously discussed. This is not to say that BTL messages are crafted one at a time for individual consumers. Rather, the tone, style and method of dissemination of BTL advertising are more personal.
In the 20th century, the term ATL advertising was associated with ad agency work (mostly mass media campaign ads), whereas BTL advertising referred to pamphlets, point-of-sale marketing and other relatively “small” tasks that ad agencies typically did not handle. Now, there are ad agencies of all sizes, and even very large agencies might do BTL marketing. Online advertising and social media marketing have made it possible to target people with personal messages but still purchase the ads on a massive scale. Thus, advertising can be massively individuated — that is, produced for mass audiences but having the appearance of personalized messages — much like social media content. The profit in BTL marketing comes from reaching large audiences with tailored messages at specific times in relation to their previous purchasing and shopping behaviors. So much data exists on individual users and on the behavior of similar people who have made similar purchases that advertisers can try to target people at precisely the right moment to influence their purchase decisions.
ATL and BTL advertising can work hand in hand. Think of a summer soft drink promotion advertised on television and on the radio (ATL) that is also backed up with neighborhood-specific billboards and hyper-targeted Twitter messages with surprise prizes given out (BTL). BTL messages still reach large numbers of people, but they are by definition more tailored than ATL ads. An individual ad in a BTL context may not cost as much as a massive ad buy facilitated by an agency that primarily does ATL advertising; however, BTL advertising can still be costly for advertisers and profitable for ad agencies in the aggregate. For example, an ad agency that does not typically manage multimillion-dollar television ad buys might still put together hundreds of thousands of dollars in targeted social media ads. Rather than displaying one commercial for several months, the BTL social media campaign might be made up of dozens of targeted videos, tweets, influencer posts and online ads. Often software algorithms are used to decide who sees which targeted ad and when.
The Advertising Funnel and Other Key Concepts
At its heart, advertising is a matter of raising awareness, creating a deeper interest in a product, and encouraging consumers to desire to make a purchase and ultimately to take action. Professional communicators tailor messages in relation to the advertising funnel or purchase funnel, as shown in the image on the left. Brands, either on their own or with the help of advertising agencies, target audiences in different ways at specific points along the funnel to reach their strategic goals. For example, if an unknown brand launches a new product, people need to be made aware of both the brand and product. The brand may need to establish itself with an awareness campaign. If Nike introduces a new Air Jordan, the branding is easily handled. The top of the funnel areas of awareness and interest will not need as much focus as the decision and action areas, the “down funnel” aspects of a campaign for a well-known and well-loved brand.
Another way to think of this is as a pathway a potential customer makes, also known as the consumer journey. First, the consumer needs to be made aware of the brand and its products. Then, they might take an interest in a particular product as they learn more about its features. They need to move from being interested to desiring a product if they are going to make the purchase. Ultimately, from the advertiser’s point of view, the goal is not only to move the consumer to purchase the product but also to inspire them to advocate for the brand. This is not conceptually complicated. The idea is to move people in straightforward steps toward desired behaviors; however, there are complex processes of cognition and persuasion that underlie consumer decisions.
Consumer behavior is about as unpredictable as other forms of human behavior. There are also ethical concerns. If a product or service proves to be harmful, advertisers and public relations professionals have to decide if and when they will stop marketing the brand. Advertising is challenging enough when products do not raise ethical dilemmas. Promoting harmful products can be damaging socially, professionally and personally. Thus, the world of consumer advertising in the mass media is more complex than the funnel makes it seem, although it is an essential strategic model in the industry. There are two other advertising concepts or theories that this text aims to introduce: the basic rule of seven and the third-person effect.
The Rule of Seven
The advertising rule of seven is a rule of thumb, or what social scientists call a heuristic, which suggests that people need to see an advertisement seven times before they act on it. Even then, there is no guarantee that seeing something seven times will compel a person to buy a certain product, vote for a particular politician or take any other consumer action. Instead, the point is that consistent messaging is a base requirement for advertising to work.
The purchase decision is ultimately a personal one. You can create the conditions and increase the probability of a product being bought, but it is difficult (perhaps impossible) to predict behaviors based on messaging. Even the most successful advertising and propaganda campaigns only constitute one area of influence on behavior. As previously stated in this text, social institutions such as your family, friends, church and workplace can influence your behavior in tandem with or contrary to what you see and hear in the mass media.
The Third-Person Effect
There is a theory in the study of mass communication called the third-person effect that says we tend to think advertising is effective but we believe that it does not affect us. Note here that social science theories are based on many observable facts. This is not a flight of fancy. Rather, this is a tested theory demonstrated in multiple studies. Here is how the third-person effect works with regard to advertising: You might think upon seeing a clever advertisement, “Sure, that ad probably got someone else to buy the product, but it doesn’t influence me. I’m a savvy shopper. I don’t just go out and buy whatever ads tell me to buy. I’m not Homer Simpson looking at billboards.”
And yet we do know that advertising works at least to influence behavior. It has measurable effects on attitudes, that is, what people think about brands. Advertising influences brand and product awareness in individuals and in groups. We can say with a degree of certainty that some people are directly influenced by some ads some of the time, and we can say that many people are indirectly influenced by ads almost all of the time. For example, you may not drink Coke Zero, but you probably know what it is, and you may know that it is now called Coke Zero Sugar after a name change in 2017. Whether you understand the logic behind the name change or you actually buy the soft drink is another question. Campaigns to make consumers aware of new brands and products have a track record of widespread but still limited success.
Now here is what’s interesting about the third-person effect. Knowing that advertising can influence people’s awareness and purchase decisions, we tend to develop a sort of double delusion where we think other people are probably affected more than they are, and we think we are influenced less than we are. Sometimes we even base our behavior on what we think other people will do after receiving a message in the mass media. It works like this: We hear a message that a winter storm is coming, and we worry that other people will be easily influenced by that news. That worry and not the original message may influence our behavior. The author of the original study noted that if there is news of a possible shortage, people sometimes buy up that item at grocery stores. This has happened as recently as 2008. Rice futures went up and up out of fear that people were stockpiling rice. So, what did people do? They stockpiled rice. Costco and Sam’s Club even put limits on the number of large bags of rice people could purchase.
How does the bread and milk effect work? Following the third-person effect theory, an individual hears about a storm coming to the East Coast of the United States. He thinks that other people are going to feel the need to go out and buy up all of the bread and milk, so, aware of the threat and concerned about their behavior, he goes out and buys bread and milk. Now the concern has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. People are, in fact, buying up the bread and milk. The question is whether they are buying it up because they are unduly influenced by messages in the mass media, or they are responding out of fear of how other people will behave. You can imagine other people foolishly thinking a winter storm is going to be worse than it is and you can think to yourself you had better buy the bread and milk before those fools, but to them, you have become the fool.
The third-person effect is also a major issue in race relations and partisan politics. We often presume that we know how individuals from other groups will think because we have seen messages in the media and we presume to know how the “other” will respond. The third-person effect is based on three presumptions. First, we assume that other people have seen the messages we have. Then, we presume that they will be influenced by those messages. Finally, we presume that they will behave in certain ways because of the message and because of our preconceptions about different groups. For the theory to work, it does not matter if the “other” is Democrats, Republicans, frat bros, Mexican people, snobby professors or slacker college students. Our assumptions can be completely wrong and we may still find ourselves acting in ways to pre-empt or counteract the imagined behavior of the imagined “other.” There are different degrees of the third-person effect. Researchers have found it is probably strongest in situations where groups have little understanding of one another and where the messages and perceived outcomes are thought to be negative (note the section on Perloff). This is not to overstate the third-person effect. Like other theories related to persuasion in the mass media the behavioral influences it identifies have to contend with other social forces to influence behavior. Still, it is one of the most interesting theories in the field of mass communication, and it can explain why people race out to buy a certain product when they perceive it to be scarce. We do not want anyone to beat us to the bread and milk.
Content Marketing
Content marketing refers to a common practice where brands produce their own content, or hire someone else to produce it, and then market that information as an alternative to advertising. It still moves people along the purchase funnel, but there is usually added value in this type of content. If an advertisement for a mattress describes its features and price, a blog funded by the mattress brand might compare the pros and cons of many different mattresses, perhaps with a bias for the brand. It isn’t always pretty. Content produced for a brand should ethically be labeled as sponsored, but it is not always done. In cases when consumers have discovered that trusted sources were content marketers rather than independent reviewers, the revelations have created public relations problems for the brands. Content marketing done ethically offers financial transparency while providing valuable information and an emotional connection to the product for consumers. It can take the form of blog posts or entire blogs. Such marketing is usually optimized for search engines, which is to say the posts are written to attract search engine attention as well as outside links, which also alerts search engines that this content is valuable. Done well, branded content can be seen as more authentic than advertising content, and it can be cheaper to produce and disseminate. It is difficult to do well, of course.
The most common types of content created in this context besides blog content are social media profiles and posts, sponsored content in social media spaces and even viral video and meme chasing. Brands might have their own social media profiles, or they might support social media influencers to promote their products in a sponsored way. Brands might also use their influencer teams or their own internal marketing teams to follow viral social media trends and to create memes. In a sense, content marketing allows a brand to create a more human profile in digital spaces. In this manner, brands can engage with potential and repeat customers. Brands can foster relationships and encourage brand advocacy among people not being paid to promote their products. Many brands use this form of marketing to engage consumers on a deep level and to offer information and emotion that might not be present in other forms of advertising.
Marketing Disambiguated
The more you study the bigger picture of marketing — which includes advertising strategies and other research efforts meant to guide advertising strategies as part of larger sales and production strategies—the more you recognize how focused advertising is. It may seem that advertising is the biggest, most important element of the mass communication industry because its revenues fuel other types of mass media production, but advertising is only one piece of the marketing puzzle. Marketing’s four P’s — often described as product, price, place and promotion (or position) — encompass much more than making messages to support brands and products. Marketing professionals worry about all four and consider advertising as just one part of the promotion category. Advertising professionals will often argue that the best branding helps define and redefine the product over time so that the product only exists in consumers’ minds as advertising has described it, but marketing gets into the business of deciding what products to make, how to promote them, whom to market them to and when to stop making them.
HubSpot, the advertising company that provided the quick history of advertising early on in this chapter also gets credit for helping to popularize inbound marketing. The idea of inbound marketing is that you bring people in to learn about your product using content marketing and then you can make sales to them in the context of a relationship where they found you rather than vice versa. In a sense, inbound marketing turns advertising upside down by building spaces and inviting consumers in to find what they are already looking for rather than trying to create a need out of the glut of information in digital communication networks. Inbound marketing is advertising’s answer to de-massification. It involves developing consistent messages and content of uses that are so compelling people will come to the brand to experience them. It is the audience-building aspect of advertising. It relates in many ways to the superbug media concept from previous chapters, and it is growing in popularity as people and companies develop new and better ways of avoiding advertising.
An established method of inbound marketing is to write a blog or develop a podcast that attracts audiences who come for information and who stay for the delicious products. To fully understand the power of inbound marketing, ask yourself if you have ever become a brand advocate. Have you ever sung the praises of your new smartphone or told people they had to try a new restaurant? If you have advocated for a brand and sent people looking for it online, you have probably become part of someone’s inbound marketing strategy. In many ways, marketing (particularly content marketing) bridges the concepts of advertising and public relations because it includes content production similar to advertising and it establishes relationships with consumers, which is the ultimate purpose of PR.
Public Relations
The history of the public relations field is often misunderstood. Many think of public relations as organized manipulation made up of corporate, political and even non-profit propaganda. It is often thought of as deception, but this is not always the case. In a society fueled by networked communications, it is becoming less important to ask what messages people receive and more important to ask what messages they seek out, according to Greg Jarboe, author of a brief history of PR. Jarboe worked for a PR firm with offices in San Francisco and Boston, two of the most well-established technology markets in the country. He argues that PR is more about creating a sense of understanding between consumers and brands and that this might be done just as well by the brand in digital spaces just as it is via other mass media channels controlled by other corporate entities. Historically, PR depended on other media platforms such as TV, newspapers and magazines to promote its content. Content marketing means this is no longer the case. Mass media platforms may still be needed to reach mass audiences outside of a brand’s collection of fans and followers, but much goodwill can be generated by maintaining a proactive, positive and professional digital presence.
While it is true that PR often tries to put a good face on companies with all manner of reputations and harmful business practices, it also serves charities, governmental services and small local businesses. Not every institutional organization can have a huge PR budget, but the practices can be taught to just about any small business owner.
The History of PR and Propaganda
At the core of PR is a simple model developed by Harold Lasswell in the 1940s. Developing an effective PR model was an important war effort during World War II when it was essential to develop theories for how propaganda worked to determine what the Nazis were doing and, if possible, how their propaganda could be stopped. Lasswell’s model asked five simple questions: who (Sender) sent what (Message) through which channel (Channel) to which audience (Receiver) and with what effect. This was a way of breaking down mass influence beyond advertising. In a sense, governmental propaganda is PR, but the client is a country. The S-M-C-R model (often attributed in that particular configuration to Berlo) is the most efficient model for understanding how to break down and analyze messages in the mass media.
Professionals and academics examine and manipulate all four components to isolate which changes correlate with which behavioral effects. S-M-C-R assumes that the sender comes first and the receiver comes last. There is a time element that must be established in researching the effects of mass-mediated messages, but the point is that this simple model of propaganda became the basis for all sorts of media effects studies. Propaganda and PR messaging does not work immediately to bring about drastic changes in behavior. Behavioral phenomena, particularly changes in behavior, are driven by many variables, as we have discussed several times; however, if you want to begin to look at an advertising campaign, film or news documentary to examine its effects, this is the model to start with.
Noise must be accounted for, and in an age dominated by the digital information glut, the opportunity for immediate feedback and engagement must also be considered. Receivers almost immediately become senders in a network. Thus, the S-M-C-R model will often include measures looking at how much noise gets into the system and looking at what happens when receivers immediately start their own S-M-C-R processes. Wherever a message originates, even if it is as simple as clicking “Share” on Facebook, the S-M-C-R model starts again.
More Concepts in PR
For most of the 20th century, the shorthand definition of PR was that it was like advertising only instead of paying a media outlet to run a message, you sent the message out to journalists and other gatekeepers (see Chapter 9) in the hopes that they would share the information as news. Now, PR has to work in a digital media system where news reporters and editors are not the major gatekeepers deciding what information will be made public. PR professionals now need to think about search algorithms, search engine optimization, social media trends, social media platform algorithms, social media influencers and social link sharing sites such as Reddit. Publicity on these channels can be worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. PR often measures its worth in earned media — the amount of free air time on TV or space in major newspapers and magazines that is earned by getting other mass media channels to tell your product’s stories without having to pay for ad space
An example of earned media is when Apple released a new iPhone, and news organizations provided coverage of the lines that wrapped around city blocks as people waited for the latest gadget. For years, Apple earned millions of dollars in earned media by keeping new features a secret and then releasing new iPhones with considerable hype. Free marketing time and space in digital and print publications can help push a brand from being a leader to being legendary. Global PR is a \$14 billion industry.
PR can take the form of an event, a product placement, or a skillfully crafted message delivered during a crisis. It is much less about promoting specific brands and more about promoting and maintaining the image of a brand, company or large corporation. Recall that advertising tends to focus on brands and products. PR can focus on the company and the corporate narrative, the story of how the company came to exist and how it represents certain values and ideals — at least in theory.
Sometimes it helps us to understand an element of mass media if we discuss when it all goes wrong. When British Petroleum (BP) had an oil gusher erupt in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, 11 people died, and more than three million barrels of oil leaked into the gulf. It took almost three months to cap the oil gusher. The CEO of BP, Anthony Bryan “Tony” Hayward, lost his job because he made a major PR blunder when he said he just wanted his “life back.” Eleven people were dead. The fishing and tourism industries of Louisiana, Mississippi and parts of Texas, ravaged by hurricanes just years before, were being threatened again. This time, though, Mother Nature was not to blame. It was BP, a multinational corporation that up to that point had been working to create a more environmentally friendly image. It took BP years to come back from that disaster, and it was made worse because of poor crisis communications. PR is about promoting good relationships with your consumers, your employees and the communities where your products are made. It is about earning “free” news and social media coverage, but perhaps most importantly it is about managing crises so that people are not given a reason not to buy your products.
Crisis Management
The best way to build good PR is to carefully maintain a good reputation over time and to avoid behaviors as an individual, company or corporation that might harm others. The best prevention against bad PR is to follow your industry’s and your own ethical codes at all times, whatever they are. Even if you do this, you might face a PR crisis. For example, a politician might decide to target your brand regardless of whether your business practices are ethical. All the more reason to maintain good longstanding relationships with your consumers.
The first rule of crisis communications is to plan ahead by anticipating the kinds of problems your company might have. Chemical companies should prepare for chemical spills. Sports teams will probably not prepare for environmental disasters, but they may have to prepare for the social media scandals that players sometimes land themselves in. If there is a disaster, the advice is to “be truthful and transparent,” to not say too much and to correct any exaggerations that emerge in the news media and on social media, within reason. Engaging in social media arguments is almost never productive for a brand, unless you have Wendy’s level of Twitter clapback. A major goal of PR efforts during a crisis is to try to make people forget there ever was a crisis.
Journalists often have the opposite interest because reporting on conflict is interesting. Helping people to survive is one of the primary functions of journalism. This explains why negative news gets so much more attention than positive news. No one dies when people do their jobs salting the roads and drivers maneuver safely in snowstorms. When people crash, that, sadly, is news. Journalists know that people care about safety perhaps more than any other issue, so they focus on safety concerns during times of crisis. At these times, PR and journalism can be at odds, but truth and transparency are still advisable to the PR professional. You do not legally have to tell journalists everything that has happened (depending on the circumstances and whether your institution is funded by taxpayers), but if journalists discover a negative impact that you failed to disclose, they will wonder what else you are hiding, and they may give your critics and detractors extra consideration and attention.
PR professionals work to manage story framing. (Recall that framing was defined in Chapter 9.) PR pros often work with journalists to cover negative stories with clarity and honesty rather than trying to hide the facts about a crisis. Finally, in PR there is the need to learn from mistakes and to analyze a company or corporation’s crisis responses. As difficult as it might be to go back and discuss where communication failed, it is essential. Reflection is a critical step in learning and corporations are like any other social institution. They need to learn to survive and to thrive.
PR Wars
Besides the conflict during crisis situations between journalists and PR professionals, there are PR battles that go on between competing brands and between non-profits, corporations and government officials all the time. Lobbyists make demands on politicians but also push agendas on mass media and social media platforms. In an age of digital communication, it is cheap and easy to develop detailed, professional messages employing a variety of media types that PR pros can try to spread around the world instantaneously. You should be aware as an information consumer that there are ongoing battles for your allegiance. Corporations engage in PR combat all the time, though they often try to work undetected. This is not to claim conspiracy or to frighten readers. It is simply a matter of fact that PR efforts are ongoing and that attacks within these battles do not always take the form of headlines. They may come in the form of messages from Twitter bots, botnets, collections of fake social media profiles run by software or blogs, or email spam.
You can influence other people by what you read and share, and you are encouraged once again to be aware of where your news sources get their information. Read and think before you share. It has become easy for individuals and fake accounts to publish information into the world’s information glut. Twitter and Instagram followers and Facebook friends can easily be bought. Major political influence is now wielded by fake accounts working to drum up anger and to promote misinformation to sway public opinion. Individual information consumers must take responsibility for their own consumption and for what they spread. Your media health is as important as your sexual health. Protect yourself and those you share information with.
What you need to be able to do is to consider a source, consider how it is presenting its message, and consider the source’s sources. Media literacy is about what enters your mind: what stays in (that is, what is salient) and what goes out. We are all publishers now. Media, society, and culture will always influence you to some degree, but they are also yours to try to control. Mass audiences may be in decline but entities who know how to build mass networks of users and how to successfully, if not always ethically, use their information are only starting to show their power. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Book%3A_Media_Society_Culture_and_You_(Poepsel)/1.10%3A_Advertising_Public_Relations_and_Propaganda.txt |
This is the first chapter in the main body of the text. You can change the text, rename the chapter, add new chapters, and add new parts.
2.01: Keywords
This chapter defines words and phrases that pertain to networked information. As the course progresses, we might add to this list.
ADTECH – advertising technology that directs advertising to individuals through systems such as behind-the-scenes auctions and the use of data to tailor ads to individual histories and susceptibilities and to analyze the results of advertising (also called “tailored advertising” or “targeted advertising”; if highly personalized it might be called “microtargeted advertising”). One common practice used in digital advertising is A/B testing in which people are shown two different messages to determine which is more successful and to tailor messaging to specific populations. Adtech is not just used to sell consumer goods; it’s also influential in political campaigns and, unlike in print or broadcast political advertising, disclosures about who paid for the ad are not required.
ALGORITHM – the set of logical rules used to organize and act on a body of data to solve a problem or to accomplish a goal, usually carried out by a machine. Typically, an algorithm is modeled, trained on a body of data, and then adjusted as the results are examined. Because algorithms are generally processed by computers and follow logical instructions, people often think of them as neutral or value-free, but the decisions made by humans as they design and tweak an algorithm and the data on which an algorithm is trained on can introduce human biases that can be compounded at scale. Humans who interact with an algorithm may also find ways to influence the outcomes, as when a marketer finds ways to push a website up in the results of a search.
ATTENTION ECONOMY – contemporary technology platforms benefit when people use them both to place ads in front of potential consumers and to increase their acquisition of personal data. Since our attention is a limited resource, companies (both platforms and people who use the platforms to sell, entertain, or persuade) try to engage and keep people’s attention. This rewards clickbait and influences the design of algorithms and platforms to maximize time spent online.
BIAS – Everyone has a limited perspective and, to that extent, every human utterance is subject to bias, but the word is generally used to mean an unfair and disproportionate preference for one side against another. For example, a journalist may make every effort to avoid having their reporting influenced by personal beliefs, but still must decide how to frame a story, including what examples to provide and who to consult as sources. A scholar will take steps to avoid personal beliefs from influencing their research, but will always struggle with the impossibility of total objectivity. When thinking about bias, it’s important to distinguish between deliberate and unfair weighting of a perspective from the inescapable limits of a person’s position.
BULLSHIT – communication without regard to truthfulness. Claims are invented or adopted to suit a purpose and the speaker doesn’t care whether they are true or false. Unlike a lie, which is a deliberate falsehood, bullshit is created without any particular truth or falsity in mind; it’s invention that purports to be true without any concern about truth itself and without employing or respecting methods used to distinguish truth from falsity . The concept overlaps at times with clickbait (statements are invented for profit) and propaganda (statements are invented for a political purpose) and, of course, can be both profitable and political. See Harry Frankfurter’s On Bullshit for a philosophical treatment of the concept.
CLICKBAIT – headlines or teasers for stories that are designed to encourage clicking through to view the digital content by using scandalous, sensational, exaggerated, gross-out, or misleading information. Because success of advertising and of digital platforms is measured by click-through rate, there is an incentive to create clickbait both among new media sites and traditional journalism. Some platforms have begun to minimize those incentives. For example, in 2014 Facebook announced it would automatically demote content if those who clicked through left a site quickly because the headline didn’t live up to its promise. Whether that has actually been accomplished is unclear.
DATA VOID – a word or phrase that can be manipulated in search results for ideological purposes. When something new enters the culture, pages can be quickly created to fill a void by providing information geared to the interests of a particular viewpoint. Manipulators may also introduce new names for concepts that will surface propaganda in a search or take advantage of problematic expressions to provide their preferred definitions when others aren’t available. Any void in search results is ripe for manipulation by filling it with misinformation or propaganda..
DISINFORMATION – the deliberate communication of false or misleading information for political purposes. The origin of the word is Russian and dates to the Stalin era when disinformation was used by intelligence organizations to foster state aims. It began to be included in dictionaries of the English language in the 1980s. While some disinformation is intended to convince people something false is true, the larger goal is to disillusion the populace by making it seem impossible to believe in the truth of anything.
FAKE NEWS – a phrase that in its early use described content that looked like news but was invented simply to attract clicks for profit. It evolved into a description of new media outlets that presented news stories that aligned with a political perspective while being largely indifferent to traditional journalistic practices. The phrase flipped its meaning and became a synonym for traditional mainstream news organizations when President Trump began to call them “fake news,” essentially setting up a binary opposition between right-wing publications that supported Trump and mainstream and left-wing publications that either opposed Trump or reported news he didn’t like.
LISTICLE – a form of clickbait that uses lists, such as “Top Ten . . .” “100 most . . .” or “50 ways . . .”, a style particularly popular in the non-journalistic articles at BuzzFeed.
MEME – small units of culture, often humorous, frequently visual in nature, that are spread through imitation and alteration. Though the term was coined in the pre-internet age, it now refers primarily to digital works that riff off a common image or idea. Memes may form within a specific community and require a kind of “insider” knowledge to decode or remix. They can spread quickly through social media, offering a multitude of variations on a theme. The origin and meaning of specific memes can be explored at Know Your Meme.
MODERATION – the process of screening user-contributed content online. Every online platform that allows users to contribute, whether uploading videos to YouTube or making a comment on a news article, has to put rules in place to screen out illegal or offensive content as well as automated advertising messages (i.e. spam). Moderation usually involves a mix of algorithmic screening that uses machine learning to identify problematic material and human reviewing of material either before it is made public or after it is flagged. It also involves responding to harassment and trolling, developing rules and procedures for making decisions about suspending or banning users from a platform. For more information about these practices, see Sarah Jeong’s The Internet of Garbage and Tarleton Gillespie’s Custodians of the Internet
PLATFORM – in computing, platform traditionally referred to a combination of hardware and operating system software, such as Windows for PCs or IoS for Macs; now it has extended to sites (such as Facebook) that provide proprietary software that runs on the internet and may allow third party developers to create new applications specific to that site.
PROPAGANDA – communications designed to influence a population so it will form beliefs and behave in ways that are consistent with the propagandist’s political and social objectives. Disinformation is a technique often employed for propagandistic purposes. In some definitions, propaganda is intentionally aimed at a specific audience with a political aim in mind, distinguishing it from commercial marketing, though both may use similar persuasion techniques and technologies. In the early 20th century propaganda was associated with the new field of public relations and was used extensively to recruit support for involvement in World War I, but the word began to have a negative connotation thereafter as anti-democratic and misleading. In their book Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman used the phrase “corporate propaganda” to mean efforts to protect corporate power against political or democratic intervention.
RED PILL – inspired by the film The Matrix, in which a character is offered a blue pill (which will allow them to live comfortably in a world that is an illusion) or a red pill (where they will experience the truth and therefore freedom), this phrase indicates a revelation that what people generally accept as true is completely false. It’s often used as a sort of meta-conspiracy theory that feminism, the mainstream media, the economic system, and the existence of racism are false narratives that are woven together to oppress the gullible masses and those who are “red-pilled” have broken free. It’s generally a term adopted by the far right, particularly white men on the far right, except when used to describe those who claim to have taken the red pill. In the context of this course, it’s significant in that no amount of fact-checking or argument can persuade a person who believes “common reality” is a delusion, or rather that their reality is the only true reality and most people have been seduced by an illusion.
SJW – acronym for “social justice warrior,” a term of opprobrium for feminists and those who express concern about social justice, particularly if it threatens aspects of culture that were traditionally male and white such as comics, science fiction, or gaming. The term became popularized during “gamergate” in which angry gamers conducted a harassment campaign against woman who created or wrote about games with progressive themes. Those who use the term claim those who express progressive views in these cultural arenas do so only for self-aggrandizement to discount the validity of their views.
SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM – a concept developed by Shoshana Zuboff (most thoroughly in her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism) meaning the monetization of massive amounts of personally-identifiable data in order to predict and influence human behavior for profit. Zuboff considers the development of surveillance systems that constantly capture intimate details of human life at a global scale an “expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from above” and “an overthrow of the people’s sovereignty” because this process appropriates human experience as free raw material for building proprietary systems of prediction and control. Initially seen as a way of selling targeted advertising, this form of capitalism is now being built into phones that we carry everywhere with us, cars, home appliances, smart homes, even smart cities with the data used for more than advertising – for example, to allocate benefits, determine sentences, or to train machines to replace human labor. As Zuboff put it in an interview, “Once we searched Google, but now Google searches us. Once we thought of digital services as free, but now surveillance capitalists think of us as free.”
TROLL – a person, often operating in groups, who deliberately upset targets by sending them unsettling or offensive material, often in an attempt to damage their reputation or drive them from a platform. Originally trolling was purposeless other than “for the lulz” – a warped sense of humorous mischief. More recently the term describes anyone who engages in offensive or destructive attacks online. Used as a verb it often means coordinated and frequent attacks in disputes about social, cultural, or political issues or the practice of using various strategies to derail or disrupt a discussion. Trolls employ a winning strategy because they tend to either attract shocked attention (a win) or to force those they attack to leave the argument or platform (also a win). For a full ethnographic analysis, see This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things by Whitney Phillips. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/01%3A_Chapter_1.txt |
“Abandoning facts means abandoning freedom.” Timothy Synder, On Tyranny.
Being able to prove or disprove factual information is not the only way we can assess information or evaluate an argument, but facts are a key building-block of knowledge. Given the volume of factual claims we encounter every day in social media, in news stories, in political speeches, in arguments with That Opinionated Uncle, it may seem impossible to tackle the problem. Who has the time?
What people need most when confronted with a claim that appears to be factual but may not be 100 percent true is simple strategies to get closer to the truth. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time and work to take one or two key fact-claims and check them for accuracy.
These four moves (or tactics) can get you started with the fact-checking process. Try them in order.
• Check for previous work: Look around to see if someone else has already fact-checked the claim or provided a synthesis of research on the claim. Fact-checking sites are good sources for this move, particularly if the fact you’re checking has been getting a lot of attention. When you encounter a claim you want to check, your first move might be to see if sites like Politifact, Snopes, or even Wikipedia have researched the claim.
• Go upstream: Most web content is not original. Get to the original source to understand the trustworthiness of the information. This may be the first newspaper article that reported the claim; it may be a published journal article reporting original research or a government document. If the claim is about a research finding, try to find the original article. If the claim is about an event, try to find the original reporting.
• Read laterally: (This useful phrase was popularized by Sam Wineburg and his colleagues at the Stanford History Education Group.) Once you get to the source of a claim, make a quick check to see what other people think about the source (the publication, the author, etc.). Maybe you get lucky and the source is something you already know is reputable, such as the journal Science or the newspaper The New York Times. If so, you can stop there. If not, dig around to see what you can find out about the source. Increasingly Wikipedia includes articles about publications with basic background about them. You can also make a quick check to see how others have addressed the same topic. Is this claim widely believed? Embraced by a particular group? Or is it contradicted by most sources? The truth is in the network.
• Circle back: If you get lost, hit dead ends, or find yourself going down an increasingly confusing rabbit hole, back up and start over knowing what you know now. You’ve learned something about the claim. Now you’re likely to take a more informed path with different search terms and better decisions. And if at any point you fail–if the source you find is not trustworthy, complex questions emerge, or the claim turns out to have multiple sub-claims–then circle back to step one, pick another fact-claim, and start over.
In general, try these moves in sequence. If you find success at any stage, your work might be done.
But How Do I Know What Sources are “Reputable”?
This is a fraught question today. A sizeable percentage of Americans distrust all “mainstream media.” A recently published book, Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts (Oxford, 2018) conducted extensive network analysis of news consumption and social sharing. They concluded our news media have bifurcated. There’s an entire self-referential media ecosystem centered on Fox News and embracing many right-wing and far-right websites that amplify and affirm one another while discrediting all news sources that fall outside their circle as “biased,” “left-wing,” or even “fake.” This is what the authors of the book call a “propaganda feedback loop.” In this media sphere, adherence to a partisan belief system and cultural identity is more important than being factually correct. A claim that is demonstrably false is more acceptable than stating something that challenges the overarching political narrative.
Doesn’t this happen on the left-wing too? There are hyperpartisan sites on the left that traffic in rumors and lies, but the difference is their audiences tend to balance their consumption of those sites with mainstream news organizations that generally attempt to adhere to journalistic norms set out in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. In this sphere, it’s harder to maintain a story or a position based on “facts” that can be disproved or that even seem unlikely. Traditional journalistic processes are valued as much as or more than alignment with a set of political beliefs, and fewer people on the left dismiss the mainstream media’s reporting out of hand.
In this course, healthy skepticism is encouraged, but blanket distrust of mainstream news organizations based only on alleged political bias is not supportable. Part of the job of becoming a savvy information consumer is figuring out what sources of information you can, for the most part, trust to get it right much of the time and strive to correct mistakes.
Some generally-respected news organizations include . . .
Sorting News from Opinion
These news organizations publish both news reporting and opinion pieces. Opinion pieces will be deliberately persuasive and often provocative. News reporting strives to be more objective. However, in both cases the publishers strive to avoid promoting obvious falsehoods, though they will accept opinion pieces that readers (and their own editorial board) may vehemently disagree with. When you look at an article, pay attention to who wrote it and why. For more on sorting news from opinion, see Chapter 6. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/02%3A_Understanding_Networked_Information/2.02%3A_Four_Moves_._._..txt |
In addition to the moves, there’s a habit to cultivate: Check your emotions.
When you feel strong emotion – happiness, anger, pride, vindication – and that emotion pushes you to assume something is true and share a “fact” with others, stop and think. These are exactly the claims that you must fact-check.
Why? Because you’re already predisposed to analyze things that put you an intellectual frame of mind. But things that make you angry or overjoyed, well… our record as humans is not good when it comes to being influenced by our emotions.
Our normal inclination is to agree with content that we already feel is correct. (Psychologists call this “confirmation bias.” We are inclined to accept things that align with what we already believe and reject or ignore things that don’t.) Moreover, researchers have found that content that causes strong emotions (both positive and negative) spreads the fastest through our social networks. This shouldn’t surprise us; social media platforms are designed to maximize “stickiness.” They do everything they can to keep users engaged, because engagement is profitable. Savvy activists, advocates, and marketers take advantage of platform design and human psychology, getting past our filters by posting material that goes straight to our hearts.
Not only that, but whoever writes a headline is likely trying to catch your attention, and that can distort the meaning of a story. “Clickbait” is designed to provoke an emotion so it can spread. Resist the urge to share something based only on a headline. If you read the story – even if you simply skim it quickly – you will have a better sense of what it’s really about and whether it’s something you want to share. (Incidentally, authors of news stories usually don’t write their own headlines, so don’t blame them if they are ridiculously off base.)
Use your emotions as a checkpoint. Strong emotions should become a trigger for your new fact-checking habit. Every time content you want to share makes you feel rage, laughter, ridicule, or even a heartwarming buzz, spend 30 seconds fact-checking. You might avoid misleading others and embarrassing yourself by passing along something that’s simply not true.
In some cases an emotionally-charged piece of news may be factually true, but more complicated than it appears at first. By learning the context and the complexities through a more nuanced source of information, you can share valuable information without all the emotional baggage. You might even help cool down an over-heated argument.
2.04: Finding Already-Checked Facts
When you see a factual claim circulating on the internet that you want to check, someone may have already done the work for you. Particularly in the realm of current political news, there are a number of organizations that routinely examine claims made by public figures. Viral content online, too, is often fact-checked. Here are some prominent fact-checking sites:
Rather than prowl through these sites one by one, there’s a nifty search trick you can use. Pull together key words, phrases, or concepts from the claim you want to check and put them into a search bar, adding site: and the url of a fact-check site. Better yet, try two sites and compare them. For example, search:
George Soros paid caravan site:snopes.com
or George Soros paid caravan site:politifact.com
Because these fact-checking sites tend to focus on current political news, they have limited use when fact-checking something that isn’t headline news or a notorious viral hoax. The next chapter will offer more tricks and tips for strategically learning about a site. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/02%3A_Understanding_Networked_Information/2.03%3A_._._._and_a_Habit-_Check_Your_Emotions.txt |
In addition to the four moves and a habit, these shortcuts will help you evaluate sources and check facts efficiently.
Quickly grab key phrases: highlight the text, right click, and select a search engine. If the information you’re examining is time-sensitive, click on “news” to get the latest.
Search for a source by name but exclude the source itself from a search: by adding to a search a minus sign and URL, you can search for sites that mention the source. For example:
daily caller -site:https://dailycaller.com/
youtube algorithm extremism -site:https://youtube.com
(However, this will include any social media sites maintained by the site, such as Facebook or Twitter.)
Find out when a site was registered – and possibly who is behind it: go to https://whois.com and paste in a URL (the part up to the first /). Every time a website is created, the creator has to provide contact and technical information to a central registry. Sometimes the information is detailed; quite often, though, a registrar will hide the details under a proxy. In that case, the only useful information you will find is the date it was registered and when it is up for renewal. There are several sites where you can run whois searches. This one works well if you ignore their advertising for domain registration and internet hosting.
Track down an image using a reverse-image search: Go to https://images.google.com and either paste in the image URL or upload a copy of the image. This won’t necessarily lead you to the original; you’ll likely find multiple copies of a viral image. Scan through the links to see what source seems most likely to include useful information. You might also find it useful, if looking for an older image, to use the “tools” option to limit by date. TinEye is another reverse image search if you want an alternative to Google.
Find the original source using a date limiter: In a Google search, clicking under Tools and Anytime will give you a chance to limit a search by date. Using the custom date range option, start some time ago – say up until 2009 – and, if that fails to locate the source, reset your date limiter adding a year or two.
Find the original source using place as a clue: Sometimes a site will relate news without telling you who originally reported it. Try searching for a news source from the place where the item reported in the news happened by searching the city and “newspaper” or “local affiliate” for television news. Then search on the site of a local news outlet to see how it was first reported locally. Chances are the story got a little garbled in the retelling.
Find a previous version by using the Wayback Machine: Sometimes you may want to see how a page has changed over time. The Internet Archive has saved billions of websites over the years, so you can type in an address and see how a site looked in the past. Some pages or parts of pages may be missing and whether a page is archived will often depend on if a page was heavily linked to in the past, or if the site owner wanted it excluded from the archive. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/02%3A_Understanding_Networked_Information/2.05%3A_Handy_Tricks_for_Fact-Checkers.txt |
Authority and reliability are tricky to evaluate. Whether we admit it or not, most of us would like to ascribe authority to sites and authors who seem to support our viewpoints and approach publications that disagree with our worldview with skepticism.
How do we escape our own prejudices? Try applying Wikipedia’s guidelines for determining the reliability of publications. These guidelines were developed to help people with diametrically opposed positions argue in dispassionate ways about the reliability of sources using common criteria. For Wikipedians, reliable sources are defined by process, expertise, and aim.
Process
Above all, a reliable source for facts should have a process in place for encouraging accuracy, verifying facts, and correcting mistakes. Note that reputation and process might be apart from issues of bias. The editorial pages of the New York Times have a center-left bias, while those of the Wall Street Journal a center-right bias. The stories they choose to cover are also influenced by editors deciding what is important for their readership and role. Yet fact-checkers of all political stripes are happy to be able to track a fact down to one of these publications since they have reputations for a high degree of accuracy and issue corrections when they get facts wrong.
The same thing applies to peer-reviewed publications. While there is much debate about the inherent flaws of peer review, peer review does mean there are many eyes on data and results. This process helps to keep many obviously flawed results out of publication. If a peer-reviewed journal has a large following of experts, that provides even more eyes on the article, and more chances to spot flaws. Since one’s reputation for research is on the line in front of one’s peers, it also provides incentives to be precise in claims and careful in analysis in a way that other forms of communication might not.
Expertise
According to Wikipedians, researchers and certain classes of professionals have expertise, and their usefulness is defined by that expertise. For example, we would expect a marine biologist to have a more informed opinion about the impact of global warming on marine life than the average person, particularly if the biologist has done research in that area. Professional knowledge matters too: we’d expect a health inspector to have a reasonably good knowledge of health code violations, even if they are not a published scholar of the area. And while we often think researchers are more knowledgeable than professionals, this is not always the case. For a range of issues, professionals in a given area might have more nuanced and up-to-date insight than many researchers, especially where question deal with common practice.
Reporters, on the other hand, often have no domain expertise, but may strive to accurately summarize and convey the views of experts, professionals, and event participants. Reporters who write in a niche area (their “beat”) over many years (e.g. science or education policy) may acquire expertise themselves. Nevertheless, they will seek out experts for information when working on a story.
Aim
Aim is defined by what the publication, author, or media source is attempting to accomplish. Aims are complex. Respected scientific journals, for example, aim for prestige within the scientific community by publishing important new research, but must also have a business model to fund their publishing operation. TheNew York Times relies on subscriptions and ad revenue but is also dependent on maintaining a reputation for accuracy and even-handedness, so it maintains an organizational separation between the staff whose job is to bring in money and the editors and journalists whose job is to report news.
One way to think about aim is to ask what incentives an article or author has to get things right. An opinion column that gets a fact or two wrong won’t cause its author much trouble, whereas an article in a newspaper that gets facts wrong may damage the reputation of the reporter. On the far ends of the spectrum, a single bad or retracted article by a scientist can ruin a career, whereas an advocacy blog site or a YouTube celebrity can twist facts daily with few consequences.
Policy think tanks, such as the Cato Institute and the Center for American Progress, are interesting hybrid cases. To maintain their funding, they must continue to promote aims that have a particular bias. At the same time, their prestige depends on them promoting these aims (and being clear about their mission) while maintaining some level of factual integrity.
Bottom line: look for publications that have strong incentives to get things right, as shown by both authorial intent and business model, reputational incentives, and mission. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/02%3A_Understanding_Networked_Information/2.06%3A_What_If_Im_Not_Sure_About_a_Sources_Reliability.txt |
Traditional news organizations publish different kinds of articles in sections that have different expectations for writers and different editors selecting and shaping articles. Newsroom staff gather and report news (and newsrooms also publish stories by “stringers” or freelance journalists who are not on staff but are real, live journalists committed to the same values and practices as staffers). Some newsroom journalists don’t focus on “hard news” – they write features about style or business or the arts or sports. They also may publish analysis or in-depth investigative articles about things that aren’t breaking news of the day but help readers understand the complexities of newsworthy issues. A reporter may spend months looking into why kids in a particular neighborhood have high rates of asthma. Another may analyze why voters found a particular candidate appealing or why a policy decision in the US Congress is being held up. Those articles are not straight news reporting, but they aren’t opinion, either. Sources are provided, facts are checked. In fact, this example of fact-checking an investigative piece shows just how much work is involved to get the story right.
Source: Louise Kiernan, “Calculating the Work Behind Our Work,” ProPublica Illinois, December 29, 2017.
News stories usually don’t get as extensive a treatment; there’s just not enough time to retrace every step before the story goes out. However, editors will look for weaknesses and demand key facts be checked if they seem wobbly. There should be confirmation of any factual claim a source has made. Nothing should be taken at face value. There’s an old saying among journalists: if your mother says she loves you, check it out.
Opinion pieces and editorials (op/ed for short) are different. An editorial, strictly speaking, expresses the opinion of an editorial board. The board of the Wall Street Journal may write an article stating “we should do this” but their reporters would get in trouble if they tried to sneak that opinion into their reporting. An opinion piece is written by someone who presumably has both expertise and a point they want to make.
Opinion pieces make arguments. They recommend or persuade or simply make people think in a different way. Some opinion pieces are written by writers who are hired to share their thoughts on a regular basis – columnists like Tom Friedman or Michelle Alexander who write for The New York Times. Others are written by guests to the publication. A good news organization will not publish an argument that relies on lies or has no evidence for claims, but they go out of their way to publish arguments that their editorial board disagrees with so readers will encounter a range of approaches to ideas.
That’s how traditional news organizations make distinctions. There are also mixed sources such as The New Yorker which publishes different types of content, including fiction, reviews, essays, and satire, as well as thoroughly-sourced news stories and analysis. New media publications that have a less formal presentation – Quartz, Vice, Buzzfeed and the like – blur these distinctions more than traditional news organizations do. It’s harder to tell what’s news and what’s opinion, though sometimes these upstarts break a major news story. Likewise, on cable news it can be hard to distinguish a statement by a talk show host or an assertion by a pundit brought in for commentary from a statement made by a reporter. But they are distinctions that matter. Ask yourself: Who said that? What job were they doing when they said it?
When thinking about the information we get through networks, it’s worthwhile thinking about what kind of information it is. Is it news reporting? Is it opinion? Is it an advertisement dressed up to fool you into thinking it’s news? Is it disinformation camouflaged as news? Always take a moment to know what type of information you’re dealing with before you run with it.
When in doubt about a particular news source, see if Wikipedia has an article about it that describes its focus and reputation. If you want to see behind the scenes, click on the Talk tab to see if Wikipedians have argued about how to describe that source. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/02%3A_Understanding_Networked_Information/2.07%3A_Sorting_News_From_Opinion.txt |
Okay, this chapter heading is an example of clickbait: it’s a misleading headline. In reality, this chapter is about things reputable newspapers and other news sources routinely do in the course of business that you should be aware of as a critical news consumer.
Native Advertising
When you’re looking at an article on a reputable site, you might see content like this example from Inside Higher Ed:
Note the boxed news item. It has a label – “content sponsored and provided by Ellucian.” It looks like a news story, but it’s advertising. Here’s an example from The New York Times.
Here it’s labeled PAID POST – but if you weren’t paying attention, you might think it’s a news story because the layout is identical to the surrounding news stories.
This example from BoingBoing makes advertising harder to identify. All of the links under “Interesting for You” are ads placed by a company that is only indicated by a logo that is barely visible. (Incidentally, this example illustrates another thing to bear in mind. BoingBoing mostly aggregates and summarizes news from other sources. In this case it’s a summary of a story published in The Intercept. You would want to “go upstream” to The Intercept before took BoingBoing’s word for it.)
Syndication
The previous example is from a site that mostly digests stories found elsewhere. Another way news sources incorporate news from other sources is syndication. Material from one site is published on another site (or in a print newspaper). Two prominent news agencies that aren’t publications themselves but report news to be picked up by others are Reuters (headquartered in London) and The Associated Press or AP (headquartered in the New York). Another syndicated source you will frequently encounter is Agence France Press, the world’s oldest news agency (headquartered in Paris). Additionally you might see in a local paper a story reprinted from The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times and many popular columnists are reprinted in multiple papers. Remember: it’s worth going upstream and at least noting the original source. The Mankato Free Press will run articles about events in Washington D.C., but they don’t have reporters working there. They syndicated that story from a news agency so Mankato residents will be informed.
In the following example, the source of this news story is not The New York Times, though it can be found on the Times’ website.
If you have a beef with this article, it’s not with reporting done by TheNew York Times. It’s with journalists working for the Associated Press. You’ll occasionally see people complaining about a story from TheNew York Times, claiming it is typically biased, only to find the story was not even written by The New York Times, but by the Associated Press, Reuters, or some other syndicator.
This can also cause confusion because AP stories stay on the Times’ site for a limited period of time. If someone is outraged by a Times story and then – what!? – it disappears, they might conclude something nefarious happened. Was it retracted? Was it censored? What’s going on?
There’s a good chance the article that disappeared is a syndicated article. Associated Press articles, for example, are displayed on the site for a few weeks, then “roll off” and disappear from the site. Why? Because The New York Times only pays the Associated Press to show them on the site for a few weeks. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/02%3A_Understanding_Networked_Information/2.08%3A_Stupid_News_Tricks.txt |
In the examples we’ve seen so far, going upstream is relatively easy. A reputable source includes information about its sources. Just as it’s important for scholars to cite their sources, journalists need to tell their readers where their information comes from. Even when a source is not identified by name, it’s typical practice to say why that person isn’t named while also indicating why they are in a position to know something. For example, a story might quote an official who would be fired if his name was published or a police officer who was a witness to the event but was not an authorized press liaison. The Times, in the interest of transparency, has an explanation of their rules for these circumstances. Generally, though, sources are identified so readers can assess their credibility.
This is not just a journalistic standard, it’s good internet citizenship. Articles on the web that repurpose other information or artifacts should state their sources, and, if possible, link to them. This matters to creators, because they deserve credit for their work. But it also matters to readers who need to check the credibility of the original sources. Unfortunately, many people on the web are not good citizens. This is particularly true with material that spreads quickly as hundreds or thousands of people share it – “viral” content.
When that information travels around a network, people often fail to link it to sources. For example, here is an interesting claim that President Trump is more accessible to the press than previous presidents, and that this fact contradicts a “media lie.”
[snip]
The article links to a news broadcast as its source. That source quotes a researcher, Martha Kumar, and the organization she’s affiliated with, but doesn’t link directly to her research. The next step is to see if the original research is available at her organization’s site. This turns up a report on how presidents communicated with the press, comparing their preferences in the first hundred days of their first and second years. It turns out the claim of “50% more access” relates to specific kinds of press interactions.
Where the presidents differ is the venues they choose to meet with the press, including press conferences, interviews, and short question and answer sessions. President Trump, for example, routinely responds to a few questions every day or two while President Obama favored long form interviews where he could discuss policy. . . . [Trump focuses] on those forums and strategies that help him establish a narrative for the day – Tweet in the morning for the opening narrative and expand on it later in the day – and get others to talk about policy. In a sense, it is a loop that has him begin in early morning by tweeting and then build his narrative in answers to reporters’ questions at the beginning or end of White House meetings with officials and outside guests, such as corporate executives. (executive summary and p. 4)
In other words, he has had more informal, unscripted interactions than other presidents, including tweets, but fewer formal opportunities for reporters to question white house officials.
The process of going upstream – checking out the source – will also establish that Sinclair Broadcasting Group is known for its right-wing editorial stance. But this isn’t entirely a right-wing issue; an opinion piece in the Washington Post described the report differently, but didn’t link to the original, either.
Another factor to consider when going upstream by following sources is research conducted by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts that found close network relationships among a group of right-wing publications, including Fox News, talk radio, and Breitbart. These outlets tend to draw on one another as sources, amplifying and confirming messages consistent with a partisan identity while also inducing distrust of media sources outside their circle. In contrast, consumers of left-wing partisan information sources also consume mainstream news sources that put a higher premium on performing objectivity and fact-checking, so the power of left-wing outlets to carry a strongly opinionated message is moderated by the more cautious mainstream.
Watch out for sources that primarily cite other sources that are within a particular partisan sphere. If, when you go upstream, all of the sources referred to fit within a partisan framework, take that into account. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/02%3A_Understanding_Networked_Information/2.09%3A_When_Going_Upstream_Is_Hard_Work.txt |
Take a moment to think about the last news item you read, heard, or watched. How did you encounter it? Were you looking for it or did it come looking for you? Were you visiting a news site online to see what’s happening? Catch it on the radio while driving to work? Did you hear about it from a friend or teacher? Was it something that caught your eye when skimming a news app on your phone? Or while checking your favorite social media platform?
Information networks that don’t create news are increasingly important discovery and distribution routes. Content created by news organizations spreads through social media when people share links and as the organizations promote their own content through Facebook, Snapchat, and elsewhere. This has benefits – news can reach people where they are and acquaintances can amplify the reach of a news story through a network of trust – but the downsides include organizations having to share dwindling ad revenue with the platforms and being at the whim of companies that can change their algorithms at any time without warning or consultation.
But social media is where news is at. A survey conducted by Pew Research in 2018 found two-thirds of American adults report getting news through social media, with Facebook and YouTube leading other platforms.
Another study by Project Information Literacy involving nearly 6,000 college students at 11 institutions found nearly 90 percent of students got news through social media, second only to hearing about it from friends face-to-face or through online channels. A large majority said journalism is necessary for democracy but most find it hard to keep up and half weren’t confident they could identify whether a news story was fake or not. Over a third doubted the credibility of all news.
Alternative News, Alternative Facts
But it’s not all about how journalism travels. Social platforms enable the creation of new information channels that challenge the dominance of traditional news organizations. That’s not all bad. New players can provide valuable alternative viewpoints and cover news ignored by the mainstream, but it also enables the creation and spread of misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. The incentives built into social networks promote the use of emotional appeals and reward “influencers” who engage large audiences by any means necessary. The more outrageous, the more they are richly rewarded. While reputations matter in these new information channels, they are not dependent on old-school journalistic values or practices. For example, a conspiracy theory about murders of South African farmers that circulated in white supremacist circles for years broke into the mainstream when a claim by a “citizen journalist” on YouTube was repeated by Tucker Carlson and then by the president in a Tweet.
Social platforms, meeting with new criticism, want to avoid taking responsibility for what appears on their platforms. While they will take material down if it violates their terms of use or is illegal (child pornography or copyright violations, for example), they rely on a provision of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that immunizes internet providers.
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Of course, this law predates the social platforms we use today and their meteoric rise to the top of the list of the world’s most valuable corporations. Lawmakers in 1996 had no way of knowing billions of people would be using and contributing material through the internet, that we would be accessing volumes of information through our phones. They might have had reservations if they imagined a world where 300 hours of video would be uploaded to a single website every minute, that messages could rocket around the world instantly, that governments could be toppled or could undermine one another covertly through disinformation campaigns. Section 230 of the Act gave entrepreneurs the freedom to create new things. It also let them off the hook for the problems we’re dealing with today. The consequences of this laissez-faire attitude are becoming more clear by the day, and platforms are scrambling to balance the ability of anyone to publish and share anything with the political and social fallout.
If you want to understand information, it’s important to understand how information networks operate. Profiles of major social platforms will be presented in Part Three of this book. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/02%3A_Understanding_Networked_Information/2.10%3A_How_Social_Media_Platforms_Intersect_With_News.txt |
Students: Check the Team Drive for the most current schedule of readings, as they may change.
For those not enrolled in the course, but curious about what we decided to read together, here’s the list.
Teaching About Trump (Wisconsin State Journal)
“What is Post-Truth?” in Post-Truth by Lee McIntyre (MIT, 2018)
Nothing on This Page is Real (Washington Post)
Network Propaganda by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts, pp. 3-24
The Internet of Garbage by Sarah Jeong, pp. 12-39
“Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls” by Safiya Noble (Time magazine)
Surveillance Capitalism Has Gone Rogue by Shoshana Zuboff (Washington Post)
Students also are asked to choose readings for us to discuss.
3.02: Understanding Media and Information Quality in an Age of Artificial Intellig
Reprinted from the Berkman Klein Center on Medium, July 9, 2018. This article is licensed under a CC-BY-NC license.
This post looks at some of the lessons we’ve learned over the last year in our work as part of the Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative, a collaboration of the Berkman Klein Center and the MIT Media Lab. Learn more .
Democracy is under stress that would have been unimaginable a decade or two ago. The victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential campaign and the successful “Leave” campaign in the UK Brexit referendum led the Oxford English Dictionary to select “post-truth” as word of the year for 2016. Since then, anti-elite populism across the North Atlantic has continued to gain victories, chief among them the 2018 victory of the Five Star Movement in Italy. As governments, foundations, academics, political activists, journalists, and civil society in democratic societies struggled to understand the overwhelming political results alongside the apparent information disorder, most observers’ eyes fell on technology. Social media, bots, hyper-targeted behavioral marketing — all have been seen as culprits or at least catalysts in public conversations. Technology has altered the foundations of news and media, and as trust in media continues to decline, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and algorithms have come to play a critical role not only as threats to the integrity and quality of media, but also as a source of potential solutions.
The core threats to information quality associated with AI include:
• Algorithmic curation. Most commonly known as the “filter bubble” concern, algorithms designed by platforms to keep users engaged produce ever-more refined rabbit holes down which users can go in a dynamic of reinforcement learning that leads them to ever-more extreme versions of their beliefs and opinions.
• Bots. Improvements in automation allow bots to become ever-more-effective simulations of human participants, thereby permitting propagandists to mount large-scale influence campaigns on social media by simulating larger and harder-to-detect armies of automated accounts.
• Fake reports and videos. Improving automated news reporting and manipulation of video and audio may enable the creation of seemingly authentic videos of political actors that will irrevocably harm their reputations and become high-powered vectors for false reporting.
• Targeted behavioral marketing powered by algorithms and machine-learning. Here, the concern is that the vast amounts of individually-identifiable data about users will allow ever-improving algorithms to refine the stream of content that individuals receive so as to manipulate their political opinions and behaviors.
Our approach to this set of issues is through the analysis of very large datasets, covering millions of stories, tweets, and Facebook shares, across diverse platforms reflecting national presidential politics in America from April 2015 to the present. The results of our work suggest that emphasizing the particular and technological, rather than the interaction of technology, institutions, and culture in a particular historical context, may lead to systematic overstating of the importance of technology, both positive and negative. Many studies do not attempt to address the impact of AI and other technologically-mediated phenomena that they identify and measure, but rather are focused on identifying and describing observable practices. In our own work, we have repeatedly found bots, Russian influence campaigns, and “fake news” of the nihilistic political clickbait variety; in all these contexts, we have found these technologically-mediated phenomena to be background noise, rather than a major driver of the observed patterns of political communication. Excessive attention to these technology-centric phenomena risks masking the real political-cultural dynamics that have confounded American political communication.
Studying media ecosystems
We study propaganda and disinformation in political communication through the lens of media ecosystems. The springboard for our research is a tool built in a decade-long collaboration between our Berkman Klein Center team and our colleagues at MIT Media Lab’s Center for Civic Media: Media Cloud. Media Cloud enables us to discover media network structures that form around specific topics and to shed light on media frames, attention, and influence. Our early work centered on discrete legislative and regulatory controversies, such as net neutrality and the SOPA-PIPA bills. As election year approached in 2016 we turned our attention to the presidential race.
Initially, we analyzed the 18 months leading up to the November 8 vote. The Columbia Journalism Review published our preliminary findings in February 2017, and we followed with a more complete analysis of pre-election media in August of last year. Since then we have expanded our research to include analysis of the election’s aftermath, and have combined the election-period study with a review of the first year of the Trump presidency into a book coming out with Oxford University Press in September 2018, entitled Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. With the support of the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund, we focused attention on the impact of artificial intelligence and automation on political public media. This work is motivated by the need to better understand the character, scope, and origins of the issue as an essential element in crafting corrective measures. Here we summarize our preliminary conclusions as well as the work of a growing number of researchers investing in this space.
Disinformation problems are fundamentally political and social — not technological
Our research leads us to conclude that political and social factors, not technology, are at the root of current media and information quality problems in American political communication. We analyze the linking, tweeting, Facebook sharing, and text of four million stories related to presidential politics published over a period of nearly three years before and after the 2016 presidential election. Relying on this data, we mapped out media source networks in open web media (online news, blogs, etc.) and on Twitter to learn how media sources clumped together based on similar cross-media linking and sharing patterns. This revealed a startling finding: media sources are, as many have observed, deeply polarized; but they are aligned in a distinctly asymmetric pattern. There is, as it turns out, not a simple left-right division in American political media. Instead, the divide is between the right and the rest of the political media spectrum. Media sources ranging from those with editorial voices that lean towards the center-right, such as the Wall Street Journal, all the way to distinctly left voices such as Mother Jones or the Daily Kos, comprise a single interconnected media ecosystem. In this portion of the media spectrum, attention is normally distributed around a peak focus on mainstream professional journalism outlets and journalistic values and mainstream professional journalism continue to exercise significant constraint on the survivability and spread of falsehoods. By contrast, there is a large gap between media sources in this broad center to center-left to left cluster and media sources on the right. Moreover, attention on the right increases as one moves further from the center, and peaks around media sites that are exclusively right-wing.
Network map based on Twitter media sharing from January 22, 2017, to January 21, 2018. Nodes are sized by number of Twitter shares.
When we took a closer look at the substance and practices of journalism from the center of the spectrum to its poles, we found major differences in behavior. Media sources on the left and right extremes of the spectrum are prone to sacrificing accuracy in favor of partisan messaging, making them also prone to the spread of disinformation. However, the accountability and fact-checking mechanisms in the media structures on the center and center-left provide a barrier against further propagation and a check on shoddy reporting from the left. Media outlets that strive for objectivity and balance are less susceptible to spreading disinformation.
The leading media in the right-wing cluster follow a distinctly different strategy, and repeatedly amplify and accredit, rather than dampen or correct, bias-confirming falsehoods and misleading framings of facts. We find that insular conservative media lack the will or capacity to adhere to objectivity and accuracy in their reporting. Infowars, Gateway Pundit, and conservative political clickbait are a problem, but a bigger problem is when Drudge Report, Breitbart, and Fox News — conservative media sources with much larger audiences — amplify conspiratorial and deceptive stories. This creates a significant gap in information quality for readers of conservative-leaning sources of news relative to those who consume media sources outside the right-wing ecosystem, including left-wing sites.
Algorithmic curation and filter bubbles
It is important to understand that if filter bubbles or algorithmic curation were the primary reason for polarization, we would expect to see symmetric patterns of attention clustering by populations of audiences and publisher — all of whom are at the same technological frontier. The stark asymmetry between the right and the rest strongly suggests that differences in political culture and, we argue in our book, institutionally-driven media history of right-wing media, particularly talk radio and Fox News, drove the right into a media dynamic we call the propaganda feedback loop. This occurred before major Internet sites developed; Internet sites adapted to that already-operative media dynamic, rather than causing it.
Indeed, when we compare the pre-election coverage and the post-election coverage, attention on the left has shifted more to the center, while attention on the right has remained as right-oriented. Fox News has become more prominent online relative to Breitbart, but at the price of becoming more purely focused on right-oriented content than it was during the election. Fox online has lost hyperlinks from the center-right and center even more than from the center-left and left, and gained links from the right. This pattern is not the simple product of algorithmic filter bubbles. Compared to influence metrics based on social media attention, weblinks are more insulated from platform-imposed algorithms as they reflect the judgment and linking decisions of web authors, rather than attention and sharing patterns of audiences. Nonetheless, the asymmetric polarization appears by this measure too, and it is by this measure that Fox itself has moved to the right since the 2016 election.
Bots
Over the course of the year we have developed our own versions of several of the most widely-used bot-detection algorithms. We reran all of our analyses after removing accounts that were identified as “bots” by various methods. Although we do in fact identify a good number of accounts that would be considered “bots” by many of these definitions, the overall architecture of communication we observe remains unchanged whether we include these accounts or not. Without stronger evidence that particular major communications dynamics have been swayed by bots, our macro-level observations leave us skeptical as to the importance of bots. Moreover, using micro-scale case studies, we observe bots as background noise rather than as impactful interventions.
Functional and structural differences
Today’s media ecosystems are of course inseparable from technology, but if technology was at the core of the disinformation problem, we would expect to see as much disinformation on one side of the spectrum as the other. And yet, that’s not the case. The asymmetry we observe in the structure and practices of media across the U.S. political spectrum is evidence that the dynamics and problems in modern day media cannot be explained by technology alone.
Our caution should not be taken as clear evidence that algorithms are unimportant. There is little doubt in our minds that algorithms and machine learning impact media manipulation and disinformation. In large-scale digital media platforms, algorithms serve a curatorial role and act as gatekeepers, and are subject to gaming and manipulation in ways that human editors are not. In our own research, we have seen, for example, that Twitter is littered with disinformation and false accounts, some of which are bots and others sockpuppets. Moreover, we observe that the spread of disinformation is worse on Facebook than on Twitter, and on Twitter than on the open web. Moreover, we observed that, as Facebook was making its algorithm changes over the year, certain of the worst offenders on both the left and the right lost prominence and attention, although new offenders quickly took their place. In our current work we continue to monitor the differences across platforms and to find measures by which to assess the effectiveness of algorithm changes on Facebook or Twitter on the spread of disinformation and misinformation, and, perhaps most importantly, to assess the impact of these changes on the media ecosystem as a whole.
Diagnoses, conclusions, and interventions should be based on systemic observations of impact, rather than individual observations of “bad behavior”
The media manipulation problem and the public attention afforded it have created an environment of urgency. Insights and research are key to mitigating some of this pressure, but the temptation to leap to assumptions of impact from any observable phenomenon is hard to resist. We are naturally drawn to the novel: trolls, clickbait factories, social media algorithms, targeted advertising, psychographic profiling, and Russian interference captivate the imagination and compel question and inquiry. Identifying instances of such interventions is technically challenging, and when we see hard work bear fruit it is tempting to attribute high importance to these observations. Nonetheless, without a baseline against which to assess the impact of one or several of these phenomena, it is impossible to justify assigning them the importance that they currently receive, or to design interventions that properly address the actually important interventions rather than those that are observable and salient.
Putting these novelties into perspective is hampered by our ability to fully and accurately measure media consumption. Audiences reached by misleading and false articles and media sources is measured in the millions. As prolific as this sounds, as described previously this ultimately is a small portion of content and exposure. A second point of uncertainty relates to impact and persuasion — there is scant evidence that false media stories have any impact in changing behavior.
A prime example is Russian efforts to influence election-related discourse. Although information around the number of accounts, posts, and impressions seems to be updated regularly, current numbers draw into question the true significance of their reach. In October 2017, Facebook revealed that approximately 80,000 pieces of content published by the now infamous Russian-operated Internet Research Agency were introduced to 29 million people between January 2015 and August 2017. Their subsequent likes and shares increased the reach of the posts to 126 million Facebook users. This is indeed a big scary number. But what we don’t know is how much user attention this content commanded among the many billions of stories and posts that comprised the news feeds of U.S. voters, or if it changed any minds or influenced voter behavior. For example, using one of the tools we developed for this project, we can track the appearance of a given string across Facebook public facing pages, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, and the first few posts in 4chan discussions on a timeline down to the minute or second (depending on the platform). Using that utility, we tracked a particular story with strong indications of Russian influence (about John Podesta participating in satanic rituals), and compared all accounts to both the congressionally-released list of Russian Twitter accounts and an additional list of tens of thousands of accounts that are highly likely to be Russian bots or sockpuppets. While we did observe that 5–15% of the accounts were of such provenance at any given minute, the timing and pattern of their participation was unremarkable — a background presence of more-or-less stable existence, rather than a strategic intervention in either timing or in direction, and they therefore did not seem to play an important role in increasing the salience of the story in total or by tweeting it specifically at the major actors who were central in propagating the lie — Wikileaks, Infowars, or, ultimately, Sean Hannity.
It is critical not to confound the observation of a novel phenomenon with its actual impact in the world; newness is no proxy for impact. Indeed the discovery of such phenomena is important, but the messaging around the discovery should not be conflated with evidence that the discovered behavior in fact had impact.
The rapid advancement of technologies that digitally manipulate sound, images, and videos is a source of growing anxiety. It is too soon to predict whether synthetic media will exacerbate media disorder and epistemic crisis, but if fabricated media are shared, consumed, and interpreted in ways similar to the current versions of deceptive media, it will be spread or contained by the same influential social, political, and media entities. The fantastical nature of the claims that were widely believed by significant numbers of voters — nearly half of Trump voters gave some credence to rumors that someone associated with the Clinton campaign was running a pedophilia ring — suggests that social identity, much more than any technical indicia of truth, are the foundation for beliefs and attitudes about political matters.
Our work greatly benefits by consciously focusing on the disinformation forest, rather than on its individual trees. With an eye toward the long-term dynamics between institutions, culture, and technology, we look at algorithms and technology as a relatively new element integrated into the dynamics of broader media systems while keeping grasp of many more traditional vectors and structures. We look across media and across platforms, considering the enduring influence of radio and cable alongside broadcast television and social media platforms. Indeed, a combination of open web media publication and social media network mapping greatly enhances our understanding of the likely impact of bots, sockpuppets, political clickbait, foreign intervention, and microtargeting. Although prolific in absolute terms, the role of these modern vectors of disinformation plays an important but modest role in the overall media ecosystem.
It doesn’t look like AI is coming to the rescue anytime soon, if ever
There are a number of ways in which AI may help us to address information quality issues, including:
• Automated detection and flagging of false stories; algorithmic tools to point readers to corrections and fact-checking.
• Algorithmic tools to detect and defend against coordinated attacks by propagandists.
• Computational aids to “nudge” of readers and users to expose themselves to media and reporting outside of their echo chambers, thus opening their eyes to a broader range of viewpoints.
Despite the strong advances in the field, there is little indication at present that these tools will be able to serve as independent arbiters of truth, salience, or value. Repeatedly in our work, we have seen that stories built around a kernel of true facts, framed and interpreted in materially misleading ways are more important than stories made of clear falsifiable claims. Moreover, the meaning of stories often emerges from the network of stories and frames within which they are located. Stories and their interpretation — and misinterpretation — draw upon and act through existing social and political structures and narratives. As seen in existing applications, AI is effective at channeling and amplifying sentiments and interests of affinity groups, and helping people in ways that they want to be helped, but no present efforts appear to be able to diagnose the level of subtlety involved in the most important present disinformation campaigns we have been studying.
Systemic responses are required to address systemic issues
So what do we do about all of this? There is no silver bullet, but the best thing we can do is to continue to work toward systemic responses to the systemic problems undermining today’s media ecosystem and information quality. We must continue to focus attention on rebuilding and strengthening the political and civic institutions that undergird a well functioning democracy. The insights described here draw primarily on research conducted in the United States, but we need ecosystem-based analyses of media systems in more countries to understand how the vulnerabilities, resilience, and dynamics differ across different political and cultural contexts.
Strengthening media accountability mechanisms is vital, and tamping down disinformation and media manipulation is an integral part of the everyday hard work of democracy and governance. But given the perils of placing constraints on political speech, taking a careful and cautious approach to regulation is essential. It is important to be similarly circumspect in what we require of social media companies in addressing disinformation.
Last but far from least, there is still much work to be done in understanding the nature, reach, and impact of disinformation, as well as monitoring and evaluating targeted efforts to inoculate readers and inhibit the spread of disinformation. An area of particular concern is the increasing concentration of research capability and political outreach capability in a few private hands. We must continue efforts to bolster public interest research initiatives and develop and implement structures that allow researchers access to key sources of data with mechanisms in place to ensure robust and ethical research standards.
The development, application, and capabilities of AI-based systems are evolving rapidly, leaving largely unanswered a broad range of important short- and long-term questions related to the social impact, governance, and ethical implementations of these technologies and practices. Over the past year, the Berkman Klein Center and the MIT Media Lab , as anchor institutions of the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund , have initiated projects in areas such as social and criminal justice, media and information quality, and global governance and inclusion, in order to provide guidance to decision-makers in the private and public sectors, and to engage in impact-oriented pilot projects to bolster the use of AI for the public good, while also building an institutional knowledge base on the ethics and governance of AI, fostering human capacity, and strengthening interfaces with industry and policy-makers. Over this initial year, we have learned a lot about the challenges and opportunities for impact. This snapshot provides a brief look at some of those lessons and how they inform our work going forward. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/03%3A_Readings/3.01%3A_Readings_for_IDS_101.txt |
By Ivan Sigal, from Global Voices AdVox, March 20, 2017. Licensed under a CC-BY license.
Protesters fly a flag upside down as a signal of distress outside the offices of The Washington Post in Washington D.C. on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017. Photo: Ivan Sigal.
In his recent manifesto, Mark Zuckerberg asserts that the response to our dysfunctional and conflict-ridden politics is to build a stronger global community based on ubiquitous interconnection. We know of course that Facebook stands to profit from this utopian vision, and we should be skeptical of the motives underlying Zuck’s position. But it’s worth taking a second look at the idea of working on underlying economic and political issues in our societies, rather than focusing on the effects of online expression—particularly in the context of the moral panic over “fake news.”
The consternation about fake news from Western journalists, scholars of propaganda, and policymakers has inspired waves of stories and talk-shops addressing its growth as a threat to our public discourse, our journalism, and our systems of governance. And we see many attempts to understand, fix, or apportion blame. Yet many of the proposed fixes are deeply problematic because they advocate overly broad and vague restrictions on expression. Solutions that would limit suspected “fake” expression or strongly encourage private intermediaries to restrict some kinds of speech and prioritize or “whitelist” others are particularly troubling.
This week, Germany was the latest country to introduce a plan that would force social media companies to monitor and censor some kinds of online expression. Justice minister Heiko Maas wants to put regulatory pressure on social media companies, and especially Facebook and Twitter, to police expression, asserting that they have failed to do so voluntarily. Draft legislation proposes to fine social media companies up to €50 million for failure to quickly delete hate speech, fake news, and other types of misleading speech.
In this context, we can look to countries that have created regulatory regimes to control online expression — such as China — not as entirely “other”, but perhaps as cautionary examples. When posing solutions to fix fake news, we should be extremely careful not to build our own self-censorship machines.
“Fake” news and the role of states
Many recent false news stories have come from groups not affiliated with states, but examples from Russia, China, Iran and many other countries should remind us that the biggest threat to our public discourse is false information used by and to the advantage of governments. Governments, after all, have the authority to couple shifting narratives of truth to state mechanisms of control. We ought to be especially attuned to states that restrict the “false” expression of their citizens, while at the same time creating misleading narratives and stories about themselves. When states attempt to control narratives, it’s time to start looking for signs of tyranny.
For the past 20 years, we have seen states or their affiliates use Internet-based false news and disinformation as part of broader agendas to shape public opinion for political ends. Well-researched examples include China’s 50 Cent Party, Russia’s troll factories, and astroturfing bot engines contracted by the U.S. government, all of which are designed to flood Internet forums and social media with falsities and distractions.
At the same time, some states have taken steps to regulate, restrict and even criminalize “false” stories produced by citizens and journalists as a punitive method of controlling expression. In Bahrain, China, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, Venezuela, Iran and elsewhere social media users have been arrested and prosecuted for sharing information deemed by governments to be false or misinformed. New regulations in China forbid the use of “unverified facts distributed via social media platforms” and prohibit websites “from quoting from unnamed or fake news sources and fabricating news based on hearsay, guesswork or imagination.”
issued by a group of intergovernmental organizations, including UN Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression David Kaye, discusses these regulatory efforts from the perspective of international law and norms. They emphasize that international human rights doctrine explicitly protects expression that may differ from or counter governmental positions, even when it is factually inaccurate. Regulatory and technical approaches to reduce fake news should, they argue, continue to safeguard the diversity and abundance of speech. They write:
the human right to impart information and ideas is not limited to “correct” statements…the right also protects information and ideas that may shock, offend and disturb, and that prohibitions on disinformation may violate international human rights standards, while, at the same time, this does not justify the dissemination of knowingly or recklessly false statements by official or State actors…
What’s the problem, exactly?
The real-life consequences of fake news are unclear. A recent study by the MIT/Harvard research project Media Cloud, (with which Global Voices is affiliated), led by Yochai Benkler and Ethan Zuckerman, examines the effects of right-wing information sources in the U.S. It suggests that rather than wringing our hands over “fake news”, we should focus on disinformation networks that are insulated from mainstream public conversations. Benkler and his colleagues challenge the idea that “the internet as a technology is what fragments public discourse and polarizes opinions” and instead argue that “human choices and political campaigning, not one company’s algorithm” are the more likely factor to influence the construction and dissemination of disinformation.
Nevertheless, projects seeking to control fake news are running full steam ahead. These efforts have the potential to affect what information is easily available to publics, and if we aren’t careful, could even diminish our rights to expression. Approaches tend to fall into three broad categories:
• Fix online discourse by nudging technologies that control or censor some categories of speech
• Fix the public by making us better at distinguishing fact from fallacy
• Fix journalism, generally with massive cash transfers from the technology sector
Notably, these approaches all focus on mitigating effects rather than confronting the underlying economic or technical incentives in the structure of media, or the broader social, economic and political incentives that motivate speech.
Fix online discourse
In seeking to build systems to manage false newstechnology companies will end up creating systems to monitor and police speech. We will quickly find that they need to use ever-more granular, vigilant and therefore continuously updated semantic analysis in order to find and restrict expression.
These proposed solutions to fake news would be in part technological, based on AI and natural language processing. They will automate the search for and flagging of certain terms, word associations, and linguistic formulations. But language is more malleable than algorithm, and we will find that people will invent alternative terms and locutions to express their ends.
The slipperiness of language could cause the hunt for “fake” or hurtful speech to become an end in itself. We have already seen this in the hunt for “toxic” language in a recent project called Perspective, made by Google’s Jigsaw, and other efforts will surely follow.
Companies are likely to supplement their automated processes with human monitoring — from social media platform users flagging suspect content to contractor armies interpreting those flags and implementing restrictions. Added to this, perhaps, will be ombudspeople, feedback loops, legal processes, and policy controls upon the censors. Those systems are already in place to deal with terrorism, extreme hate speech, extreme violence, child pornography, and nudity and sexual arousal. They can be further refined and expanded to police other types of expression.
Proposed solutions in this vein mostly fail to acknowledge that the technological incentives that encourage fake news are the same as the forces that currently finance the digital media industry — that is, advertising technology masquerading as editorial content.
The internet theorist Doc Searls calls this “adtech”, emphasizing that it is a form of direct marketing or spamming. The rise of fake news is driven in part by organizations seeking revenues or political influence by creating sensational and misleading stories packaged for highly polarized audiences. Producers of this content benefit from a system already designed to segment and mobilize audiences for commercial ends. That system includes the monitoring of consumer habits, targeted advertising, direct marketing and the creation of editorial products appealing to specific consumer segments. These forces coalesce in a dance of editorial and advertising incentives that leads to further polarization and segmentation.
Fix the public
The next approach — that we fix ourselves — relies on the Victorian idea that our media systems would work if only people behaved in ways expected of them by the builders of systems. Media literacy campaigns, public education, fact-checking, calling out and shaming tactics, media diets, whitelists of approved media: these solutions require that we blame ourselves for failing to curb our appetites. It is not wrong to suggest that we are susceptible to the allure of the media’s endorphin-injection strategy to hook us on the sensational and trivial, or that education is important for a healthy civics. To focus blame primarily on individuals, however, is victim-blaming of a sort.
Fix journalism
The third approach — devoting more resources to better journalism, is an example of the journalism community jumping on the current moment to reassert their expertise and value. While a more proactive, better-resourced media is definitely vital for the long-term health of our civic life, conversations about journalism need to start with the trust deficit many journalistic outfits have accumulated over the past decades. That deficit exists precisely because of ever-more sensational and facile reporting, news as entertainment, and the corporate drive to maximise profits over the interests of audiences and readers.
Given that the business model of the liberal, capitalist media is primarily to sell eyeballs to advertisers, they should not be surprised to find those of us being sold becoming wise to the approach. And while efforts to strengthen journalism and public trust in the media are important and much-needed, they will not make fake news go away.
So what are we really talking about?
The technological and the human-based approaches to controlling inaccurate online speech proposed to date for the most part do not address the underlying social, political or communal causes of hateful or false expression. Instead, they seek to restrict behaviors and control effects, and they rely on the good offices of our technology intermediaries for that service. They do not ask us to look more closely at the social and political construction of our communities. They do not examine and propose solutions to address hate, discrimination and bias in our societies, in issues such as income disparity, urban planning, educational opportunity, or, in fact, our structures of governance.
Frustratingly, we have seen these approaches before, in efforts to reduce online “extremism”, and also with dubious results. Countering violent extremism (CVE) projects suffer from similar definitional flaws about the nature of the problem, but that doesn’t stop governments from creating misguided responses. For examples, look to the many ‘counter-narrative’ projects such as “Welcome to ISIS Land” funded by the U.S. State Department. These projects, supported by governments, international organizations, and companies, seek an array of technical, communications and policy-based approaches to controlling extremism.
[A video originally embedded her from YouTube is no longer available.]
David Kaye, in an earlier joint declaration on CVE, notes the “fail[ure] to provide definitions for key terms, such as ‘extremism’ or ‘radicalization’. “In the absence of a clear definition, these terms can be used to restrict a wide range of lawful expression,” but still inflict collateral damage, with pervasive surveillance and tracking that triggers the self-censor in all of us, resulting in the reduction of civic participation and dialogue.
How do we begin to tackle the larger challenges, those beyond simple technological fixes or self-blame? There are no easy solutions for the economic and social inequities that create divisions, and the technological and economic incentives that underpin our current information ecosystem are deeply entrenched. Yet we need to find a way to start serious conversations about these systemic challenges, rather than tinkering with their effects or simply assigning responsibility to the newest players on the field.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet, has urged that we reform the systems and business models we have created to fund our online lives. He points, for example, to the use of personal data by companies as the driver for the creation of surveillance societies, which exerts chilling effects on free expression. He suggests seeking alternatives to the concentration of attention and power in the hands of a small number of social media companies that derive profit from showing us content that is “surprising, shocking, or designed to appeal to our biases.” He’s concerned by the use of these same tactics in political advertising, and its effect on our systems of electoral politics.
Confronting our social and economic inequities is even harder. It is the challenge of our time to find the language to conduct honest and frank debate about how we construct our economies and our states, how we apportion benefits, and which values guide us. Building civic communities that are rooted in trust, both online and off, is the ongoing and vital work necessary for public conversations about our collective future.
It is no small irony that the communications systems that we built to support such debate are imperiled, both by those who would explode the social norms of civic discourse for their ideological ends, and through resultant attempts to control extreme or misleading expression. It is easy to find fault with the technologies that facilitate our collective civic life. It is much more difficult to look at our civic life as a whole and determine whether and how it may be failing. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/03%3A_Readings/3.03%3A_Fake_News_and_Fake_Solutions-_How_Do_We_Build_a_Civics_of_Trust.txt |
Reprinted from The Conversation, December 7, 2018.
Under fire, but not without options.
AP Photo/Francois Mori
Facebook is in crisis mode, but the company can take major steps to fix itself – and the global community it says it wants to promote. Facebook founder, CEO and majority shareholder Mark Zuckerberg need not wait for governments to impose regulations. If he and other industry leaders wanted to, they could make meaningful changes fairly quickly.
It wouldn’t be painless, but Facebook in particular is in a world of hurt already, facing criticism for contributing to civil unrest and sectarian turmoil around the world, delayed responses to disinformation campaigns, misleading users about data-handling policies, and efforts to discredit critics – not to mention a budding employee revolt.
Facebook, Twitter, Google and other social media companies are causing society-wide damage. But they tend to describe the problems as much smaller, resulting from rogue individuals and groups hijacking their systems for nefarious purposes. Our research into how social media can be exploited by manipulative political operatives, conducted with Joan Donovan at the Data & Society research institute, suggests the real problem is much larger than these companies admit.
We believe the roots lie in their extremely profitable advertising systems, which need a major overhaul. We have identified some key changes that these giant powerhouses could make right away. These moves could reduce opportunities for political manipulation and limit the harm to democratic societies around the world.
Users’ minds in the crosshairs
Facebook, Google, Twitter and other social media companies have built an enormous digital influence machine powered by user tracking, targeting, testing and automated decision-making to make advertising more effective and efficient. While building this supercharged surveillance system, companies have promised users and regulators that targeted advertising is mutually beneficial for both consumers and advertisers.
In this bargain, users are supposed to receive more relevant ads. Facebook, for instance, explains that its “interest-based advertising” serves users who “want to see ads that relate to things they care about.” It’s true that these methods can identify ads that connect with users’ actual interests. But the very same data-driven techniques that tell a surfer about a new board design can also identify strategic points where people are most vulnerable to influence.
In particular, the leading social media advertising systems let political operatives experiment with different ads to see which are the most effective. They can use these tools not only to see if certain issues resonate with particular targets but also test for fears or prejudices that can be invoked to influence political behavior.
This misleading ad impersonated racial justice activists to urge black Americans not to vote for Hillary Clinton.
One key way to do this is to make people feel that someone else represents an emotionally charged threat to their identity. In 2016, for instance, Russia-linked operatives bought thousands of Facebook ads targeted to specific audiences suggesting Hillary Clinton had insulted their group’s dignity or threatened their safety. Some ads alleged Clinton espoused disrespect for specific occupations, like coal miners, or racial groups, like African-Americans. Others claimed she would confiscate guns or supported radical political movements seeking to overturn familiar ways of life.
Targeting political ads is not unique to online advertising, but the tools of digital ad systems are vastly more powerful than traditional mass media. Advertisers can try out several versions of an ad simultaneously and receive almost instant feedback on which ones most effectively drive specific audiences to share, like or comment on them. This digital feedback loop helps political operatives refine their tactics, probing for just the right images, words and emotions to influence very specific subgroups of citizens.
Move fast and fix things
Members of Congress and even some key Silicon Valley figures have begun discussing the need for tighter government oversight and greater accountability in digital advertising. Change need not wait for politics.
Based on our analysis, here are some steps companies could take right away – on their own. These moves may hurt the firms’ finances, but would demonstrate serious and lasting commitment to limiting their platforms’ usefulness in political manipulation campaigns.
As their first move, social media companies could stop allowing their ad services to be used as freewheeling experimental laboratories for examining their users’ psyches. Just as marketers and academic researchers must obtain permission from their test subjects, political advertisers that run online ad experiments could get informed consent in advance from every user who is involved. Companies should ask for users’ consent in specific notifications about ad experiments and not penalize users for opting out by limiting their access to services. We suspect many users would opt out of these tests if given the choice, but in any case this policy would help draw public attention to the hidden manipulation tools that platforms offer to their real customers: the political and commercial advertisers who pay the bills.
Make targeted political advertising transparent
To increase transparency and limit the ability of special interests to secretly influence politics, social media companies could refuse to work with so-called dark money groups. All political advertisers should be required to disclose their major donors in a format users can easily access.
A new policy banning dark money ads would respond to evidence that political operatives have used impersonation and manipulative ad tactics to stir in-fighting or sow division among coalitions of their adversaries. Impersonation clearly work best when ad sponsors are able to hide their identities and motives. Anonymous ads are also more likely to violate ethical standards simply because no one fears being held responsible for them.
Make platforms more democratic
A more significant change social media companies could make would be to introduce democratic oversight of how they collect and use people’s data.
Facebook’s Zuckerberg recently took an initial step in this direction, announcing that he will create independent review panels to handle users’ appeals against the company’s removal of content it judges inappropriate. He explained that he wanted to ensure “these decisions are made in the best interests of our community and not for commercial reasons.”
Whatever you think about this plan – and it has been greeted with plenty of skepticism – Zuckerberg’s reasoning acknowledges that because social platforms have become so central to democratic life, their own policies and design decisions require democratic accountability.
A more ambitious vision would let independent ethics panels representing diverse communities of users set enforceable policies for ethical political advertising. Similar sorts of groups are common in medicine and are emerging in artificial intelligence, among other fields. The details of how such committees operate will be critical to their success. If these committees are set up in partnership with nonprofit organizations with proven records of advocating for democratic communication and campaign finance transparency, perhaps they could help social media companies earn greater public trust by prioritizing democracy over maximizing their profits.
Anthony M. Nadler, Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies, Ursinus College and Matthew Crain, Assistant Professor of Media, Journalism and Film, Miami University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/03%3A_Readings/3.04%3A_3_Ways_Facebook_and_Other_Social_Media_Companies_Could_Clean_Up_Their_Acts__.txt |
Reddit logo, via Wikimedia.
What is Reddit?
Reddit is a forum-based website that was founded to create a space where communities could collaborate, share information on their lives and interests, and find other interests related to their current experience. The website itself is home to communities called subreddits.
Subreddits are separate forums hosted on the reddit website; each one centralizes on a different topic, brand, identity, or opinion. Reddit also curates a few subreddits for general and administration related topics, like News and Announcements. Users can gain all sorts of opinions, advice, and camaraderie on Reddit from personal finance and legal insight, sharing with their coworkers from Target, Starbucks, or emergency medical services, or just finding primal human entertainment like pictures of cute cats or self-posted pornographic material of all genders.
Moderators are responsible for monitoring individual subreddits under a volunteer position, and administrators handle the website-wide affairs like technical specifications, site rules, and annual site performance, as well as supervising the moderators of different communities.
Users register to the site and can subscribe to different subreddits, which allows them to see a customized feed of posts from their favorite subreddits alongside posts that are popular across reddit.
Reddit defines its mission as “[being] home to thousands of communities, endless conversation, and authentic human connection. Whether you’re into breaking news, sports, TV fan theories, or a never-ending stream of the internet’s cutest animals, there’s a community on Reddit for you” (Reddit).
Who is Reddit?
Reddit was founded in 2005 by partners Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman. Throughout the years, the two have left and then rejoined the company, currently serving as co-CEOs.
In 2006, Reddit was sold to Conde Nast, a magazine company under Advance Publications. Conde Nast/Advance Publications also own various local news outlets, and magazines including Allure, GQ, The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Wired. Since 2011, Reddit operates as an independent subsidiary of Advance Publications. Reddit today is the sixth most visited website in the United States, and twenty-first most visited website across the world.
Who pays for Reddit?
Reddit has only a few main funding methods: investor funding rounds, selling advertisements, premium membership options and returns on investing in other tech companies.
Investor funding rounds allow private companies to use their company’s valuation and strategic plan to solicit funding from individual investors and investment firms, ultimately boosting the valuation and gaining liquid capital. Reddit’s latest funding round, which closed in February 2019, raised \$300 million from a variety of investors like Chinese firm Tencent Holdings Ltd, investment firms Sequoia Capital and Fidelity, and individuals including Snoop Dogg. Three prior funding rounds raised a combined \$250 million and has over twenty major investors. Reddit’s last round of investor funding was responsible for funding “internal product and business efforts” including new video capabilities, a new desktop design, and hiring to increase their workforce from 140 to 300 at the end of 2017.
Their current market valuation is \$3 billion and the last funding type was Series D. The letters used for different funding Series classifies the stage in which the corporation requesting funding is considered. Series D investments are reserved for established companies that have completed other funding rounds or proven themselves as a revenue-generator, and typically see \$10+ million in funding.
Another popular type of funding is the sale of advertisement options across the site. Advertisement options on Reddit include either a sponsored post on certain subreddits or types of subreddits, or the front page. Advertisers are charged based on the page views their ads get by the thousands, plus a base fee. Other advertisement use on Reddit includes Google Adsense advertisements on the sidebar.
As the website expands its advertising platform, Reddit has targeted ad sales towards fashion, media, and automotive companies; this raised \$85 to 100 million this year. Reddit only started selling structured advertising in 2015 and launched its app in early 2016, limiting the percentage of its revenue that came from advertisements. The company plans to expand its advertising platform in the future to take on Google and Facebook’s ad programs.
Smaller revenue streams include the sale of premium memberships and returns on investment in other tech companies. Reddit’s most notable investment went to Imgur in 2014 for a total of \$40 million.
The sale of Reddit Premium memberships and Reddit coins enables premium features to enhance user experience and the ability to turn-off ads. Newly revamped from the old Reddit Gold system in 2018, Reddit Premium costs \$5.99/mo and can either be purchased for oneself or gifted to other users for one week or one month by using reddit coins to give their comments or posts a Gold Award or Platinum Award. In 2017, Reddit Premium and coins made the site over \$1 million; the site is hoping these numbers are boosted with the aforementioned redesign recently debuting.
Reddit leaders have noted that the company will not seek another common method of financing, an IPO/public offering sale, in which companies sell shares of ownership in the company in exchange for liquid capital. Reddit has never publicly shared revenue figures, but owners have stated multiple times that prior to 2018/19, the site has not been profitable and most funds cover the operating cost of the website and its staff.
What data does it collect from its users?
Reddit collect three types of data which they described as information the consumer provided, information they collect automatically, and information they gather from others.
The information they collect from the user is username, password, email, user account preferences and settings. Reddit may log information when you access and use the Services. This may include your IP address, user-agent string, browser type, operating system, referral URLs, device information (e.g., device IDs), pages visited, links clicked, the requested URL, hardware settings, and search terms.
Reddit may receive information about the consumer from other sources, including from other users and third parties, and combine that information with the other information they have about the consumer. For example, Reddit may receive demographic or interest information about the consumer from third parties, including advertisers, and combine it with Reddit’s own data using a common account identifier such as a hash of an email address or a mobile-device ID.
How does Reddit moderate its contributions?
Reddit uses a metric called karma to represent their contributions to Reddit. There are two kinds of karma: link and comment. Link karma is received when you post a link on Reddit, while comment karma is what you will receive when you post a comment. If others like your post or comment, they will give you upvotes. If others do not like the content you post, they will downvote it. Karma is measured by the total difference between all upvotes and downvotes on every link post or comment that redditors submitted.
Reddit allows its users to post various authentic contents that can either be funny, serious or offensive. However it has a basic guideline on what is prohibited or unwelcome on the platform. Reddit prohibits posting illegal content, involuntary pornography, contents that incite violence, personal information, and spam. All contents that might be banned from accessing at workplace, such as nudity, pornography, profanity must be tagged as NSFW (Not Safe For Work).
Most people follow Reddit for their personal interests, and most subreddits are considered non-news thread. However there are a few subreddits designed to update news around the world, including r/news. R/news claims to contain “real news articles, primarily but not exclusively, news relating to the United States and the rest of the World.” Having more than 18 million followers, its popularity lies among the most subscribed subreddits in the entire domain.
R/news promotes ten different rules to control the flow of articles. For examples, the first rule dictates that any news that is more than a week old is not considered “news,” to maintain the strict up-to-date nature of the page. Discussions regarding news should be kept in r/inthenews, which is another subreddit for opinion pieces.
Interestingly, news related to politics should be moved to R/politics. Therefore, this subreddit is not a suitable place for followers who look for inherently political materials.
Critiques of Reddit
While Reddit does appear to have a platform for everyone’s voice to be heard there is an underlying issue that moderators have the power to censor any subreddits that do not adhere to the views they hold. This may lead to some users having a smaller voice in their community and discourage them in the future from participating.
Currently, Reddit has moderator guidelines with vague definitions of how moderators should behave, like being “around” to answer questions and solve problems, cultivating “healthy communities”, and allowing moderators to review appeals to their own actions.
Reddit also lends itself to be an anonymous forum where violent language could be exchanged, making many of its users fearful of death threats, threats of sexual violence, defamation, etc. Currently Reddit reserves the right to ban subreddits and utilize its quarantine method to limit exposure to subreddits.
Looking towards the future Reddit has the opportunity to change how their moderators work by strengthening the non-partisan ideals of moderatorship and encourage consistent action across subreddits, Reddit should shift the shape of their Moderator Guidelines.
First, converting the guidelines to requirements or another type of document requiring explicit acceptance of the rules would create a stronger infrastructure and sense of commitment to how Reddit would like moderators to behave.
Secondly, the terms of the current moderator guidelines need to be better defined. This could be done through either modeling exceptional subreddit moderator and moderator practices, or providing their own examples of how they would like to see moderation handled. For example, in the guidance for Stable and Active Teams of Moderators, Reddit should provide:
• appropriate frequency of participation on the subreddit,
• reasons acceptable for extended leaves,
• a process in which moderators are required to notify their team about extended leave,
• activity frequency guidelines under which a mod is demoted (for example, being missing for x amount of time, being present but not handling moderator duties for y amount of time, etc.)
A solution to abuses of anonymity on Reddit could be an additional financial sanction added to subreddits designated as free speech applicable, but not recommended for the general population. The financial sanction would require the subreddit to pay, collectively, to remain in existence and be hosted. The fee could be per-subscriber or collectively as a subreddit, and could be due annually or per month. The funds from these collections could be partially donated to causes that support human rights, social welfare, and freedom of speech.
The advantage to per-subscriber is that the financial cost would limit the popularity of said subreddits and would scale in terms of subreddit volume, but imposing a community-wide funding target would allow for the temporary suspension of the subreddit if it cannot “offset” itself by a certain contribution for charity, which creates some social good. An annual collection is a more forgiving method for collection and provides a set expectation, and again, the per-month collection discourages high volumes of traffic to the subreddit and maximizes potential to collect funds for charitable causes. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/04%3A_Examining_Platforms/4.01%3A_Reddit-_The_Conversation_Starts_Here.txt |
Google logo as of 2015 via Wikimedia Commons
Background
The history of Google began in 1995 when Stanford University student Larry Page met a man named Sergey Brin. They initially worked on a search engine called BackRub that was used at Stanford for about a year. It wasn’t until September 15, 1997 that Google.com was registered. In 1998, Google was set as a private company and while a small startup in a garage with one employee, the future to come set up the path for the company to become the giant we know today.
Growth: In the first couple years of operation, the company received offers for a buyout, even going up to one million dollars. While Page and Brin considered this so they could go back to focus on their studies, they declined. In late 1999, google received a \$25 million dollar investment that significantly boosted its growth. Google’s rise combined with the fall of the giant at the time, Yahoo, significantly helped Google grow and become the powerhouse it is today. As it grew, Google began to add more services such as ads, images, and a defining moment in 2005 when they added maps. Google expanded more and more from office to office and then worldwide. Eventually, Google’s success lead them to invest in stuff of their own, for example investing 200 million dollars in a wind farm. They also bought YouTube for \$1.65 billion dollars. Today, Google’s logo is one that half the world recognizes and it is one of the most valuable companies of our time. Also, Google has officially become the verb that people are widely acknowledge. There are so many more important milestones in Google’s journey.
Google Today
Google is owned by Alphabet Inc. However, the Alphabet CEO is one of the original creators of Google, Larry Page. Google is currently run by a man named Sundar Pichai. Its stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” and, while they are very successful in their mission, Google goes much further than just that. Google is a giant service that provides the most recent news, email services, document services, and the list goes on and on. It is used in the everyday life of American people and other people around the world. It is not just a website but a platform to connect the world.
Financial
In its 2017 Annual report, Google reported it generates most of its revenues from advertising. This includes sales of apps, purchases made in-app, digital content products on Google and YouTube, Android, and licensing and service fees, including fees received for Google Cloud offerings. 46% of this was from clicks (cost per clicks), amounting to US\$109,652 million in 2017. This includes three principal methods, namely AdMob, AdSense (such as AdSense for Content, AdSense for Search, etc.) and DoubleClick AdExchange.
For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported \$10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only \$112 million in licensing and other revenues.In 2011, 96% of Google’s revenue was derived from its advertising programs. In addition to its own algorithms for understanding search requests, Google uses technology from a company they acquired, DoubleClick, to project user interest and target advertising to the search context and the user history.
In 2007, Google launched “AdSense for Mobile”, taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market.
Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page. Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google’s AdWords allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through a cost-per-click scheme.The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked. One of the criticisms of this program is the possibility of click fraud, which occurs when a person or automated script clicks on advertisements without being interested in the product, causing the advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claimed that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were fraudulent or invalid.
Data
Like any other website or forum that you can create an account on, Google gathers information about people, which can be concerning for some. Google has access to your name, birthday, and gender, your password and phone number, emails you write and receive on Gmail, photos and videos you save, Docs, Sheets, and Slides you create on Drive, comments you make on YouTube, contacts you add, and calendar events.
News
There are two ways that users can find news on Google. The first way Google can represent news is by using its search engine that helps users find the most relevant news. How Google does this is by matching our search keywords with texts from different websites which will be relevant to our search. Users often try to place their sites prominently by using Search Engine Optimization, attempting to influence the order in which website/pages appear when we search for something. We can also think of Google and the internet as the internet being like a Library and Google like the librarian who shows us the information which it thinks might be useful for us. Since Google’s results ranking algorithm is proprietary, we really can’t know for sure how it works.
The only limit that available right now is the keywords choice from users because Google Search Algorithm gives user more accurate result base on the region of users. Suppose we have users in the US and users in Asia countries search for the same topic, there are chances that Google gives different results. We can consider how different the search result that users in some countries like North Korea and China will get from users in Europe or America. Also, this sorting algorithm is based on the keywords of your search, and since not everyone typing an idea the same way, different search results will appear based on the keywords that they look up. The results might also be affected by the location of user. This is the main idea of this search algorithm: “Search algorithms look at many factors, including the words of your query, relevance and usability of pages, expertise of sources, and your location and settings.” As the company explains,
With the amount of information available on the web, finding what you need would be nearly impossible without some help sorting through it. Google ranking systems are designed to do just that: sort through hundreds of billions of webpages in our Search index to find the most relevant, useful results in a fraction of a second, and present them in a way that helps you find what you’re looking for.
The second way is using Google News. Every user that has a Google account can use this function. This function has a headlines newsfeed and also offer users specific categories that users are looking for. This is a nice feature of Google that allows user update news constantly. Google uses sources from popular channel like Fox News, CNN and The New York Times. Google shows the sources with the title so users can have multiple options to choose for their sources.
The News feature is developing fact checking tools to helps users check the accountability of their source of news. This is an extremely helpful tools for social and political violence because this feature does not just representing news but it is also show articles that respond and warn people about the fake news that some unreliable sources posted.
Since Google will show users different results base on users keywords, there might be a chance that Google will also show the unreliable sources. However, the ranking systems will also help to prevent those unreliable sources from appearing on the front sites of the search so unless users look for those sources on purpose but, there is no possible way to completely eliminate this.
Some people are able to push unreliable sources onto the front by taking advantage of phrases that may not be as mainstream or used very often. So when these phrases are searched, the non-mainstream or extremists sites show up. It is a problem that is very hard to get around because there is no way to stop it besides completely restricting some words or phrases which goes against what Google wants.
In general, Google is a very effective search engine that helps users find the most reliable sources to their search. It also has a feature that allow user to update news with reliable sources. Google has been an effective tools for users to find their answers for many years and now it also helps people to take in information from reliable sources. With the size of Google right now, this new feature of Google has an important meaning to social and political violence. It allows users to find the right answer as long as they willing to look for it at the right source.
The problem with Google is that it relies more on the publishers reputation than following the search string algorithm. This leads to the users not finding the exact answers that they were looking for. This thing became huge when in 2016 Google put fake news with false numbers for its top search results about the 2016 Elections saying that Donald Trump won both the popular and electoral votes, which was not true.
Criticism of Google
The first criticism that users have about Google is click fraud. Click fraud occurs when Web site publishers click on ads on their site to boost their revenue or when companies click on rivals’ ads to eat away at their advertising budgets. Invalid clicks, for which Google does not charge advertisers, include inadvertent double clicks on an ad. Since Google cannot provide data about click fraud, advertisers have to use third party companies to fight against click fraud. Industry reports say fraudulent clicks range from 14 percent to 20 percent of total clicks. Google has introduced a new system is called Adwords and customers will be able to see data on invalid clicks on a daily basis.
The second major criticism of Google is user privacy. On March 1st, 2012, Google began to allow sharing data across a wide variety of services. The policy was widely criticized for creating an environment that discourages Internet-innovation by making Internet users more fearful and wary about what they put online. Privacy International has raised concerns because of Google having a centrally-located widely popular data warehouse of millions of Internet users’ searches. At one point, Google could have been forced to hand over all such information to the U.S. government. In 2007, in its Consultation Report, Privacy International ranked Google as “Hostile to Privacy”, its lowest rating on their report, making Google the only company in the list to receive that ranking.
In the summer of 2016, Google quietly dropped its ban on including personally-identifiable info in its DoubleClick ad service. The policy was changed to state it “may” combine web-browsing records obtained through DoubleClick with what the company learns from the use of other Google services. While new users were automatically opted-in, existing users were asked if they wanted to opt-in, and it remains possible to opt-out by going to the “Activity controls” in the “My Account” page of a Google account. DoubleClick ads that follow people around on the web may now be customized based on your name and other information Google knows about you. It also means that Google could now, if it wished to, build a portrait of a user by name, based on everything the user writes in their email, every website they visit, and the searches they conduct. Google responded that it doesn’t “currently” use Gmail keywords to target web ads.
Beside the two major threats that we mentioned, there are some other potential for data disclosure such as attacking user’s cookies, tracking, or Gmail. Because of the size of the company and the size of data that Google has to process, it will be extremely hard for Google to provide users different tools to protect themselves online. If users want to protect their data on a higher level they need to be equipped with products that cover their digital footprints.
Recommended Reading
7 Ways to Master the New Google News” by Michael Simon, PC World, June 20, 2018.
A Deep Look at Google’s Biggest-Ever Search Quality Crisis” by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land, April 3, 2017.
Google Has a Striking History of Bias Against Black Girls” by Safiya Noble, Time, March 26, 2018.
Google Tried to Change China; China May End Up Changing Google” by Farad Majoo, The New York Times, August 22, 2018.
Google’s ‘Dirty Secret’ Allows Third Party Apps to Read Gmail Messages” by Steven Lerner, Tech Times, July 3, 2018. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/04%3A_Examining_Platforms/4.02%3A_Google.txt |
YouTube logo as of 2017 via Wikimedia Commons.
Beginning of YouTube
YouTube was created in 2005 and originally was intended to be a dating website. Today YouTube is the biggest video sharing website known and used around the globe. YouTube’s mission is to give everyone a chance to make their voice heard across the world. This mission also includes allowing the content creators to use their freedom of speech and expression actively. To create the most personalized environment for its users, YouTube collects data over time to recommend the most relevant videos for them. YouTube collects data from its users by putting their information into an algorithm to figure out what is most relevant for users to view next. YouTube was only around for one year before Google decided to buy them. Google created Google AdSense, a program designed to put ads before, during, and after the videos based on the interests of the specific viewer. These advertisements are a significant part in funding for both YouTube and their content creators, which allows for consistent uploading of a seemingly infinite amount of videos on the site.
YouTube and the Media
YouTube has become a huge resource for people to access all kinds of content, including the news. The site has verified channels that a user can turn to get their news or see coverage of news that was seen on a different platform. This way of having access to video or news coverage from not only yesterday, or a week ago, but even multiple years ago, provides the user with access to information possibly not found elsewhere. The site also has a “Trending” page with videos that YouTube determines as the videos that are garnering views at the fastest rate. The videos on this page tend to gather the most attention because they are easily accessible. YouTube, while still trying to allow users to freely express themselves, moderates videos that are posted as well as comments on videos. The company has a ‘Community Guidelines’ page that discusses what kind of videos should not be uploaded. These guidelines cover things such as hateful content, nudity or sexual content, violent or graphic content, threats, privacy, etc. Despite having these guidelines, the company relies heavily on users to report or flag content that they feel is not appropriate.
YouTube: A Valid Source?
There are a few concerns and critiques of YouTube that should be addressed. One main concern of YouTube is that the anonymity on the site can make it easier for people to blindly hate or bully someone while keeping their real identity a secret. Another issue is that the recommendations provided by the algorithm tend to push viewers toward more extreme content. This can amplify extremist political material and has led to children’s programming that is groteque and disturbing.
A common critique when it comes to YouTube is the copyright claims for certain videos, clips, and songs used in videos that restrict the amount of money YouTubers make. YouTube has made it so these companies or corporations can easily claim copyright and this can cause certain videos to be removed or blocked. The YouTuber may even have to pay the corporation or company for copyright claims when the YouTuber didn’t really do anything wrong. One way in which YouTube could solve this major issue would be to make it so that YouTube requires proof that copyright infringement is actually happening before a video gets shut down or blocked.
Recommended Reading
The Battle Between YouTube and the Mainstream Media” by Joe Bish, Vice, May 3, 2017.
YouTube’s Copyright Strikes Have Become a Tool for Extortion” by Shoshana Wodinsky, The Verge, Feb. 11, 2019. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/04%3A_Examining_Platforms/4.03%3A_YouTube.txt |
Snaptchat logo via Wikimedia Commons.
If you have a smartphone you have probably heard of the app Snapchat: it’s an app that allows you to connect and share images with your friends. The application allows you to send pictures, text messages, and videos that disappear after being opened. At least, that is how the app started. Snapchat has since grown to include games, public “stories,” and news headlines. The Snapchat app has around 158 million users daily with around 85% of those users being between the age of 18 and 35. Snapchat (or Snap Inc.) is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, and is still ran by the original founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. Facebook in the past has made offers to buy out the company, but as of yet, Snapchat has remained independent. The status of being independently owned and not associated with other large corporations has definitely shaped the platform in terms of what news they show and how Snapchat makes revenue.
Components of Snapchat
Chat: Friends who have each others’ usernames are able to send text messages that disappear once exited. The chat may also be used to respond directly to a friend’s image or video post. Users can choose to “save” messages if they wish.
Lenses: Lenses allow users to supplement their images with various filters and effects, including sponsored content for different companies and organizations.
Product identification: By pressing on one’s screen for a few seconds, one can identify songs with Shazam or find products on Amazon that most closely resemble the product selected within the frame.
Snapchat’s Influence on the News
Over the years Snapchat has accumulated more platforms within the app that allowed for the expansion of public content. From more notable sources like The New York Times, National Geographic, and The Wall Street Journal, to more blog-like stories such as SEVENTEEN and Cosmo, Snapchat now contains a wide variety of “story” content. With access to these stories, Snapchat users get a snippet of what is happening in the other parts of the world with celebrities, politics, and “shocking” events in the past 24 hours. Because Snapchat is able to freely publicize user material, news stories sometimes include images and videos from other users present at the scene of the story. Because these stories don’t require much time or reading, a user can find out about a current event within seconds before deciding if they want to look further into or continue on to other headlines. These news stories are broken up by video advertisements, and users can choose to subscribe to news platforms. Once subscribed, Snapchat’s algorithm presents the user with other stories that may interest them.
As stated by The Center for Digital Ethics and Policy, Snapchat presents itself as a camera app, not a media platform, and similar to Facebook, Snapchat does not feel responsible for the content that is placed on the platform. The news stories that are posted on the app generally originate in live pictures and videos posted by users, due to the nature of the app. With crowd sourcing information, it is extremely difficult to monitor the content and to fact check the events. In regards to the Discovery section of Snapchat, which presents users with news stories from news sources, only groups that are partnered with Snapchat are allowed to post. Due to this, Snapchat can pick and choose which sources they would like to be partnered with, and are able to cancel partnerships if Snapchat feels the information is not what they want. This can both be good and bad, on one hand Snapchat can eliminate false news from the platform, but on the other hand Snapchat can censor sources that they do not agree with.
Snapchat Trends
Snapchat’s stated mission is “At Snap, we believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. We contribute to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together.” This social media platform has pushed the boundaries of how people communicate, especially for teenagers. The current state of Snapchat is very different from what it was in its inception, and the popularity of the platform is too. Snapchat is reported to be the highest activity for social media at 35% among teens, according to Pew Research Center.
Snapchat’s arguably most recognizable trend is that the things you send or post “disappear”, except that is not necessarily the case. Users have the capabilities on their devices to “screenshot” or “screen record” pictures and videos they are sent personally, as well as the content posted on their friends’ stories (public posts that all of the users’ friends can view). Snapchat was the first to implement stories, and this trend has spread and been copied by the other giant social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and now Youtube as well.
According to Amnesty International, Snapchat has not done enough to ensure privacy among its users, and they do not put enough effort into educating their users about the dangers possible on the site. One of the bigger issues is that Snapchat holds users’ pictures and videos for up to 30 days on a company server, leaving that data susceptible to hackers. However, the newest “trend” on Snapchat is its relatively new advertising strategy that makes it possible for smaller and bigger brands alike to put ads through Snapchat, and this is done through Snapchat sending user data to companies so they can target their respective audiences. Pushing the boundary further, Snapchat has a new partnership with Amazon for product identification that involves users being able to scan items or barcodes with their camera to then be provided with a list of options to buy from Amazon. Convenient? Sure. Good for privacy? We will just have to wait and find out for ourselves.
Loopholes and Community Concerns
• Ability to circumvent age restrictions: Snapchat, like most social media sites requires users to be at least 13 years old. While this is true, people simply lie.
• Terms of service say you can’t do anything illegal: Because there isn’t anyone going through and checking every message sent to look for illegal activity, it is very easy for people to send messages involving, for example, illegal substances.
• CAN regulate users by reviewing any and all materials posted, but regulation is very lax.
• Snap Inc., is not held liable for any illegal and/or harmful content posted; more concerned about copyright infringement.
• Product identification: partnering with Amazon to identify and market Amazon products: the camera can identify products and suggest similar products for the user to buy.
• Access to geolocations of users unless turned off in settings: Snapchat can see where you are
• Access to all contacts and photos on user devices.
• May mimic your face, voice, or other traits for the purposes of advertising without compensation.
What Should Snapchat do?
While many other social media sites struggle with fake news media, Snapchat remains relatively free of misleading news. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Snapchat is one of few social media sites that does not have an issue with fake news. As was stated in previous sections, Snapchat only posts content from sources who they have a partnership with. Due to Snapchat picking and choosing who to partner with, they have been able to be clear of fake news and only partner with reputable news sources. Their content chief has also said “If an individual story gets hundreds of thousands of views, a team of our editors looks at it.” If the story is checked and found to be true, it is then posted by Snapchat to the “Our Stories” section on Snapchat, which can function as a type of news. Snapchat has also already been actively fighting back against fake news. The company has reportedly been helping to fund research in creating an algorithm to detect fake news, this way they can assist other platforms in riding the internet of the problem.
One method of regulation that Snapchat has is community regulation. Individual users can report other users and content by their discretion. This can allow for Snapchat to eliminate illegal activities, and to eliminate user abuse. Another option for closing loopholes could be to require verification of user identity. This will hold people more accountable and make sure that users are the appropriate age to be using the application. Snapchat already allows an optional two-factor identification for users, requiring new accounts to verify with a mobile phone number. However there are other ways to go about verifying users, for instance they could use Twitter’s model of verification. This can also help to reduce the amount of fake bot accounts on the platform. On the other side, requiring verification could have negative impacts for people that run multiple accounts. For instance, a person who has an account for personal use and an account to use as a public figure. Verification can also lead to the false assumption that because a person is verified, the company supports them, when in reality it just means that the person is who they say they are.
Now we will leave it to you, the reader, do you think that Snapchat is doing enough? What would you like to see change?
Recommended Reading
“Facebook is Being Eclipsed by its Youthful Rival Snapchat” by Mark Sweney, The Guardian, Aug. 27, 2018.
“How Snapchat is Shaping Social Media” by Katie Benner, The New York Times, Nov. 30, 2016. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/04%3A_Examining_Platforms/4.04%3A_Snapchat.txt |
8chan logo via Wikimedia Commons.
8chan (also known as infinitychan or infinitechan) originated in October 22, 2013 as a response to the supposed “authoritarian” development of the imageboard 4chan according to its developer Frederick Brennen, otherwise known by his online pseudonym “Hotwheels”. 8chan is an imageboard designed to allow for the unabridged free speech of its anonymous users. It has a small user base when compared to social media giants like Facebook, but ranks 3776th in global user visits. The site requires no registration for its use, and claims to hold no information on its users (a claim doubted by some users), with users being identified only by IP address and a randomly generated numeric code. It is only moderated by the individual board’s owner, allowing difficulty in holding individual rule-breakers accountable outside of removing their rule-breaking posts & banning their IP addresses.
There is one guiding rule for the entirety of the site: “Do not post, request, or link to any content that is illegal in the United States of America and do not create boards with the purpose of posting or spreading such content.” The site accepts advertisement, allowing for threads’ placement at the top of board pages with payment. Despite these routes, the site is bankrolled by the owner of the site, Jim Watkins. Watkins got his start in the online pornography business in the early days of the internet, and owns NT Technology, a server hosting business which he used to repossess the domain of 2chan. The website has yet to make profit, instead surviving due to Watkins’ patronage, for better or worse. 8chan has had some of its largest struggles with policing its own community; many cases of legal offenses and even some terroristic events have occurred.
Media Spotlight
While 8chan itself is far from a ‘news site’ in any classic definition of the phrase, it certainly does its fair share to earn itself a name in the news. Its continual gain in attraction to nefarious counter-culture groups like the Alt-right, the site even hosts a board which provides a space for pedophiles to create dialogue, some users even sharing links to child pornography images or sites. The track record is not good, and appears as though the site is making no genuine efforts to correct the actions that have been made clear to them. Some would argue, including Brennan himself, that ‘it is simply the cost of free speech…’. But the crackdowns below are not the first, nor the last of 8chan’s problems with the law, nor are they exhaustive at this point.
/Baphomet/ & Swatting: An escalation of Gamergate
Baphomet, the supposed idol of the Knights of Templar turned symbol of the Church of Satan, was co-opted by 8chan users in 2015 on the tail end of the gamergate scandal. The group was a hub of people who desired to ‘SWAT’ on those that the community of the board deemed threatening/critical of the goals of gamergate: the increase in numbers of female video game developers and producers. Eventually, much of the thread was expunged from 8chan, but only after a user of the board attempted to ‘doxxJudge Katherine Forrest, who preceded over the influential Silk Road case.
8chan Removed From Google Search Results Over Reports of Child Abuse
Later in the same year as the SWATing incident, 8chan was removed from the search results of Google’s search engine during an investigation into allegations of child abuse, ranging from images of children that were just on the close side of the law to explicitly sexual images of children and the discussion of pedophile’s lust for children, including their tips and tricks for dealing with their sexual appetites, and even discussions of what they felt was their ‘persecution’.
Louisiana State Police and Alleged Antifa Membership Roster
The Louisiana state P.D. is being sued over its refusal to allow the public release of a supposed Antifa roster which some argue has been harvested from the boards of 8chan. Knowing the reputation of this site concerning false sources, pranks, and harassment, the factual validity of the document is questionable, at best. This document has been circulated throughout the Louisiana Police Dept. and appears to be part of an active investigation.
Shooter’s Manifestos Posted to 8chan
In April of 2019, two seperate terrorists posted manifestos to 8chan before engaging in violent actions that left over 50 dead, collectively. Both of these actions were politically motivated, and inspired, at least in part, by the extremity of 8chan’s white nationalist population. In New Zealand, the shooter’s anti-Muslim bigotry inspired him to open fire on two separate religious establishments, with catastrophic results. Shortly afterward, another gunman mimicked the New Zealand terrorist, posting his own manifesto in which he praised the New Zealand shooter. He then traveled to a synagogue to act out his own attack on one of Powey, California’s Jewish communities.
8chan’s Culture
Having been popularized during an exodus of extremist users from 4chan and other message board sites, 8chan has only one intention: to be a haven of unfettered free speech rights. As mentioned in the introduction, there is only one universal rule for using the site, and that is to avoid posting/linking services and content that is illegal in the United States. This rudimentary set of guidelines is still too stringent for the admins of 8chan, and as a result they only seem to respond to their own rules when violations of U.S. laws are waved before their faces or when they are threatened with legal action. All marginalized groups are fair game on this website, which is resistant to political correctness, anti-feminist, and home to radical voices from many ideologies.
I don’t have a problem with white supremacists talking on 8chan.
Jim Watkins, 8chan owner
8chan also allows for complete anonymity for its users, requiring no registration, log in, or verification of identity. Users are instead identified merely by a number serial which is random, resulting in a loss of personal identification and accountability. The 8chan administration can view what IP address that users are browsing with, and ban them from the site, but users are otherwise protected from punishment. While in line with the goal of the site, these facts make it no easy task to hold users accountable, and emboldens them to behave in ways which they would not be able to on other, more moderated platforms.
“Free speech” in the case of 8chan, has lead to a prevalence of conspiracy theories due to a complete lack of moderation. From claims that Hillary Clinton ran a child sex trafficking ring from the basement of a pizza parlour, to assertions that there is a deep-state government controlling the heads of state (specifically those opposed to the sitting president), many subversive opinions and theories gain traction on this site, and some even seep into the pores of more credible sources. This muddling of people’s worldview is part and parcel of the overall ‘Troll’ mentality of the user base, which consistently uses disinformation campaigns, exploitation of technology, and online mob-tactics to spread its ideology.
A quick key to imageboard vernacular
• fullchan: 8chan
• halfchan: 4chan
• normalf*g or normaln*****: normal person, especially one who follows/subscribes to mainstream beliefs and popular culture
• Xf*g: person overly obsessed with X thing
• >>>/out/ or >>>/reddit/ : used in a reply when a person does not put enough effort into their post. the Reddit reference comes from the popular idea on 8chan that Reddit users come to 8chan to find memes and flood the board with low-quality, low-effort posts
• boomer: pretty much anyone over the age of 40; derogatory for someone who is out of touch with the ongoings of the world
• zoomer: a person in Generation Z; derogatory for a young person interested or obsessed with mainstream culture
• doomer: a depressed person who has given up on the world or otherwise believes the world is doomed, usually because of “degeneracy”. mostly bunkers in the /doomer/ board on 8chan
• fed: anyone who advocates for governmental control over imageboards and other parts of the internet, or is believed to be a member of law enforcement attempting data collection on the users of the site
• tripf*g: a person who uses the tripcode system in order to have a persistent username on the site. Tripcodes are cryptographically generated from a password, which is entered every time one makes a post or reply on the site. derogatory as “tripf*gging”, the act of using a tripcode to identify oneself across posts, goes against the board culture of anonymity
• avatarf*gging: including an image of the same character or person across all of one’s posts, much like one would have an avatar or profile picture on a traditional social media site
• “glow-in-the-dark n***** from the CIA”: a person who advocates for governmental surveillance and backdoored online services, particularly on /tech/ where the prevailing board culture values libre software, security, and privacy. comes from a popular verbal tic of Terry Davis, a programmer revered by imageboards for his frequent racist screeds and singlehandedly creating the computer operating system TempleOS because be believed God told him to
• lolcow: a person who can be easily goaded into doing embarrassing things on the internet for trolls’ amusement
8chan Iconography and Dog-Whistles
A dog-whistle in a political sense is coded language employed in a way so that the general public cannot fully understand the true meaning that the ingroup understands it. Dog whistles are often disguised as completely mundane and innocuous language as to allow those in the ingroup to completely disavow the dog whistle’s true meaning and say that they were using the normal usage of it. Both 4 and 8 chan have created multiple dog-whistles and have worked them into their existing iconography.
• Pepe
• Probably the oldest and best-known image coming from 4 and 8 Chan. The character originated from the comic Boy’s Club written by Matt Furie but quickly was co opted by the Chans and became a mascot of sorts. But as they moved further towards extremism and bigotry so did Pepe leading to the Anti-Defamation League classifying it as a hate symbol.
• NPC
• The NPC meme was created to mock progressives and pretty much everyone else left of center by comparing them to NPCs (non-player characters) from video games. A video game NPC is nothing but a machine programmed to repeat the same lines over and over. Members of 4 and 8 Chan compare their political adversaries to them in order to dehumanize them, which could potentially lead to violence.
• Kekistan
• A fake nation created in 4chan around 2017 as a home for the members of site. It became a symbol for /pol/, and as time went on the flag started to show up at right wing rallies such as the “Unite the Right Rally” where Heather Heyer was killed. The flag itself looks like an altered nazi flag with the swastikas replaced with the word “Kek” and the flag itself recolored to green, doubtlessly referencing Pepe.
• The “Ok Hand”
• One of the older dog whistles but one that is still being used today. It was originally created to make people who called them out on it look absurd. The sign means white power, the three fingers are the W and the thumb and the pointer finger along with the wrist being the P. The members of 4chan showed an image of Mel Gibson (who famously made multiple anti-Semitic remarks) making the sign alongside an image explaining it to give the fake dog whistle credibility. As time has passed, the hand sign has developed from a meme into a disparaging symbol, as shown with the Christchurch shooter making it during his shooting and in court.
• Any common noun (who, they, etc.) surrounded with three sets of parentheses or asterisks
• This is a way for them to discuss their Jewish deep state conspiracy without being too overt. Many members on the Chans believe that there is a vast Jewish conspiracy that has control of the world governments and mainstream media. Replace the noun in the parenthesis or asterisks with “The Jews.”
What Can Be Done?
To ban or not to ban, that is the question, and around that question there is much debate. Hate groups, like white nationalist organizations and anti-gender-equality groups, often espouse the message that they are woefully oppressed and suppressed by the government and liberals, hence their migration to platforms like 8chan to escape accountability. In a climate such as this, marginalizing them further may lead to deeper convictions. Unfortunately, as the administrative leaders of 8chan are reluctant to acknowledge their role in the real-life consequences of their cyber laissez-faire, there are not many courses that this website will take. This problem is exacerbated further by the fact that while the website has servers in the United States, those in control of the site itself reside outside the legal bounds of the U.S. system.
Would government action restricting content on the site violate the First Amendment? A great deal of the population would refer to the website as the darkest place on the internet, which some would use to argue for the censorship of its content. The First Amendment states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” At the time of its creation, the First Amendment was devised to protect the individual from having their civil liberties infringed upon by a tyrannical government. Acts of violence encouraged by a space that does not have an underlying ethical conformity besides freely speaking like this site poses a challenge: is this speech legally protected? Cases such as of Miller v. California (1973) which proposed a test for whether speech is obscene and therefore not protected and Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), concerning speech that provokes violence, suggest some of the speech expressed on 8chan is not necessarily protected under the First Amendment. However, the site’s administrators live abroad and might claim immunity is provided by Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Commercial constraints are not likely to moderate 8chan. This is not a normal case of social media management, and therefore will be near impervious to economic constraints, seeing as it already appears as though the site doesn’t earn enough money itself to stay in the dark. Social pressure also will not alleviate this problem, as 8channers are the type to feed off of detraction. Hopefully, as this site grows in its influence and popularity, its administration will be forced to seek new employees, some of whom may see this problem for what it is, not as some bastion of free speech, but a host for those who are willing to weaponize it to prove a point.
Some countries, like New Zealand, that have seen extreme violence as a result of the radicalization of the site’s users are blocking accessibility to the site, taking the only recourse left to them by a website that continually pushes the envelope. Unfortunately, users in these countries may be empowered by this silencing of their counter culture, but the world may have to cross each bridge as we get to them in cases like these.
Recommended Reading and Viewing
Meet the Man Keeping 8chan, The World’s Most Vile Website, Alive” by Ethan Chiel, Splinter, April 19, 2016.
The Other America ‘Frederick Brennan’Al Jazeera America, n.d.
The Cops Want to Know What’s Happening on 8Chan” by Ali Breland, Mother Jones, April 5, 2019.
Why Banning the Toxic, Racist 8chan Message Board Could Backfire” by Ali Breland, Mother Jones, May 1, 2019. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/04%3A_Examining_Platforms/4.05%3A_8chan.txt |
photo courtesy of World’s Direction (public domain)
Twitter, founded in 2006, was initially designed as a “microblogging” platform for posting short public messages that would be aggregated in reverse chronological order. Now a publicly-traded company, it made its initial public offering (IPO) in 2013, making Jack Dorsey, one of its founders and its current CEO, an instant billionaire. At the time of the IPO, Twitter operated at a loss and did not post a profit until the first quarter of 2018. Nearly all of its revenue is from advertising but some of it comes from licensing the use of the data it gathers from users to third parties. Its share of the digital advertising market falls well behind Google, Facebook, and Amazon and has a relatively small user base of 126 million daily active users. The tension between efforts to grow the user base and removing bots and abusive accounts that damage the brand has been a constant challenge for its business model.
How Twitter Influences the News
In spite of the fact it has far fewer users than Facebook or Snapchat, Twitter has a strong influence on news sharing because the platform design favors immediacy and provides a quick snapshot of trends. For example, the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO, and subsequent protests were barely visible on Facebook but dominated Twitter before journalists arrived to cover the story. Journalists rely on Twitter as a crowdsource platform – to get a sense of what is capturing public attention – as well as a place to promote and share new stories. An April 2019 survey from Pew Research suggests Twitter users in the United States are not demographically representative, but tend to skew left and young. Users of the platform in other countries may have a different profile.
Public figures have also found Twitter a platform for promoting ideas and getting reactions in real time. Unlike Facebook, Twitter does not rely on algorithms tied to your personal information to tailor what you see in your feed (though it uses algorithms to screen out some illegal or abusive material). What news you see primarily depends on who you follow and what they post or retweet in real time. Changes made in the platform have in subtle ways changed how people interact on Twitter. For example, one preliminary study showed allowing users to comment on a tweet by “tweet quoting” rather than simply replying appears to have somewhat improved the civility of political discourse and extended the conversation to a more politically diverse group of users. Further changes are in the works.
The use of Twitter by President Trump has bolstered the political influence of the platform far beyond its user base. It has also caused significant controversy. Users won a lawsuit against the president for blocking their accounts. (When public officials use social media, they are acting as agents of the government in a public forum. “The viewpoint-based exclusion of the individual plaintiffs from that designated public forum is proscribed by the First Amendment” according to the court’s decision, which is under appeal.) President Trump has, in other ways, benefitted by using Twitter as a public megaphone, frequently bypassing normal White House channels to announce policies or personnel decisions.
Twitter has also benefited from his frequent use. One analyst predicted the company would lose \$2 billion if the president stopped using the platform, amounting to 20 percent of the company’s market capitalization. Though many users have reported tweets posted by the president for violating the platforms rules, his account has not been suspended or banned. In 2018 Twitter responded to complaints (without naming Trump) by announcing public figures have a special “newsworthy” status which exempts them from enforcement imposed on less prominent users, basically saying rules can be broken if you are important enough.
Twitter’s Culture(s)
The company’s current values statement is “We believe in free expression and think every voice has the power to impact the world.” Though Twitter’s policies ban threats of violence, doxxing, and “hateful conduct,” it has been markedly reluctant to enforce its policies. Amnesty International released a report in 2018 documenting how toxic the platform is for women, who are often threatened with violence for expressing themselves. Women of color in particular receive the worst abuse. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded, saying “We love instant, public, global messaging and conversation. It’s what Twitter is and it’s why we’re here. But we didn’t fully predict or understand the real-world negative consequences.” In spite of multiple changes to its terms of use, abuse persists. In April, 2019 the company announced it was having some success removing abusive content using an algorithm rather than responding only to flagged content.
Twitter does not have a “real names” policy; users can create multiple accounts and do not have to disclose information about themselves beyond an email address. In its terms of service, Twitter forbids impersonating others, but allows parody and fan accounts. Users are able to choose whether to share location or other information and whether to have ads targeted to them or not. The data Twitter collects is used to build profiles for advertisers and is shared with some third parties; this appears to be a growing part of its business.
Twitter was the first social media company to introduce a verification process to enable some users to provide additional proof of identity and earn a “blue check” by their handle. Though some people mistake that as a marker of quality or authority, it simply means the company ascertained the person behind the account was real and had gained enough notoriety to be recognized with a check mark. Twitter was criticized for giving white supremacists who organized the Unite the Right rally verified accounts, removing them only as the rally approached. In 2018 the verification program was suspended so the company could redesign the program. The application process remains unavailable.
Automated accounts (bots) have presented a problem for the platform. The company acknowledged the wide use of bots and deleted tens of millions of suspect accounts in 2018, though recent research suggests real accounts supporting Trump in an organized mobilization may have been more influential than bots in the 2016 presidential election. That said, bots on Twitter continue to be a concern for 2019 elections in Sweden, Canada, Israel, India, and elsewhere.
Visualization of Twitter bots during the 2019 Israeli election created by Zignal courtesy of TED (cited in recommended reading). The white dots are accounts held by read people; pink and dark pink are bots.
Though Twitter is known for broadcasting opinions, it has also become a place where communities of interest gather and share information. Academics use it to share their research and keep in touch with others in their disciplines (#Twitterstorians and #PhDchat are examples) or tweet during academic conferences. They also make use of Twitter’s application program interface (API) for analyzing public sentiment. “Black Twitter” became a phrase to describe the high percentage of African Americans (and black people elsewhere) using the platform for communication and activism. Twitter has also become a favored platform for white supremacists in part because it allows multiple account creation and anonymity, enforces its policies inconsistently, and is reluctant to take action against prominent extremists.
What Twitter Should Do
All social platforms that depend on data-gathering and advertising as a business model face a conundrum: algorithmic mechanisms that encourage engagement can also encourage extremism and drive away users who encounter hate speech and abuse. Publicly-traded companies may be reluctant to take action that could depress earnings, but are also at risk if not taking action damages their brand or results in lawsuits or government sanction. In the public annual report to shareholders required by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Twitter identifies numerous risks faced by the company. Their 2018 transparency report report states the company over 200 million accounts were reported for “spam or abuse” in six months of 2018. Roughly a quarter million accounts were sanctioned for “abuse” and around 43,000 for making violent threats. The company also conducted a review of mistakes made during the 2016 election and outlined its efforts to combat malicious activity during the midterm election of 2018. Yet researchers have identified Twitter’s problematic delay in dealing with problems that can be identified quickly. Likewise, the findings of the Amnesty International report suggest the company does not take threats and abuse seriously enough.
The confluence of political influence and hate speech can be illustrated by President Trump’s endorsing a misleading video about Minnesota’s US Representative Ilhan Omar by retweeting it and adding a misleading comment, inflaming an already dangerous situation for the legislator who had been targeted with death threats on Twitter. A cybersecurity expert was able to find accounts aiming violence at the lawmaker within a couple of hours. He argues the platform could take greater responsibility by monitoring obvious threats and taking quick action. This will require a combination of algorithmic monitoring (which has shown some success) and human intervention, which should be made a priority. Hiring social scientists trained in anthropology, psychology, and communication studies could complement research and development efforts. There should also be some process for quarantining and saving records of account action that is under investigation by law enforcement, journalists, or researchers.
Additionally, like all advertising-funded platforms, laws must be passed and regulations enforced that make it possible to clearly label the source of funding for campaign advertisements and to ensure compliance with all campaign finance laws in countries where Twitter operates. Further, as licensing personal data becomes an increasingly important revenue stream, the company should prepare to comply with new privacy legislation such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) passed in the European Union and, as cyber risks proliferate, take measures to prevent breaches and hacks.
Finally, the company appears to have a dysfunctional management culture that makes it difficult to make hard decisions or implement improvements. Given the platform’s influence on the flow of information, particularly political news, it should make efforts to build a stronger, more stable and inclusive leadership structure.
Recommended Reading and Viewing
The Black Feminists Who Saw the Alt-Right Coming” by Rachelle Hampton, Slate, April 2019.
How Twitter Needs to Change (Interview with Jack Dorsey) TED, April 2019.
Twitter and Teargas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest by Zeynep Tufekci (Yale, 2017). | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Clickbait_Bias_and_Propaganda_in_Information_Networks_(Fister_et_al.)/04%3A_Examining_Platforms/4.06%3A_Twitter.txt |
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01: Professional Skills of Successful Communicators
It is not just intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, that predicts a student’s or professional’s success. Emotional intelligence and personal resilience are becoming as important a measure as test scores. The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) developed a “character growth chart” to help measure students’ personal characteristics that auger well for success in higher education.
Among the attributes it lists and the indicators that a student has those attributes are:
• GRIT: Sticks with a project for more than a few weeks, tries hard even after experiencing failure, keeps working even when s/he felt like quitting
• ZEST: Actively participates, shows enthusiasm, approaches new situations with excitement and energy
• SELF CONTROL (school work): Comes to class prepared, remembers and follows directions, pays attention and is able to resist distractions
• SELF CONTROL (interpersonal): Remains calm even when criticized or otherwise provoked, allows others to speak without interrupting, is polite
• OPTIMISM: Believes that effort would improve his/her future, stays motivated even when things don’t go well
• GRATITUDE: Recognizes what other people do for them, shows appreciation by saying thank you or doing something nice for someone else
• SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE: Finds solutions during conflicts with others, shows they care about the feelings of others
• CURIOSITY: Eager to explore new things, asks questions, takes an active interest in learning
You can see why this list of attributes would be attractive to employers as well.
These are not “skills” per se, but personality traits that will help you succeed in both your academic and professional work environments. We encourage you to develop these approaches and attitudes.
1.02: Attributes Employers Desire
The Wisconsin Job Center surveyed employers in their state to get a sense of what they are looking for when hiring or promoting employees. Take a look at the list below and see how much the personality traits and behaviors identified by KIPP are mirrored in employers’ wish list.
• Attendance
• Punctuality
• Enthusiasm
• Cooperation
• Maturity
• Accuracy
• Problem-solving Skills
• Organizational Skills
• Interpersonal Skills
• Openness — Shares Experience and Ideas
• Discretion and Loyalty to Employer — Doesn’t Criticize Past or Present Employers
• Versatility — Skilled in More Than One Area
• Conscientious — Committed to Doing the Best Job Possible
Identify those skills or personality traits on this list that you currently possess, and those that you might want to develop. As emotional intelligence becomes more widely appreciated, it is your ability to demonstrate these skills that will be the strongest predictor of your success.
1.03: Team Membership Skills
Mass communication professionals almost always work in teams. Different members of the group bring their particular skill sets and competencies to the overall task. Employers expect that each individual understands the role s/he plays and understands how to work collaboratively to accomplish the goals set by supervisors and clients.
You will almost certainly begin your career as one member of a larger team and as someone who is responsible for working with a variety of colleagues who have different expertise and different responsibilities. You will be successful if you understand how your contributions to the overall effort fits with others contributions. Your ability to both “manage laterally” and “manage up” will help your colleagues and superiors understand and acknowledge the role you are playing in the team effort.
Scott Maxwell – CC BY-SA 2.0
Author Dan Collins has outlined characteristics of a good team member:
• Works for consensus on decisions
• Shares openly and authentically with others regarding personal feelings, opinions, thoughts, and perceptions about problems and conditions
• Involves others in the decision-making process
• Trusts, supports, and has genuine concern for other team members
• “Owns” problems rather than blaming them on others
• When listening, attempts to hear and interpret communication from other’s points of view
• Influences others by involving them in the issue(s)
• Encourages the development of other team members
• Respects and is tolerant of individual differences
• Acknowledges and works through conflict openly
• Considers and uses new ideas and suggestions from others
• Encourages feedback on own behavior
• Understands and is committed to team objectives
• Does not engage in win/lose activities with other team members
• Has skills in understanding what’s going on in the group
Again, you can see how this list overlaps with the KIPP traits and the employers’ wish list. These are some of the key skills and characteristics that successful students, professionals and team members share.
A short video from Study.com on being a good team member
1.04: Values for Success
Another list of what employers look for comes from About.com’s article on internships. This is oriented a bit differently from the previous lists in that it identifies “values” that employees possess that are of importance to employers. It includes:
• Strong work ethic
• Dependability and responsibility
• Possessing a positive attitude
• Adaptability
• Self motivation
• Self confidence
Two other personal attributes are vital to maintaining the ethical and legal standards in your communications work. They are:
• Honesty and integrity
• Professionalism
In Lesson 7 we will be discussing how to evaluate the ethical and legal considerations you must keep in mind as you begin your information strategy work.
As for the personality traits and attitudes discussed in this lesson, it is important for you to do an honest self-assessment of where your own strengths lie, and where there might be the need for an attitude adjustment. Learning now which personality skills you have and which you need to work on will help ensure your success both in the classroom and on the job.
J1986boston24 – CMS Student Internship – CC BY-SA 3.0
1.05: Resources
Links to Resources in the Lesson
• Characteristics of a Good Team and Team Member: www.innovativeteambuilding.co.uk/pages/articles/characteristics.htm
• [1]Top 10 Work Values Employers Look For: internships.about.com/od/internshipsuccess/a/workvalues.htm
Additional Resources about Work Values
• 7 Traits of a Solid PR Professional: www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/7_traits_of_a_solid_PR_professional_14347.aspx
• 9 Traits of Uber-Effective PR Pro in 2015: www.cision.com/us/2014/10/9-traits-of-an-uber-effective-pr-pro-in-2015/
• Advertising Manager Careers: www.mymajors.com/career/advertising-manager/skills/
• Top 10 Qualities of a Great Advertising Team: advertisingschools.com/resources/top-10-qualities-of-a-great-advertising-team
• What are the Qualities to Become a Good Journalist?: www.buzzle.com/articles/what-are-the-qualities-required-to-become-a-good-journalist.html
• Trust Me, I’m a Journalist: how-to-become-a-journalist.blogspot.com/2013/05/personal-skills-needed-to-be-journalist.html | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/01%3A_Professional_Skills_of_Successful_Communicators/1.01%3A_EQ_vs_IQ.txt |
Communicators perform two basic tasks: they gather and evaluate information, and they create messages. This course focuses on the information strategy skills communicators must hone to find the information they need to form effective messages.
Media messages take myriad forms and serve different functions. In this lesson we will discuss the variety of media message types.
To get started, answer this – which of the following is not a media message?
• Editorial about mass transit needs
• Branded content (advertorial) about nursing home services
• News release announcing a company’s merger with another company
• TV commercial for dog food
• Breaking news story about a tornado
• Profile of a performance artist
• Billboard for a mobile phone company
• Five-part series on climate change
• Pop-up ad on your mobile device for cheap car insurance
• Reporter’s Twitter post linking to a new investigative report
The answer, of course, is that they all are media messages.
The differences in these messages, though, are readily apparent. Where you find them, what purpose they serve, and what the message creator hopes you will do with the information contained in the message are all different. So are the information requirements in creating these different messages. The pop-up ad just needs the facts about the insurance company and a link, whereas the series on global warming needs extensive information from reports and experts to effectively create the message.
Whether you are a reporter, a public relations specialist, or someone who works in advertising, the main output of your work will be a media message.
Pottery – CC0
According to Wikipedia,
“A message in its most general meaning is an object of communication. It is a vessel which provides information.”
Just as it takes clay to make pottery, it takes information to craft a message. At all stages in the process of crafting a message, information is the essential material. Just as pottery can come in many shapes and forms and serve various purposes, so, too, do the information “vessels” communicators create.
2.02: The Information Strategy Process
Models can be useful ways to illustrate often complicated processes. The Information Strategy Process model below recognizes that in an information-rich environment, it is impossible to remember thousands of specific information-finding tools and resources for answering specific questions. Instead, the model suggests a systematic course to follow when developing a strategy for determining, and seeking, the information needed for any message type or topic.
The model identifies the steps in the information strategy process and indicates the paths between the steps. As the two-way arrows indicate, the process may include some backtracking in the course of verifying information or raising additional questions. As a graphic representation of both the steps to take in the process and the sources that might meet a particular information need, the model serves as the outline of your entire information-gathering process.
The model also identifies the contributors to an information strategy. Information is created by many different types of sources and is intended to meet a wide variety of needs for both the information creator and for anyone who might gather and use that information. The model points out the major contributors or sources of information: institutional sources (which includes both public-sector and private- sector institutions), scholarly sources, journalistic sources and informal sources. We will discuss each of these in more detail in Lesson 6 and in other Lessons where appropriate.
The information strategy model for mass communicators applies to any type of message task and any topic that you may be working on. The process applies to an information search for news, advertising, public relations or even for an academic paper. The information strategy process can facilitate the search for information on any topic and for any audience.
For mass communicators, the information strategy process will help you:
• think through the message’s purpose, context, audience and key topics
• identify and select a manageable portion of the topic which needs to be examined
• develop a method for in-depth examination of a segment of the topic selected
• identify appropriate potential sources of information
• select effective techniques for researching the topic
• determine a vocabulary for discussing your message analysis, information gathering and selection process with others (colleagues, supervisors, critics, audience members. etc.)
• save time by helping you avoid wading through masses of information that may be interesting, but in the end, not very useful for the message task
We will use this conceptual map as a way to think about how to accomplish each of the information tasks that communication professionals might face.
2.03: Information Tasks of Communication P
News – CC0
Each of the mass communication professions – journalism, advertising, public relations – serve different information objectives for their organizations.
• Journalistic organizations want to inform and engage the readers / viewers / listeners of their messages through publishing stories about current events, people, ideas, or useful tips. By providing compelling and interesting information they hope to draw an audience to the publications in which their messages appear.
• Advertising firms create messages for their clients that inform or persuade potential customers to purchase a product or service or adopt an idea or perspective. Ads generally include a “call to action” that identifies the intended outcome of the message.
Advertising vs PR – CC BY-NC 2.0 – Mark Smiciklas
• Public relations firms help their clients influence legislators, stakeholders (ie: regulators, business partners, media organizations and the general public) to think positively about the company or organization and manage the organization’s information environment.
They serve these key objectives using a variety of message types. Let’s look at the different forms of media messages in news organizations, advertising agencies, and public relations firms and the information tasks of the professionals creating those messages. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/02%3A_Information_Strategy_Process_and_the_Needs_of_Communicators/2.01%3A_Information_for_Messages.txt |
News – CC0
News messages are often broken into three categories: “hard” news, “soft” news or features, and opinion. “Hard” news comprises reports of important issues, current events, and other topics that inform citizens about what is going on in the world and their communities while “soft” news covers those things that are not necessarily important and are handled with a lighter approach. Opinion pieces, unlike the other two which value “objectivity,” are subjective and will have a specific point of view.
Hard News
• Breaking news – Sometimes referred to as “the first take on history” breaking news stories provide as clear and accurate an accounting of some kind of event as possible while it is happening. In reporting about wildfires raging in the west, the breaking news story requires a timely accounting of what’s happening, with a tight focus on the “who, what, when, where, why” and it requires well-honed observation and interviewing skills. For the breaking news story, the information tasks for the reporters are to show up, assess the situation, use their senses to cover the event, and learn more information through first-person interviews. Breaking news provides the “need to know” information as an event unfolds. EXAMPLE
• Depth report – The depth report is the story after the breaking news report. The goals for journalists preparing a depth report are to try to help people understand how the event happened, who was affected, what is being done about it, how people are reacting. For instance, in the aftermath of a story about wildfires in the West, the reporter’s information tasks would include gathering background information about the firefighting efforts, the economic impact of the fires, the reactions of home and business owners, the potential impact that the weather might have on future similar events. As with the breaking news story, the journalist is transmitting information, not opinion and they must be able to identify the most knowledgeable sources. EXAMPLE
• Analysis or interpretive report – The focus here is on an issue, problem or controversy. The substance of the report is still verifiable fact, not opinion. But instead of presenting facts as with breaking news or a depth report and hoping the facts speak for themselves, the reporter writing an interpretive piece clarifies, explains, analyzes. The report usually focuses on WHY something has (or has not) happened. The information tasks are greater for this type of report, due to the need to clarify and explain rather than simply narrate. An analysis of the wildfires might look into how environmental policy or urban sprawl factored into the event. Analyses generally require learning about different perspectives or ranges of opinion from a variety of experts and more “digging” into causes. EXAMPLE
• Investigative report – Unlike the analysis which follows up on a news event, the information tasks for an investigative report require journalists to uncover information that will not be handed to them, these stories are reported by opening closed doors and closed mouths. These are the stories that expose problems or controversies authorities may not want to see covered. This requires unearthing hidden or previously unorganized information in order to clarify, explain and analyze something. A key technique used in investigative reports is data analysis. In the aftermath of the wildfires a news organization might investigate the insurance claims process or how a charitable organization that received relief funds for fire victims actually allocated the money. The investigative report requires the communicator to have a high level of information sophistication, and the ability to convey complex information in a straightforward way for the audience. EXAMPLE
Soft News
• Feature – The feature differs from the other types of news reports in intent. The previous examples seek to inform the audience about something of importance or concern. Features, on the other hand, are designed to capture audience interest and are more about providing entertainment than critical information. The feature story depends on style, great writing, and humor as much as on the information it contains. There are several types of features:
News – A story about a man who used cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to revive a pet dog rescued from the bottom of a pool might be reported as a news feature. It is based on an event, but covered as a feature, but the information tasks require gathering material to put more emphasis on the drama of the event than on the information about how to do CPR on a dog. EXAMPLE
Personality sketch or profile – A story about the accomplishments, attitudes and characteristics of an individual seeks to capture the essence of a person. This requires both thorough backgrounding of the subject and skills in interviewing as information tasks. The communicator has to have a well-honed ability for noticing details that bring to life what is interesting or unique about the person. EXAMPLE
Informative – A sidebar to accompany a main news story might be written as an informative feature. For example, an informative feature that describes the various methods firefighters use to combat wildfires might accompany a breaking news story. The information tasks for the reporter include a good command of sometimes-technical information to convey the story to the audience. EXAMPLE | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/02%3A_Information_Strategy_Process_and_the_Needs_of_Communicators/2.04%3A_News_Messages.txt |
Advertising is defined as a paid form of communication from an identified sponsor using mass media to persuade or influence an audience. Because there are so many diverse advertisers attempting to reach so many different types of audiences with persuasive messages, many forms of advertising have developed. We will discuss nine types of advertising and the information tasks they require of the communicator.
1922 Coca-Cola ad – CC0
1) Brand or national consumer advertising – This type of advertising emphasizes brand identity and image. Advertising campaigns for Coca-Cola, Nike, or American Express are examples. Brand advertising seeks to generate demand for a product or service, and then convince the audience that a specific brand is the one they want. For example, Nike ads seek to generate demand for expensive athletic shoes and to convince purchasers that they want Nikes rather than Reeboks. The information tasks for these types of campaigns are extensive but much of the information that is gathered usually does not actually appear in the content of the ads themselves. Rather, the information informs the development of the advertising campaign strategy and the choice of media in which to place the ads.
2) Retail – Advertising that is local and that focuses on the store where products and services can be purchased is called retail advertising. The message emphasizes price, availability, location and hours of operation. Nike, for example, might generate a brand ad about their shoes, but the local department store would generate a retail ad telling about the great sale they are having on Nikes and other shoes. The department store managers don’t care which brand of shoe you buy as long as you shop in their store rather than their competitor’s store. The information tasks for these types of ads include gathering a lot of highly specific information about the retailer, given the purpose of the advertisements.
3) Directory – Ads that help you learn where to buy a product or service are directory ads. The telephone yellow pages are the most common form of directory ads, but many other directories perform the same function. The ads that appear as “sponsored links” next to your results from a search in a search engine are a form of directory ads. They are classified and served to you according to the terms in your search. These types of ads are almost purely information-based and meet an already-expressed need for information on the part of the audience member. The information tasks connected to directory ads include analysis of vast data sets of information about consumers, much of which is done by computer algorithms. But the ad creators need to understand how and why a particular consumer was targeted for a particular ad in order to be effective.
Nixon ad – CC0
4) Political – Ads designed to persuade people to vote for a politician are familiar fixtures on
the media landscape every political season. We can all recall candidate ads we’ve seen during each election cycle. Information tasks for this type of ad include gathering background research about the opposition candidate as well as material about the candidate sponsoring the ad, the latest polls of likely voters, public attitudes about the issues, and other facts that inform the strategy for the copy and placement of the ad. Communicators also must know the relevant legal and regulatory restrictions for political advertising in each market where they ads may run.
5) Direct-response – These types of ads can appear in any medium. A direct-response ad tries to stimulate a sale directly. The consumer can respond by phone, mail, or electronically, and the product is delivered directly to the consumer by mail or to a mobile device (a coupon for the pizza parlor you just passed on the street). On television, the infomercials for hair-care products, exercise equipment, or kitchen gear are examples of direct-response ads. Flyers you get in the mail to “Buy this Product” are also examples. These ads have a high information component and the communicators’ information tasks reflect the need to be well-informed. The message-makers assume the audience is already interested in or curious about the goods or services, since they are watching the infomercial, reading the catalog, or have gone to the website. The direct-response piece includes lots of information about the products, and the goal is to make the sale. Mobile versions of direct response ads have to have a good “hook” to get the receiver to pay attention and act. EXAMPLES AND EXPLANATION
6) Business-to-business – Messages directed at retailers, wholesalers, distributors, industrial purchasers, and professionals such as lawyers and physicians comprise business-to-business advertising. These ads are concentrated in business and professional publications. For example, banks advertise to small business owners; or equipment manufacturers advertise to factory managers, hospital administrators, restaurant owners, and others who might purchase their equipment. Unless you do the type of work that makes you an audience member for these kinds of messages, you aren’t likely to see very many business-to-business ads. Because these types of ads require that they be directed toward a specialist audience with specific needs for products or services tailored for a particular industry, the information tasks required to produce these ads are highly detailed. EXAMPLES OF AWARD-WINNING B2B ADVERTISING
7) Institutional – This form of advertising is sometimes called corporate advertising. The focus of the message is on establishing a corporate identity or winning the public over to the organization’s point of view. Rather than outlining the product or service offered by the institution, the ad attempts to create an image or reinforce an attitude about the company as a whole. Also, the ad may attempt to influence policymaking by advocating a particular position on some national issue that affects the interests of the sponsoring institution. The information component of this type of ad usually consists of extensive background research about the attitudes and psychologies of the intended audience, and the information tasks include gathering in-depth knowledge about the sponsoring institution and its goals for the message.
Nigel Lamb – Pinder’s Optometrists Advertorial – CC BY 2.0
8) Advertising features – Also referred to as an advertorial, branded content or native ads, this form is
becoming more common. Many magazines carry inserts that look like a feature piece but are actually generated by an advertiser or a public relations firm, not by a journalist. For example, you might find an insert in a newsweekly magazine about living a healthy lifestyle, with articles and photographs that is sponsored by a pharmaceutical company. The communicator must have solid background information about the product, service or topic AND must know how to write like a journalist. Hence, the information tasks for this type of content include both content and stylistic aspects.
9) Public service – This type of ad communicates a message on behalf of some good cause, such as stopping drunk driving or preventing AIDS. Unlike the other types of advertising, media professionals create these ads for free, and time or space to run the ads are donated by media outlets. The ads typically include some information that emphasizes the nature of the problem or the cause so as to induce the audience to take the problem seriously. Information tasks for public service ads or PSAs usually include identifying an emotional or psychological “hook” for the audience to get engaged with the ad content. UNEP World Environment Day PSA
Much of the information that is used in the creation of advertising never actually appears in the copy of the ad or in the visuals that are produced. Instead, extensive information is uncovered to help the advertising professionals understand the background about the audience and message. For instance, communicators need to understand the product or service they will be pitching, the interests and needs of the intended audience, the competitors’ products advantages and disadvantages, all of which helps them decide how much money should be spent on the campaign and where the ads should appear. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/02%3A_Information_Strategy_Process_and_the_Needs_of_Communicators/2.05%3A_Advertising_Messages.txt |
Public relations messages are sometimes referred to as “earned media” (as opposed to “paid media” like advertising.) This means that the PR professional has “earned” the attention of the journalist who decides to use the information the PR professional supplied as the germ of a news story. The messages created by public relations professionals get a major portion of their exposure through journalism organizations – output from public relations professionals is a major source of news. A significant routine for news professionals is the monitoring and use of news releases generated by public relations specialists, attendance at news conferences organized by PR professionals, coverage of events sponsored by PR strategists, and use of material from the media kits that PR firms create for their clients.
Generally speaking, the policy of news organizations is that PR-generated messages are checked, edited, and supplemented by information independently generated by news professionals before running. In fact, much PR appears in mass media, but most of it is produced for specialized media such as trade, association, and employee publications. Public relations messages are also a part of what is referred to as “strategic communications” along with advertising in that there is a strategic objective in the crafting of the message to influence people’s opinions or purchasing decisions.
Just as there are various forms of news and advertising messages, there are a number of forms of public relations messages, and a set of information tasks for communicators.
1) Internal PR – These include corporate newsletters, crisis management plans, corporate intelligence reports, and other forms of communication that are intended for the internal audience of employees and officers of a company. Also included here are the annual reports prepared for stockholders in publicly-held firms. These types of public relations media are information-rich and the information tasks include having an extensive understanding of the company, the issues and problems the company faces, the finances of the firm and any other factors that employees and stockholders would have an interest in knowing about. EXAMPLE
Bureau of Labor Statistics
2) News releases – News releases are sent to media outlets by PR specialists who want to generate interest for their client or company. A news release might be prepared:
• as a simple announcement story (IBM’s 3rd quarter profits rose)
• as an advance story (The circus will be unloading animals for the 3-day stay in town at such-and-such a place and time)
• as a follow-up after an event (Ground was broken for a new nursing home)
• in response to a trend, current event or unfolding crisis (Interest rates are at an all-time low, so ABC Mortgage is offering the following tips to consumers about refinancing).
The best news releases are produced to have the look and feel of a news story that might have been produced by news professionals. They therefore share many of the same information characteristics as news reports. The one big difference, as we have already stated, is that PR specialists are not obligated to tell all sides of the story. The information tasks for news release producers are very similar to those for feature story journalists.
3) Broadcast (video) news releases – A video news release (VNR) is simply a news release in the form of a broadcast news story. The video and voice-over are designed to look like a piece that you would see on any television news program. B-roll footage, or video images sent to the media, is closely related to a VNR. The difference is that b-roll does not include a narrated voice-over, and is not edited as a ready-to-go news package. Reporters use b-roll footage from companies to enhance their own stories. For example, for a new movie release the promotion company might send out b-roll footage of the filming to be used in a story or review. EXAMPLE
An audio news release (ANR) is designed to be played on the radio. The audio clip might be a “voicer,” a news story recorded by a PR professional in the style of a radio announcer; or the clip might be an “actuality,” the actual voice of a newsmaker or news source speaking. These types of messages are usually accompanied by a print news release or an announcement to alert news professionals that the VNR or ANR is available. ANRs EXPLAINED
Once again, these announcements are produced to have the look and sound of reports produced by news professionals, but with a different standard for completeness of information. PR news releases rarely include information representing all sides of the issue. For that reason, it is generally considered an ethical breach to use information from a VNR or ANR without attributing it to the source so the news audience isn’t confused about where the information originated. But the information tasks are again similar to those for feature journalists.
4) Media kits – Media kits consist of a fact sheet about the client or event, biographic sketches of major people involved, a straight news story, news-column material, a news feature, a brochure, photographs, and for those kits delivered digitally, audio and video segments. Often, media professionals package these materials in a folder or other unique format that is professionally designed and printed, or post the materials on a website specifically created for the distribution of the media kit content. Public relations organizations create media kits with the intent of providing story ideas for news professionals, as well as to generate interest and attention for the client. For example, the Salvation Army might update its “Kettle Bell Ringing” media kit before the holiday season each year. Magazine publishers create media kits to attract advertisers by highlighting the size and quality of their audiences, the effectiveness of their editorial content and the prices for placing an ad. With all the different components that go into a media kit, you can understand that the information tasks for communicators producing these types of messages are large in number and detailed in requirements. EXAMPLE
Glenn Fawcett – Pentagon Press Secretary George E. Little briefs the media in the Pentagon Press Briefing Room – Public domain.
5) Backgrounder or briefing session – PR specialists provide in-depth information about an issue or event for reporters in backgrounders or briefing sessions. The PR people offer handouts (information sheets or reports) and the principal news source about the issue or event makes a presentation. Unlike news conferences, there is little give and take between reporters and the moderator of these sessions. They are used to explain a policy or situation rather than to announce something. The National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB), for example, might hold a briefing session following an airplane crash. The handouts prepared for these sessions are sometimes quite extensive, requiring solid information preparation among the PR specialists working on the handouts. The information tasks for the PR specialists include the need to anticipate the types of questions journalists will ask and the depth of follow-up material they need to provide.
6) News conferences – There are two categories of news conferences: information or personality. The information news conference usually has a single motive – someone wants media attention for an announcement, for an update on a breaking event, for follow-up about an investigation, or some other specific item of interest to news professionals. There is give and take as reporters ask questions of the person at the podium. EXAMPLE
aphrodite-in-nyc – Hereafter – CC BY 2.0
The personality news conference is designed to provide news professionals with access to someone famous, about-to-be-famous, or otherwise in the public spotlight. Whenever a professional sports team signs a major college star, for example, there is usually a personality news conference where the individual
Information tasks for a news conference include preparing an opening statement, a briefing paper for the person which anticipates reporters’ questions, and social media content that can be shared during and after the news conference. There may also be a handout outlining the major points made in the announcement. Again, PR specialists must understand what makes news and prepare their news conference information to meet those requirements.
Public domain
7) Media tour – Like a briefing or background session, the purpose of a media tour is to provide in-depth information to reporters. However, the format of the meetings that take place on the media tour is often highly interactive, with one-on-one between a reporter and company official (and public relations specialist). The nature of the information provided as part of a media tour is generally slightly less timely than what would be discussed as part of a news backgrounder or briefing. A media tour might be arranged so that reporters can “demo” a new high-tech product while a company representative walks them through the features. PR specialists’ information tasks include knowing what will be most interesting to the journalists on the tour and what can and can’t be shared as part of the event.
Public domain.
8) Special events – PR specialists may plan special events (sometimes disparagingly-labeled “pseudo-events”) for clients who want media attention for a cause or issue. There may be a jump-rope-a-thon for cancer research, or a grain company may sponsor a food lift for famine victims. These events must be planned to have news value, and the information that is generated to announce and entice coverage by news professionals must have all of the same characteristics that we have already mentioned. Coverage of these types of events is usually framed as a feature, with similar information tasks for PR practitioners.
9) Responses to media inquiries – There are cases when a company may not proactively send out a news release or hold a press conference, but may receive requests from the media for comment. Public relations employees are there to respond to reporters’ requests for quotes, examples or explanations. In these cases, the public relations practitioner needs to act quickly to help meet the journalist’s deadline, and the information tasks involve gathering additional background information about the situation and arranging a meeting or conference call with company management to discuss how best to respond. Getting back to a reporter in a timely manner is key to maintaining good relationships with the media, even if the response is that your company will not be able to provide the requested statement or information at that particular time. Keeping the reporter informed is always a better approach than “stonewalling.”
10) PR features – As is the case for advertising message types, many PR firms and corporate communications professionals are creating branded content or native ads. This is sometimes referred to as “owned media” when it is created by the sponsoring company itself. Companies may create entire websites, magazines or video channels specifically for this type of “owned media” content. The communicator must have solid background information about the product, service or topic AND must know how to write like a journalist as part of the information tasks necessary to be successful. EXAMPLES | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/02%3A_Information_Strategy_Process_and_the_Needs_of_Communicators/2.06%3A_Public_Relations_Messages.txt |
The way information is crafted into the final media message depends on two key factors:
• how the message is being delivered (a story in a newspaper versus on a mobile device, a TV brand ad or one in an interactive magazine)
• the audience for whom the message is intended
The storytelling techniques you use must take into account the media format in which the information is delivered and the audience expectations for the message.
Beth Kanter – Storytelling– CC BY 2.0
While this course does not delve into the actual construction of the messages themselves – you will get those skills in your reporting or strategic writing classes – it is worthwhile to acknowledge some of the considerations that message creators must keep in mind – and the information requirements there might be for different storytelling conventions.
Goals of Storytelling
Storytelling can serve different kinds of goals. Determining the intention or purpose of the story or message is an important first step in crafting the message. As you have learned, messages can inform or enlighten people about current events or issues or about the availability of products or services. They can provide background and context to a discussion of ideas. Stories can be written to persuade people to make certain purchases or hold certain views. News, advertising and public relations messages perform some or all of these functions while employing different storytelling techniques and formats to communicate with audiences in the most effective way.
There are a number of different storytelling decisions to make as a producer of media content. Regardless of which type of media you are working within, it is important that you, the communicator, are aware of the fundamental storytelling devices you might want to use to tell your story in a way that is direct, efficient, and appropriate for the story’s objective. Therefore, you will want to have a full and accessible set of tools that you are ready to employ for any kind of message, depending on the type of media you are creating, your chosen channel of communication, as well as the specific style, tone, and needs of your story subject.
Characteristics of Good Storytelling
Usually the word “story” implies something fictional. But in the case of media messages “story” refers to fact-based information about products, or events, or the actions taken by a company. The distinction between fiction and non-fiction stories is an absolutely critical one for you to grasp. It affects every decision that you make about the selection and evaluation of information for messages.
Good storytelling consists of knowing your audience. Is the audience going to be reading the story, hearing it, experiencing it in a non-linear fashion online? What kind of background information does the audience for the story already have about the topic?
Good storytelling also begins with a foundation in the subject matter. The storyteller must have a firm grasp of the subject matter in order to effectively communicate the story to someone else.
Good storytelling demands that the storyteller have command of the mechanics of writing.
Good storytelling understands how different media elements play into the effective telling of the story.
Good storytelling demonstrates ethical standards for accuracy, truth, verifiability, sufficient evidence and information reliability. Non-fiction stories, especially, require solid grounding in factual information that can withstand scrutiny by the most skeptical audience members.
Storytellers must deliver within the parameters and requirements of the story assignment.
They must:
• meet the deadline
• follow directions on the expected length and focus for the story
• meet the expectation for clean, distribution-ready copy
• use proper grammar, word choice and style
• apply the appropriate story characteristics for the channel of message delivery
The information strategy skills you will learn in this course will provide you with the tools you need to meet these storytelling requirements. Moving confidently through the information strategy process will help you identify your audience, locate the relevant content for your message, ensure the accuracy of your information and provide the details that will make your message stand out.
2.08: Resources
ADVERTISING
JOURNALISM
PUBLIC RELATIONS
EXPLORE CAREERS: SJMC’s site for learning more about mass communication careers | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/02%3A_Information_Strategy_Process_and_the_Needs_of_Communicators/2.07%3A_Storytelling_and_the_Information_Str.txt |
As we will discuss in Lesson 4, determining and researching the key audience for the message you will be creating is one of the most important parts of message development. But there is another, perhaps even more, important initial audience for your work, and that is the person in the organization who will approve, support, or squash your ideas.
Gatekeeper – CC BY-SA 2.0
Referred to as “gatekeepers” these are the people within the organization who not only hand out the assignments, they are also the ones with the power to decide:
• which messages are produced
• who produces the messages
• where the messages will appear
• what the messages will contain
Examples of “gatekeepers” in communications or business organizations include:
• a newspaper’s assistant managing editors who assign stories to appropriate reporters
• a television station’s producers and assignment editors
• advertising agency account executives
• public relations firm client services managers
• a corporation’s chief communications officer who decides whether the new communications plan is ready to present to the CEO
An important function of gatekeepers is to maintain the standards and the “voice” that define the specific organization for which they are “keeping the gates.”
Within a newspaper organization, the assistant managing editor who assigns stories to various reporters on a beat has the responsibility to decide whether the reporters’ stories are acceptable before the stories are sent along to the next step in the process of getting printed in the newspaper and posted online.
Reporters learn to anticipate the kinds of stories that their editors (the gatekeeper audience members) want. One editor may respond positively every time a reporter writes a story that includes a quote from a particular source. That reporter will try to include that source in her stories as often as possible. In a television news operation, the newscast producer might respond well every time a reporter/photographer team does a story that is accompanied by particular types of images. Again, that reporter/photographer team will try as often as possible to select that type of video to please the producer and thus assure a spot on the newscast.
In an advertising agency, the account management professionals perform a similar gatekeeper function. Client services managers in a PR firm perform the same function. They are responsible for contact with the client who is paying to have the ads created or the public relations work done. If the account manager is unhappy with the advertising or PR campaign that the other professionals have created, it may not get passed along for client approval. Communicators learn to adjust their efforts and create ads or PR work that account managers or client services managers are most likely to define as acceptable and ready for client review.
In a business, non-profit organization, government agency or similar types of institutions, the communications manager for the organization plays the gatekeeper role. Any content that appears on the organization’s website, the social media content that is produced, the promotions sent to mobile devices and any other messages directed at the public go through a review process. Communicators inside an organization have to conform to the rules, processes and expectations of the communications manager if their work is going to be delivered to audiences.
At the initial stage in the message process gatekeepers are the ones who will be issuing assignments. They are the ones who will determine if you delivered what was requested and they are the ones you will need to work with to clarify the assignment so you have the best chance of successfully delivering what is needed.
Gatekeepers will have in mind the needs of the ultimate “client” for whatever work you produce. The editor of a publication will understand who the readers are and what they look for in the articles that run. The PR client manager will understand the objectives of the client for the campaign. The advertising account manager will know the advertiser’s sales goals. The corporate communications manager will know what image the company is trying to project. Your job is to interpret the work assignment given you and know how the work you produce will ultimately help everyone’s objectives be met.
3.02: Assignment Clarification
The “5 Ws and H” (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How) checklist that journalists use in covering a story or that strategic communicators would need to consider when developing a campaign can be used with a slightly different orientation for communicators who need to clarify an assignment.
Let’s imagine that in the strategic communications context your boss sends the following text: “Our client is interested in exploring bitcoin. See what you can find out.” Or in the newsroom your editor drops by and says, “The Times had a big story about bitcoin. Should we cover this?” How do you even start? In upcoming lessons we will delve in to the kinds of questions you’ll ask and answer when developing a research agenda (who is the audience, what are the angles of the topic, where might you find information.) But before you can begin to understand the specifics of the research task itself you need further clarification about the gatekeeper’s expectations. Following are some of the kinds of questions you might ask to clarify the assignment.
Marco Belluci – Question Mark – CC BY 2.0
WHO? Who will be seeing the report you produce? This will give you clues as to the nature of the language to use, the formality or informality of the report you deliver. Previous experience with this person or team will inform you about their expectations.
WHAT? What form should the information take? Learn if this is just an informal backgrounder, information needed to justify a whole new campaign or series idea, or a competitive intelligence report. Knowing what type of report or document is expected will help you set a framework for the task.
WHEN? When is the work to be delivered? Knowing the deadline or desired delivery date for your work will help you gauge what level of work can be done (and help you manage your boss’ expectations.)
WHERE? Where will the report be delivered? Do they want a written report, a briefing at a meeting, a document shared on the office cloud?
WHY? Why is the information needed? Is a campaign / series already planned and they need concrete information to move the plan forward? Is this just exploratory to see if there is justification for a particular direction?
Once these questions are answered, the HOW to begin researching will be much easier to answer.
Most of the assignments you are given are intended to ultimately lead to a communications message of some type. Whether it will result in a news release, or a new advertising campaign, or a news story, knowing as much as possible about the intended outcome of the research work you do will help you understand the amount and type of information you’ll need to research. Although the answers to the these questions might be revealed later in the process, it is important to understand that the answers will help form your information strategy. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/03%3A_Question_Analysis-_From_Assignment_to_Message/3.01%3A_Understanding_the_Gatekeeper_Audience.txt |
Another important consideration when clarifying a message task is to determine the ultimate purpose of the message. Messages fulfill seven functions:
1. they provide information about the availability of products and services: advertising and publicity
2. they entertain: special features, advertising
3. they inform: basic news, advertising, publicity
4. they provide a forum for ideas: editorials, interpretive stories, documentaries, commentaries
5. they educate: depth stories, self-help stories and columns, informative pieces, advertising with product features and characteristics
6. they serve as a watchdog on government: investigative pieces and straight coverage of trials and other public events
7. they persuade: advertising, publicity, editorials and commentaries (ftnt 2)
Communicators pay attention to these expectations as they seek information for messages. In order for a message to have audience appeal, it must meet the audience’s expectations in purpose and form. Analyzing the context for a message includes the task of clearly understanding the purpose of the message. All of the subsequent information-gathering steps are affected by this basic requirement.
3.04: Resources
• How to Get Clear Direction from your Boss, by Alexandra Levit, posted 3/18/13. quickbase.intuit.com/blog/201...rom-your-boss/
3.05: Time and Space
Alarm Clock – CC BY-SA 2.0
Messages must be tailored to meet the time and space constraints imposed by the context within which the message is being created. You cannot explore all information available for every message on every occasion. Deadlines and costs involved in collecting some information force you to make choices about particular angles and information sources.
A long, interpretive news story on which a reporter might work for days must use many information sources. That stands in contrast to a breaking news story about a fire that must be posted immediately to the news website or sent out as a 140-character tweet.
The brand advertising campaign that will run over many months and include ads in several media is likely to rest on a large information base. But one retail ad placed in a local newspaper by the neighborhood shoe store does not require such an extensive information search. You make choices about the management of both time and money based on the time and space constraints of your message task.
Time factors in broadcast news, for example, may be the major information constraints. If you have just 1 minute and 20 seconds to tell a story with words and pictures, you must tailor the information strategy to help in identifying the most efficient sources for telling that story.
Space factors may be the major information constraints for a message that will be delivered on mobile device. The efficient information search is essential to the audience’s expectation of effective storytelling and the media organization’s requirement for economy in producing a message.
3.06: Formats and Channels
The Blaze Dallas Studios – CC BY-SA 3.0
An important consideration when developing a research plan is the ultimate delivery method for whatever will be produced. You will learn a great deal in your reporting or strategic writing classes about how the format and channel(s) used for your message affect the actual creation of the message. For the purposes of clarifying your information task, consideration of format and channels can help define the scope of information needed.
For example, if you are assigned to cover a trial and expected to simply tweet ongoing developments, the information you need will be gleaned from your eye-witness account of the proceedings. But if you are expected to develop an in-depth story to run online and in the newspaper that will comprehensively explain the case, you will need deeper background, sources that can help you describe and explain facets of the cases from different perspectives, advice or insight from experts. Producing the story for a video news report will require finding sources you can get on camera or researching locations that can give visual appeal to the story.
Jan Tik – Eats Flies, Dates a Pig – CC BY 2.5
If you understand from your assignment that the ultimate output of your work will be recommendations on a key message to display on a billboard it will make the scope of your information seeking different than if you are creating a multi-channel campaign.
All of these message context issues must be analyzed at the start of an information search. In upcoming Lessons we will begin to develop techniques for asking, and answering, questions about the audience for the message, the facet or angles of the topic or product being researched, and who are the likely sources of information on the topic. But it is only after asking and answering the basic questions about the initial task assignment that you can begin to delve into the creative work of developing a more clearly outlined information process. The rest of the information strategy is highly dependent on the parameters of the information task. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/03%3A_Question_Analysis-_From_Assignment_to_Message/3.03%3A_Message_Purpose.txt |
In an age of increasing competition and consumer choice advertisers must have a highly developed understanding of the audience (customers or consumers) they want to reach. Audience research is, perhaps, the biggest information gathering task for advertisers. Information about potential or desired audiences is required at every stage of developing an advertising campaign.
The kinds of questions an advertiser will want to answer about their potential audience include:
• Who are our current customers? You need to know who you are already reaching, and how to keep them as satisfied customers.
• Who are our competitors’ customers? Understanding who uses the competitors’ products or services is key to figuring out how to create a campaign that could convince them to try your company’s products.
• What do our desired audience members watch / read? Knowing where to find the kinds of customers you want to attract is an essential part of media buying work. The dollars spent placing advertisements will be thrown away if the message doesn’t reach the audience you desire.
• How happy are our customers with our products? Keeping a pulse on consumer attitude and opinion of your product will help to refine the story you want to tell.
Quick Brainstorming:
You’re producing ads for a new energy drink. What attributes of the drink would you promote if you were placing an ad in Glamour magazine versus a commercial on Duck Dynasty? How would knowing the audience for those media outlets inform you?
Until you have a set of questions to ask about the target audience, you won’t know how to go about finding answers.
4.02: Public Relations
Grochim – Stakeholder – CC BY-SA 3.0
In public relations work the target audience is often referred to as the “stakeholder.” Defined by Merriam-Webster as “one who is involved in or affected by a course of action” the stakeholders are those groups of people that an organization must positively influence. Just as the advertising message is intended to influence customers to regard your product positively, the public relations message is intended to influence stakeholders to regard your organization positively.
Stakeholders whose opinions or actions can positively or negatively affect an organization include:
• Customers: people who don’t feel good about a company won’t buy their products
• Investors: bankers, stockholders, financial analysts and others who have committed (or advise others to commit) funding to an organization won’t maintain their support if they don’t believe in what the company is doing
• Legislators / government regulators: lawmakers who feel a company or industry is doing harm, or who get complaints from their constituents, will be likely to propose restrictions or regulations
• Employees: the people who work within an organization must have high regard for their employer or they won’t be good representatives of the organization
• Activists / philanthropic groups: organizations that have an interest in the area in which the organization operates can exert economic or policy pressure if they don’t support the organization’s work
• Business partners: most organizations work with a network of suppliers, vendors, and other types of business partners who help them maintain their position in their industry or field; partners are an important stakeholder audience for PR professionals
Quick Brainstorming:
A 14 year old died after drinking, over the course of a few hours, three of the energy drinks your company sells. Which “stakeholders” would you need to reassure that your product is safe? Why do they matter? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/04%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who's_the_Audience/4.01%3A_Advertising.txt |
Luis Wilker Perelo WilkerNet : CC0 Public Domain
In some ways, the audience for journalistic messages is the most concrete and pre-determined of the three communications professions’ work. Journalists write for publications or produce reports for media outlets that have a great deal of information about their subscribers or viewers. With the ability to track digital readership, journalists know what articles people read. At the start of the message analysis process journalists must ask a set of questions about their target audience that will help them identify the treatment of the topic about which they will be writing and make decisions about the kind of reporting they must do.
Understanding the audience that uses the publication or media outlet for which they are producing a news report will help clarify some of the following questions:
• WHO: Who reads / views the publication? Who would be interested in this topic? Who needs to know about this topic? Who is the media organization interested in attracting with its offerings?
• WHAT: What would the potential audience member want to know about the topic? What kind of report would be most informative or helpful for the audience? What kind of information will be useful? What does the audience already know about this?
• WHERE: Where else do people interested in the topic find information? (For freelancers) Where should I pitch my story idea?
• WHEN: When does the audience need to get this information (is this fast-breaking news, or something that will be used as analysis after the event?)
• WHY: Why does the audience need to know this? Why does the audience care? Sometimes the audience member just wants to fill empty minutes with a news message (reading news briefs on a mobile device while standing in a line or eating alone at a restaurant). Sometimes the audience member needs to answer a specific question (who won the baseball game this afternoon? when does the movie start?). Each of these “why” questions suggests a different strategy for the communicator.
• HOW: How can we best communicate to the audience? How much background do they need to understand what we are writing about? How technical can we be? How might the audience react to this report?
4.04: Who's the Audience for Advertising
Advertising professionals have also developed a standard set of questions that they ask at the start of a message task, many of which specifically address audience considerations. These questions also address elements of the subject matter of the ads, the best approaches for creating the ad copy and placing the ads in the most appropriate vehicles. We will come back to many of these questions in subsequent lessons.
• What should our advertising accomplish? Again, sometimes the audience member just needs to find a nearby place to buy a specific product, or
LiveU4 – Montaña Rusa Hopi Hari – CC BY-SA 2.0
the hours and phone number of a business. Filling that immediate information need for the audience member requires a different strategy than trying to encourage the audience member to change their brand loyalty, think positively about your service, purchase your product. You want to know if the ad is intended to fill an immediate information need or to include a “call to action” on the part of the audience member.
• To whom should we advertise? Who was the target audience in previous campaigns and who has not been targeted yet that should be? Who are the competitors’ customers?
• What should we say that will most effectively convince the audience to respond to our call to action? What have our client’s ads said to similar audiences in the past? What do our client’s competitors’ ads say?
• How should we frame our message for this specific audience? How will our proposed creative strategies work for this client’s messages? How do our competitors position their creative strategies?
• Where should we place or message to reach this audience most effectively? Which media will best reach our target audience?
• How much should we spend in order to reach this audience in a cost-effective way? What has our client spent in the past? How much do our competitors spend? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/04%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who's_the_Audience/4.03%3A_Who%27s_the_Audience_for_News.txt |
honey74129 – Audience Clapping – Public domain
As we begin the process of analyzing the message assignment archery might be a good metaphor to use. If the arrow is your message, the audience is the target you are shooting for. Without the audience “target” your soaring arrow will just fly through the air and land uselessly. Scoping out the target helps you adjust the way you deploy the arrow to most effectively hit the bullseye.
Whether you are working in a newsroom or in an advertising or public relations context, your ultimate goal as a communicator is to create messages / stories / advertisements / public relations materials that effectively engage the audience with whom you most want to connect. It is your ability to connect the message content with the valued audience that will determine how successful your communications effort has been.
Advertisers want to expand their products’ market reach. The advertising communicator’s job, then, is to determine the story to tell about the product that will most effectively appeal to the audience that has been targeted for that expanded reach. They need to understand who the current audience is for the product.
Questions advertisers will ask about audience include:
• Who is the product not currently effectively marketed to?
• What do the people who use the product like, or dislike about the product?
• Who are the people who use a competitor’s product and what do the competitors in the marketplace offer?
• What would an ideal customer for the product look like?
• Who buys similar products and who might find this product attractive?
Public relations professionals want to ensure positive opinions about their organization. The public relations professional’s task, then, is to create messages that will influence the important stakeholders.
Questions public relations professionals will ask about audience include:
• Who are the people or groups we need to influence?
• What concerns might different stakeholders have?
• What impact would negative opinion by certain stakeholders have on the company?
Journalists’ communications work is intended to inform, entertain, persuade, mobilize and/or engage the readers or viewers of the publications for which they work.
Questions journalists will about about audience include:
• Who is reading/listening/viewing the news message?
• What is it that that audience already knows?
• What does the audience need to know?
As these examples indicate, each type of communicator has different types of people that they need to keep in mind and they need to understand different things about that audience they will be targeting. Before we discuss how to analyze these audience needs, we should point out two other audiences that communicators must consider as they develop their message.
4.06: Who's the Audience for Public Relations
Public relations professionals ask a similar set of questions when they are doing their strategic planning research. Again, these questions apply not just to the audience aspects of the message task but also to the other parts of the information strategy process.
• Defining the problem: Monitor audience knowledge, opinions, attitudes, and behaviors to answer the question, “What is happening now?” among our stakeholder audiences? In our industry or area of activity? Sometimes your goal is to help your client provide good customer service to the audience. Sometimes the goal is to positively affect audience members’ opinions. You need to understand what you are trying to accomplish in order to be successful in reaching the audience with your PR message(s).
• Identifying the stakeholder audiences: Who has an interest in or to whom might the public relations message be addressed? Sometimes you are focusing on a single stakeholder and sometimes you need information for an entire campaign which would address a variety of stakeholder concerns.
• Planning and programming: Use the information gathered to determine what should be done to most effectively reach your stakeholder audiences. What type of message(s) will best address your goals and engage the audience?
• Taking action and communicating: Design a message or program to meet specific objectives by answering the questions: “How do we do it and say it to reach our audiences?” If your goal is to create content that encourages audience members to share (in other words, for them to become your “advocates” through word-of mouth-endorsement), you have to ensure that the content is useful and easy to share. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/04%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who's_the_Audience/4.05%3A_Types_of_Audiences.txt |
We’ve already introduced the concept of the “gatekeepers” and their importance in the message creation process. At the start of an information task, the most important audience might be the organizational gatekeeper who will give you an assignment and who you must please with your work. Journalists will want to keep the editor in mind as they set out to define the parameters of the assignment and strategic communicators will need to be sure they understand what their boss needs. Researching these “audiences” will be an on-the-job task and can require a clear conversation to clarify the assignment as discussed in Lesson 3. The gatekeepers’ concern is that the message is constructed in such a way that the goal of the communication is accomplished.
4.08: Colleagues and Professionals
Communicators also keep in mind their colleagues or professional audiences when they consider how best to accomplish a message task. These are the people you work with and others in the same profession who you want to influence or impress.
For example, public relations professionals quickly learn to produce news releases that fit the formula sought by the media organizations they are trying to influence. The only way to be effective with a news release is to have a news organization “pick it up” or run a story based on it (this is why PR is referred to as “earned media.”) Effective PR specialists are those who can mimic the news style of their colleagues in the local media market and tailor their news releases so that they get the maximum exposure. In this case, the colleagues in the news organization are both part of the colleague AND the gatekeeper audience. Similarly, reporters might be tempted to write their stories in a way that they know (consciously or unconsciously) will avoid offending their most important sources (the professionals from whom they have to seek information on a regular basis).
Some advertising copywriters and art directors create ads with the hope that they will get nominated for the advertising awards that help boost careers and increase salaries. The awards are almost always judged by fellow advertising professionals.
These colleague or professional audience members exert an enormous influence on the way communicators in all media industries do their work. Communicators rely heavily on each other for ideas, and the rewards in most areas of communication work are measured by professional reputation and recognition rather than by high salaries. It is not surprising that communicators seek to create messages that will garner attention and recognition from peers in the industry.
Also, many communicators, especially those who work in news, are heavily reliant on information provided by others (government officials, industry sources, etc.). Therefore, communicators might be reluctant to do anything objectionable that will cause someone to “turn off” the information flow. That is one of the reasons news organizations may rotate journalists off a specific beat – they don’t want reporters to get too close to their sources.
And all communicators understand that if the communications they create are seen as unethical or irresponsible it harms not only their own professional careers but the credibility of the entire professional. As we will discuss in Lesson 7, it is essential to consider the legal and ethical implications of your information strategy and resulting message.
As important as it is to recognize the gatekeeper and colleague audiences when constructing a message, it is ultimately the target audience for the message that requires creative and careful consideration. Understanding to whom the message will be directed and doing the research to ensure you have identified and understand that “end-user” is a critical, and complicated, skill.
4.09: Target Audience
Amazon Web Service – CC BY-SA 3.0
This is the audience that most people think of when they hear the word. But all audience members are not identical. Therefore, communication researchers have devised many ways to categorize the target audience. Let’s look at the the various ways target audiences might be understood.
Target Audience Segments
One way to distinguish different types of audience members is to identify the audience segment(s) into which someone might fall. Communications professionals, and especially advertisers, use a number of categories to more precisely identify who they should target with messages. Audience members can be segmented according to demographic, geographic or psychographic characteristics, or some combination of those categories. There are a number of sophisticated research tools and sources that provide detailed information about these types of categories for audience analysis.
4.10: Audience Segments- Demographics
Mulat – Missouri age pyramid – CC BY-SA 2.5
There are social and economic characteristics that can influence how someone behaves as an individual. Standard demographic variables include a person’s age, gender, family status, education, occupation, income, race and ethnicity. Each of these variables or characteristics can provide clues about how a person might respond to a message.
Advertisers are clearly interested in knowing, for instance, how age influences a person’s need for goods and services. Think about the kinds of items teenagers purchase, the programs they watch on TV and online, and the magazines they read. Advertisers then compare those to the products that their parents purchase, the programs they watch, and the magazines they read.
The influence of an audience member’s age is also a factor in the types of news messages that appeal to one group versus another. Younger people (teens, young adults) generally do not watch the national evening news on television or read a daily newspaper, for example. The news stories on those programs or in the newspaper reflect the knowledge that the audience is more mature, settled, and concerned about different topics and issues than are the younger members of the household. Each of the other demographic variables mentioned can be examined for their influence on messages and how they are tailored to meet specific audience characteristics. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/04%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who's_the_Audience/4.07%3A_Gatekeepers.txt |
We all understand geographically-defined political jurisdictions such as cities, counties, and states. These are important geographic audience categories for politicians and for news stories or ads about politics and elections. Also, local retail advertisers want to reach audiences who are in the reading or listening range of the local newspaper or radio station and within traveling distance of their stores. The audience for a newspaper is generally defined as those within a specific metropolitan area–stories and ads are written to appeal to the residents of a well-defined locality. Local television stations tailor their messages to the audience reached by their broadcast signal.
Larger, more abstract geographic definitions help define the audience for national advertisers and those creating news or public relations messages for a regional or national audience. Washington Post reporter Joel Garreau (1989) argued that regional differences in North America (Canada, the U.S., and Mexico) are important markers for understanding differences in populations that span a continent. He invented nine “nations” or non-political regions whose boundaries don’t correspond to any current political jurisdictions. They are New England, The Foundry, Dixie, The Islands, MexAmerica, Breadbasket, Ecotopia, The Empty Quarter, and Quebec.
A Max J – Ninenations – CC BY 3.0
For one example of how Garreau determined the boundaries for each “nation,” we can look at his examination of three major cities in Texas. By political considerations, the three are all part of one jurisdiction: the state of Texas. But to Garreau, Fort Worth is actually part of the Breadbasket because of its strong cattle-town heritage; San Antonio, with its large, urban Spanish-speaking community fits into MexAmerica; and Dallas is part of Dixie, with dramatic social change and economic growth.
These distinctions may be irrelevant to those who draw political boundaries, but the cultural implications are crucial for those who create messages. Audience members for some types of messages in San Antonio cannot be characterized as “Texans” or even “Southerners” if one of their main cultural and regional identifiers is their close affiliation with other inhabitants of “MexAmerica.” Garreau’s characterizations have been widely accepted by media professionals, businesses and social scientists around the country.
Another geographic definition segments audiences into rural, urban, suburban, and edge communities (the office parks that have sprung up on the outskirts of many urban communities). These geographic categories help define rifts between regions on issues such as transportation, education, taxes, housing and land use.
Politicians have long understood that voters can be defined using these types of categories. Those who create media messages pay attention to these categories as well. Newspaper publishers in major metropolitan areas, for example, have long struggled with how to maintain their focus on the central city that defines the newspaper, while also attracting and keeping readers who live in the suburbs and work in an edge community high-rise office building.
Demographic and geographic audience characteristics are gathered from many sources. These include the U.S. Census as well as thousands of individual studies and research services conducted by media industry professionals.
4.12: Audience Segments- Psychographics
Karlhain – Different Ways to Use Psychographic Data in Online Marketing – CC BY-SA 4.0
Psychographics refer to all of the psychological variables that combine to form a person’s inner self. Even if two people share the same demographic or geographic characteristics, they may still hold entirely different ideas and values that define them personally and socially. Some of these differences are explained by looking at the psychographic characteristics that define them. Psychographic variables include:
Motives – an internal force that stimulates someone to behave in a particular manner. A person has media consumption motives and buying motives. A motive for watching television may be to escape; a motive for choosing to watch a situation comedy rather than a police drama may be the audience member’s need to laugh rather than feel suspense and anxiety.
Attitudes – a learned predisposition, a feeling held toward an object, person or idea that leads to a particular behavior. Attitudes are enduring; they are positive or negative, affecting likes and dislikes. A strong positive attitude can make someone very loyal to a brand (one person is committed to the Mazda brand so she will only consider Mazda models when it is time to buy a new car). A strong negative attitude can turn an audience member away from a message or product (someone disagrees with the political slant of Fox News and decides to watch MSNBC instead).
Personalities – a collection of traits that make a person distinctive. Personalities influence how people look at the world, how they perceive and interpret what is happening around them, how they respond intellectually and emotionally, how they form opinions and attitudes.
Lifestyles – these factors form the mainstay of psychographic research. Lifestyle research studies the way people allocate time, energy and money. One of the most well-known lifestyle models is the Values and Lifestyles System (VALS™) devised by research firm Strategic Business Insights. The model categorizes people according to their psychological characteristics and their resources. Advertisers use it to determine what kind of products and advertising appeals will best work with an anonymous audience member who falls into one of the eight categories, or mindsets, in the VALS™ model.
For example, someone who falls into the “Striver” category is said to be seeking self-definition, motivation and approval, and is low on economic, social and psychological resources. The “Innovator” group is comprised of successful people with high self-esteem and high income, with a wide range of interests and a taste for finer things.
These categories are most useful for advertisers in helping determine a “unique selling proposition” that would be most appealing to one type of person or another, but they also help other message creators understand WHY advertisers support the types of media they do and why some types of messages are created while others are not. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/04%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who's_the_Audience/4.11%3A_Audience_Segments-_Geographics.txt |
As audience segmentation techniques become more sophisticated, we see new ways of organizing and clustering individuals according to a combination of characteristics. For instance, the Jefferson Institute has created a project called “Patchwork Nation.”
According to their website, Patchwork Nation “aims to explore what is happening in the United States by examining different kinds of communities over time. The effort uses demographic, voting and cultural data to cluster and organize communities into ‘types of place.’ Patchwork divides America’s 3,141
counties into 12 community types based on characteristics such as income level, racial composition, employment and religion. It also breaks the nation’s 435 congressional districts into nine categories, using the same data points and clustering techniques.”
The characteristics of Patchwork Nation locations incorporate demographic, psychographic and political data to generate a map of the country that might be used to define an advertising audience, explain voter behavior for a news story, or target a community for a PR campaign. Examining the elements of regional characteristics can give you ideas about the diversity of audiences and an appreciation for the challenge of understanding how best to reach specific segments.
4.14: News
Journalists produce their work with the readers, listeners or viewers of the publication for which they work in mind. A journalist who works for the daily news organization in a town needs to understand the characteristics of subscribers. And if they work for a particular beat, for example, the business section, they need to understand what it is that readers of that section are looking for and how they would use the information they get.
Why does this matter? If journalists don’t create stories that inform and engage their audience those people will find other outlets to satisfy their information needs. Journalism serves not only a public need, it is also a business and a business without customers won’t be in business for long.
News organizations conduct user surveys and track audience behavior just as other kinds of companies do. The better journalists are able to understand their readership the better able they will be to anticipate and address their audiences needs.
Quick brainstorming:
Think about how the Miami Herald’s audience might differ from the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s (demographics, geographic, psychographic aspects) How might these audience characteristics influence a reporter writing about immigration for the Miami Herald versus the Star Tribune?
For those journalists who work as freelancers (defined by Merriam-Webster as “a person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any one employer”) it is essential that they learn about the target audience for the publication to which they want to pitch a story. If they don’t understand the characteristics of the audience who reads Sports Illustrated versus The Atlantic, they will not be able to effectively position (or “pitch”) their story idea.
In the case of pitching a story idea, they need to understand that the publication’s editor is the ultimate decider on whether they get the assignment or not, and the editor’s ultimate concern is to keep the publication’s audience satisfied. In order for the freelancer to get the “gatekeeper’s” go-ahead on a story idea, they must demonstrate they understand who the target audience is for the publication and what will appeal to them.
4.15: Summary and Resources
It should be clear that for every type of communication message that this step of generating the questions you need to ask about the audience is very important. The number and variety of questions that might be asked about the audience also indicate the many different ways a communications professional can approach an information and message task. Brainstorming with colleagues and gatekeepers about the nature of the target audience at the start of the information strategy process is an essential step to ensure that you will be able to conduct an efficient and effective search for appropriate information. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/04%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who's_the_Audience/4.13%3A_Combining_Segment_Data.txt |
Jason Howie: CC BY 2.0
The rise in social media has provided communicators with another excellent technique for using unobtrusive observation for idea generation. Reading over the comments on a Facebook page for a group of fans, or the user comments on a news story on a topic might give you an idea for a fresh approach to covering a story or an issue that you had not even considered.
For public relations professionals, social listening can lead to important insights on issues that might be brewing. “Sentiment analysis” (also referred to as “opinion mining”) is one of the emerging skills required for savvy PR practitioners. It requires consistent attention to the online opinions and reactions in different social media platforms. While there are sophisticated tools to analyze large numbers of postings, even routine scanning can give you ideas for themes or trends that might require attention.
Advertising professionals can use the comments in social spaces to learn more about positive, or negative, opinions there might be about a product (or about the competition.) These comments can provide fodder for ad copy or inspire a new direction for a campaign.
5.02: Narrowing the Focus
These techniques of idea mapping and observation can help you think expansively about the potential aspects of a topic but no one, especially not a busy reporter or strategic communicator juggling multiple clients’ demands, can address all of those aspects. What is needed now is a way to narrow the focus.
The following set of questions can help you identify and define a more specific aspect of a topic on which to focus.
• What disciplines of knowledge might deal with this topic – and what would their focus be? To understand “disciplines of knowledge,” think about the departments that offer majors on a university campus — economics, political science, biology, etc.
• What parts of the city / state / country / world are dealing with this – or how are they dealing with it differently?
• Is this a new topic? How has it evolved over time? Where might it be going in the future?
• What kind of groups have a stake in this topic and what are their positions?
Once all of these questions have been posed, you are in a position to focus selectively on some aspects of the larger question and develop an exacting standard for raising questions and seeking information to address your information needs. Going through this routine frequently allows you to revise or refine the question, making your information seeking tasks much more manageable.
Mark Hunter: CC BY 2.0
For example, if the broad topic is, “homelessness” the formula for focusing the topic might work this way:
Disciplines: Economics, sociology, urban planning, and psychology are a few of the disciplines that might provide insight – each would have a specific aspect on which they focus – and their disciplinary focus might inform your own.
Geographic limits: Although homelessness exists throughout the U.S., how the condition is understood and approached varies from community to community and from state to state. In one area concerns about immigration policy might be big while in another it might be how to help the homeless during cold winter weather.
Time period limits: Much of mass communication work emphasizes recency. Therefore, the newest information is likely to be stressed. However, trends in homelessness over time (particularly the last decade or so) will surely help put the problem into an historical context. And some types of messages would benefit from an overview of how homelessness has been handled throughout many decades since this is a problem that has been with us for a very long time.
Stakeholders: Academics, politicians, social workers, activists and advocates for the homeless have entirely different ways of approaching the issue and defining the problem. The homeless themselves are certainly another stakeholder, and one that isn’t often featured in messages about the problem. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/05%3A_Question_Analysis-_What's_the_Topic/5.01%3A__Types_of_Observation-_Social_Listening.txt |
Digital Ralph: CC by 2.0
For reasons of time savings, you often concentrate on obvious or simple approaches to a message. But this may lead to a message that does nothing more than convey the conventional wisdom in an area, failing to provide the audience with a more creative, original, or, perhaps, accurate approach. The information strategy process provides you with a method for identifying fresh angles or new twists on a topic. One of the advantages of using idea-mapping and point-of-view diagrams is that they help you identify what we think we know about a topic and to challenge yourself to come up with a fresh approach to the topic.
The media are often accused of being trapped by conventional wisdom. In order to get beyond the conventional wisdom, it is first necessary to understand what it is. Conventional wisdom usually contains a grain of truth. It is different than faith, blind prejudice, or stereotypes. The essential elements of conventional wisdom about any topic can usually be demonstrated in some sense. For example: conventional wisdom says that cats are difficult to train, Midwestern universities have good hockey teams, and women are good listeners. Each of these is based on some socially-arrived-at assumptions about reality.
Conventional wisdom abounds in every field and for every topic. Advertisers and marketers operated under the assumption that women generally were not big purchasers and users of technology, until a study done for a women’s magazine showed that 65 percent of the women surveyed had purchased a personal computer for home use in the previous two years. And 53 percent of those surveyed said that advertising for computer-related products did not appeal to them because it was aimed at men. Advertisers trapped by the conventional wisdom about who purchases products and services lose opportunities to create messages with a fresh, new and effective appeal.
5.04: What's the Angle
cobalt123 – Angling for Reflections (Chicago) – CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
You arrive in your newsroom and the editor stops by to say, “ There’s going to be a decision about the expansion of the light rail line. We need something for the local section.”
At the morning strategy meeting for the railroad company client your strategic communications firm represents the account manager says, “Our client is concerned that people aren’t thinking positively about traveling by train. We need some ideas.”
For each of these scenarios, the topic is transportation by rail. But depending on the audience that might be identified as the target for the message, the angle of that broad topic could be very different.
Let’s play through scenarios for news and strategic communications.
5.05: News Angle
For a local news story, the people that read the section are interested in or concerned about things going on in their community. There could be a number of angles about the light rail line and different questions that could be asked:
Pontauxchats – Tramway Strasbourg Broglie – GNU Free Documentation License
• ECONOMIC: What will be the cost of the line and impact on taxpayers?
• HOUSING: Will light rail affect property values for nearby homeowners and if so, how?
• QUALITY OF LIFE: Will construction disrupt current neighborhoods or businesses?
• PUBLIC SAFETY: What has the existing light rail line done to public safety, accidents or crime?
If the story was being written for a business news segment there would be a different set of questions based on the interests and needs of the audience for business news:
• How will construction affect the local economy or employment?
• What businesses might prosper (or be hurt) if the proposal goes through?
• What has happened to businesses on the current line?
• How will the construction contractors be selected?
Depending on the audience needs, the questions that might be explored about a broad topic like light rail transportation can quickly get quite specific. This specificity helps to narrow the focus of the information you will need to find.
5.06: Strategic Communication Angle
In the case of advertising and public relations messages the target audience and the message’s goals will be critical to figuring out the appropriate topic angle.
If, for example, the railroad’s communication concern is how to expand the appeal of train travel to people not currently using trains, the questions you might want to ask (and answer) include:
• What methods of transportation are travelers currently choosing other than trains?
• What are the demographics of current train travelers (and what demographics might be ones to be targeted?)
• What reasons do travelers give for their choosing particular traveling modes?
If, on the other hand, the communications’ goal is to gain support in the legislature for an expanded train system, key questions that maybe need answers include:
• What are the environmental advantages of train travel over other transportation modes?
• How might an expanded rail system benefit local economies (jobs, commuter travel, health of rural communities?)
Once again, the topic is broadly train travel, but the possible angles to the topic and the questions that must be examined become increasingly specific (and manageable) with some brainstorming. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/05%3A_Question_Analysis-_What's_the_Topic/5.03%3A_Conventional_Wisdom.txt |
Here are some key questions to be answered in this step of the message analysis process:
Mike Linksvayer on Flickr: Public Domain
Why has this topic or the need for this message come up?
What is the broad topic of interest? What product, service, event or issue at the center?
What are the possible “angles” of the topic that could be considered?
What must we know about the topic before beginning the information search?
Who would know about or have a perspective on the topic?
If you can clearly answer these questions, you’ll have a solid foundation for building your information strategy.
The communications objectives are different for journalists, advertising professionals, and public relations practitioners. So, too, is the information needed for each media professional to accomplish their message goals. Where a journalist may need to become an “instant expert” on a topic they will be covering, for the PR professional it may be more important to understand the prevailing opinions about the topic, and for the advertiser finding information that helps him understand the audience’s interests in the topic to determine the most appropriate “selling proposition” would be key.
Let’s look at an example of answering these content questions from each perspective.
Key Questions Scenario
There is an explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico resulting in a devastating oil spill affecting vast stretches of the Gulf Coast.
Journalism: Your editor tells you to work on a story about the repercussions of the oil spill. The general topic is “oil spill” or, to be more specific, this particular oil spill.
What might one of the angles be for this broad topic? Certainly the environmental issues being raised are one important angle. But even that is a broad topic that can be broken down into water quality, impact on birds, impact on fish, or impact on wetlands and beaches. If you picked economic issues as the angle there could be more specific focus on the economic impact on tourism or “Big Oil” companies or southern Louisiana fishermen. Depending on the angle you pick you’d need to make sure you understand the terminology used by specialists and identify some of the kinds of people who would have an understanding of the topic. These potential sources will be among the first stops on your path for seeking information.
Public Relations: You work in the PR department for the oil company which owns the rig. You would be concerned with understanding the groups of people with whom you need to communicate. You would want to launch your crisis communication plan if you had one. You would need to understand thoroughly the nature of the situation, what happened and why. You would need to identify the potential stakeholders that might be affected by the spill. You would have to find information about how other companies facing similar situations managed their communications. You would need to understand the actions the company is taking and be able to talk positively about them to the media.
Advertising: Your advertising agency is doing the ad campaign for the Department of Tourism for one of the states affected by the oil spill. The information you need could include what potential visitors’ concerns and fears are about the conditions in your state, actions the Department of Tourism is taking to minimize impacts on visitors, and the programs and plans tourism-related businesses are implementing to keep visitors coming. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/05%3A_Question_Analysis-_What's_the_Topic/5.07%3A_Key_Questions_to_Answer.txt |
Greg Williams: CC BY 2.0
Every message begins with an idea. While it is true that many tasks are assigned by others, the actual creative work of crafting a message still rests on the skill and imagination of the individual doing the information searching and writing (that’s you!)
One important skill that good communicators develop early in their careers is the ability to understand what it is possible to ask about. Any idea is fair game. Because solid information strategy skills allow you to find answers to just about anything, you are not limited to those questions that can be answered easily and quickly. Advanced methods for finding these answers free you up to ask unusual, different, and perhaps difficult questions.
A variety of techniques help you generate ideas for messages. Brainstorming, making idea maps and point-of-view diagrams, keeping a journal or daybook for scribbling notes, and reading everything you can get your hands on are all methods you can use to provide grist for the idea mill. A well-developed sense of curiosity will open you to new ways of looking at the world around you. Common sense and healthy skepticism (not cynicism) keep you grounded.
Donald Murray, in Writing for Your Readers (1992), describes the idea-generation techniques of idea mapping and creating point-of-view diagrams for communication professionals. Idea mapping, he explains, is a more creative way of exploring a subject than using traditional subject outlines. The central, broad subject or topic is drawn in a circle on the middle of a page. All of the related ideas that occur to the “mapper” are drawn out along lines that emerge from the center circle. The new lines stemming from the center idea are like branches on a tree, each of which may have more related, narrower ideas that branch out from the ideas derived from the center.
In idea development, this technique is not intended to serve as a definitive method of topic outlining, but as a quick and intuitive first step in thinking about possible angles of the topic. You may need to spend no more than five minutes making a map.
A point-of-view diagram uses a similar technique. A subject or topic is again drawn in a circle in the middle of a page. Draw as many “arrows” pointing inward—toward the central topic—as you can imagine. The arrows represent the different people or organizations whose points of view on the subject or topic can be tapped. By diagramming the topic in this way, you can generate a variety of perspectives on that idea and even begin to identify possible audiences or interviewees for the message.
It is easy in the idea generation stage to fall into overuse of clichés and stereotypes. It is a challenge finding a fresh, unique perspective for the message on which you are working. One of the best ways of ensuring that you’ll avoid clichés and maintain a fresh perspective is to truly understand all angles or perspectives from which a message topic might be seen.
As a journalist dealing with the issue of the U.S. government drilling for oil in the Alaskan wildlife refuge, for instance, you would probably expect widely varying perspectives from an environmentalist, a major oil company executive, the governor of Alaska, from a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, and from a park ranger in Alaska. As an advertising professional for the National Park Service, you might use many of these same sources to understand the topic even though your intent for the information will be quite different than the journalist’s. For any types of media, however, getting these collective, diverse perspectives will help you to find a fresh approach for addressing this issue. This will also help you narrow a broad topic to an interesting and manageable sub-topic.
5.09: Observation for Idea Generation
You should also consider yourself and your personal observation about what is going on around you as a key source of ideas. Having a “nose for news” generally means that you are tuned in to your surroundings and can gauge when something is “off” or different and worth checking into. For example:
• Mike Linksvayer: Public Domain
Noticing the long lines in front of the automatic teller machines, for example, may be the start of a PR effort for your bank client to improve customer service
5.10: Types of Observation- Routine
Routine observation is the most frequently-used type of observation. It is “routine” in that it involves simply going to the scene of the action and observing. Professionals in all fields of mass communication perform these routine observations. The things that you might see and hear can spur new ideas.
Quick Brainstorming:
VonSinnen: CCO Public Domain
You are walking through campus one evening and see that every third street light is out. If you were a reporter for the Daily, what kind of questions might you ask as a result of this observation. If you worked for the University’s public relations office, what kind of questions might you ask? If you were developing an advertising campaign for the “Campus Escort” service, what ideas might this trigger? | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/05%3A_Question_Analysis-_What's_the_Topic/5.08%3A_Idea_Generation.txt |
Participant observation involves joining or living with a group and becoming a part of the action. Members of the group being observed — for instance, prison inmates — may or may not know the observer’s true identity, but he or she is seen as being part of the group.
This method of observation is common in sociological and anthropological research, as well as in communication research. It allows the information gatherer to get direct experience and to reduce reliance on the expertise or testimony of others. In becoming part of the “scene,” the observer begins to understand it as an insider and come up with ideas that might need to be explored.
Nellie Bly. Library of Congress. Public Domain
Nellie Bly was an early proponent of participant observation as a way to get an enterprising news report. She arranged to have herself declared mentally incompetent in order to be committed to a mental hospital so that she could see, first-hand, the conditions in which mental patients lived.
Participant observation is an expensive technique, requiring a substantial amount of time in the field. It is also fraught with ethical and legal issues. Members of ABC News’ Prime Time Live got jobs in several Food Lion supermarkets in order to place hidden cameras and capture video of employees re-dating the expiration labels on old meat and, in some cases, repackaging the meat to be sold as fresh. The report resulted in a lawsuit against ABC and in a jury verdict that awarded Food Lion \$5.5 million in damages. The television network eventually prevailed in having the verdict overturned, but not until it had spent millions in legal fees. (Barringer) This is why it is important to consider the ethical and legal implications of the techniques you employ in researching as we will discuss in Lesson 7.
5.12: Types of Observation- Unobtrusive
Types of Observation: Unobtrusive
Mike Mozart: CC BY 2.0
In some circumstances, unobtrusive observation may be more effective than participant observation, especially if the observer’s presence will change the situation under observation.
Hidden camera investigations have traditionally been one of the most obvious types of unobtrusive observation examples. After careful deliberation within the news organization about the ethical and legal ramifications of using a hidden camera, a journalist may use unobtrusive observation techniques that capture activities or conversations. Investigative reports may rely on such observation techniques as a way to document improper behavior or malfeasance.
Unobtrusive observation techniques also are used by advertising professionals. A very large Chicago agency had an ongoing research project in a town of 8,000 to 12,000 about 150 miles from Chicago. Advertising researchers visited the town on a regular basis and politely listened in on conversations in coffee shops and churches, hairdressers’ shops, and taverns.
The agency professionals were trying to learn what is important to average folks, what occupies their hearts and minds. In the process, they thought they would gain clues as to why people don’t always follow cooking directions for frozen pizzas, or what they really think about prunes. The advertising professionals learned to prepare themselves well for their visits. One agency employee’s too-hip hairdo marked her as an outsider in her observer role, while another employee learned that driving a pickup truck rather than his Audi to town would help him blend into his observation environment. (Stern)
A more recent version of this type of observation involves ad agency personnel asking consumers to take video cameras into their homes to record their every-day activities in the kitchen, while cleaning the house, and other typical household behavior. The idea is to learn more about how consumers use products in their day-to-day lives rather than in the artificial environment of a focus group room or a mock living room set up in a research lab. Viewing videos posted by consumers on YouTube as they talk about how they use various products, along with their opinions about them, would be another way of conducting an unobtrusive observation.
5.13: Conclusion and Endnotes
One of the most important skills communicators can develop is a method for quickly and creatively analyzing potential angles or aspects of a given message topic. But that is just the first step. Just as important is learning how to focus, out of all the possible angles, on the one aspect of the topic that best matches the audience needs and the communication objectives.
As with all skills practice, open-mindedness, and curiosity will serve you well as you develop these skill sets. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/05%3A_Question_Analysis-_What's_the_Topic/5.11%3A_Types_of_Observation-_Participant.txt |
Academic libraries serve a very different function from the other types of libraries. These collections exist to support the teaching and research needs of the scholars, students, and researchers of the institution with which they are affiliated. Large academic libraries collect scholarly materials published in many languages and from all over the world. Even small academic libraries reflect the teaching mission of the institution. Specialized, technical, detailed materials are the norm in most academic collections of any size.
Unlike use of public libraries, use of academic library collections may be restricted to some extent. You may have to apply for a special privilege card or pay a fee in order to gain access to the online catalog and check out materials, or you may only be able to use materials if you go in person to the library. In extreme instances, unauthorized users may not even be able to enter the building.
However, if the topic you are researching is of a national or an international nature, if it involves specialized or technical subject areas, or if it is likely to cover controversial ideas, then an academic library collection is probably one of the best places to look. In addition, if you have been a student at a university and are an alumni society member, it is likely that you have free access to that library system and to a network of materials from other academic libraries as well.
6.02: Types of Libraries- Special
The term special refers to a broad category of various kinds of libraries. The collection, the clientele, or both may be special. For instance, most companies have some kind of library or information center that houses the books, journals, documents, and material relevant to that industry. Historical societies usually have libraries. Museums have libraries geared toward the subject matter of the museum collection. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. is a special library in the sense that it collects books and materials by and about Shakespeare. Insurance companies, law firms, churches, hospitals, oil companies, and banking institutions are other kinds of places where a special library might be located. The Special Libraries Association has 26 different divisions of special librarians in its membership.
You may want to use these special libraries for the kinds of unique materials they make available. For instance, if you are involved with an advertising campaign for a brand of beer, you may wish to use the library collection at the brewery in order to get an understanding of the history of the company and the nature of past campaigns. If the information is not proprietary (that is, held by the company to be private because it involves trade secrets or financial information), you may want to look for clues about the unique brewing process or chemistry that sets that brand of beer apart from its competitors.
Special library collections may or may not be open to the public because corporate secrets are often housed alongside the usual industry or company information. The best rule of thumb is to check the website and call ahead as the hours and visiting policies are likely to differ from collection to collection.
6.03: Types of Libraries- Archives
Archives differ from libraries in mission and operation. Whereas libraries have a selective collection development policy, archives attempt to be a comprehensive collection of a business, organization or social movement. An archive is responsible for keeping a permanent record of the history, transactions, and operations of whatever it is that is being archived and thus, the materials in an archive usually do not circulate.
There are governmental archives responsible for keeping the permanent record of that organization or branch. The National Archives in Washington, D.C., for example, maintains treaties, maps, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings, correspondence files, and other documentation of the operations of the administrative branch of the federal government.
Corporations and businesses house archives that serve both a public relations function and provide historically accurate information about the company and clients. For instance, the Coca-Cola archive includes such materials as original Coke bottles, print and broadcast ads, drugstore signs, decal-covered serving trays, and other Coke-related paraphernalia. The manager of the archive is called upon regularly by the legal department to produce documentation to protect the Coca-Cola trademark.
At the start of your information strategy process, you may determine that it is crucial for you to gather information about the history or operation of the organization or business you are reporting on or for whom you are preparing a strategic communications message. That organization’s archive is the place to start. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/06%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who_Contributes_Information/6.01%3A_Types_of_Libraries-_Academic.txt |
The libraries supported by media organizations are types of special libraries. Both the materials and the clientele are unusual. As the likely first stop for the communicator during the early stage of the information search, media libraries are crucially important. Many media organizations – whether in the business of producing a newspaper, a national magazine, a local television news broadcast, advertising campaigns, or public relations materials – have some sort of library collection or research function.
The in-house library of a newspaper office may have a small, current collection of major reference tools (dictionaries, directories, almanacs), may subscribe to a handful of magazines and journals, may have access to online database services, and most likely is staffed by a professional librarian. But by far the most important resource, in the opinion of a newspaper staff, is the back files of the newspaper itself.
Today, every large circulation newspaper has its content stored and searchable through an digital library system. With the growth of online news publications, the challenge of reconciling the archive of the print edition of the newspaper and the digital version of the newspaper has grown and often news organizations will have two separate and not entirely equal database representations of news products they create.
Broadcast news libraries may not have as many of the print and digital reference tools found in a newspaper or magazine library, but they do have a major resource for their employees – the archive of tapes or digital files of previous broadcasts. When you see file footage flashed on the screen during a television news report, you are seeing one use of this archive of materials. Broadcast news organizations keep archives of their own broadcasts, but journalists also have access to Web-based archives of streaming audio/video files through services such as those provided by the Vanderbilt Television News Archive. Current clips can sometimes be found using YouTube, Google News or Yahoo! News.
Strategic communications agency libraries are designed to meet the information needs of communicators creating the ads or news releases, preparing the media kits, conducting the market research, studying audiences or clients, and developing “new business pitches.” The library for an advertising agency or department, for instance, may include tear sheets, pages ripped out of magazines and newspapers that serve as examples of ads for particular products or services. The library may have files of pictures and photos so artists have examples if they need to draw a cheetah or a cricket bat. The library has industry and trade information so communicators can do background research on potential and current clients and their products and services. And these libraries have all of the specialized market and audience research tools that help determine message context. A public relations agency library will subscribe to the important media tracking services and provide access to the databases and digital services that help the PR professionals follow news about their clients.
Media organization libraries, then, serve a special function. Those creating messages must have at their fingertips examples of the own organizations’ output; materials produced by other communicators around the country or the world; information about the industries, products and audiences for whom messages are produced; and general fact-finding sources for quick reference. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/06%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who_Contributes_Information/6.04%3A_Types_of_Libraries-_Media.txt |
As we’ve indicated, the library houses information from all contributors – public-sector institutional, private-sector institutional, scholarly, journalistic and informal. No matter what you are looking for, a library is likely to have at least a portion of what you need. As such, the library is an integral part of your information-gathering routine.
Libraries make accessible the materials you need for your initial message analysis work, for your topic-specific information-gathering needs, for your in-depth information evaluation requirements, and for your synthesis work as you create the message. In other words, libraries contribute to every step of the information strategy, not just at this early step of the process.
Planning Your Strategy
Identifying a number of the possible contributors to your information strategy at this early step of the process will help focus your efforts and narrow the range of information you need to locate and evaluate. It is an important time-saver and a key aspect of your work as an efficient and effective communications professional.
6.06: Institutional Sources
An institution, broadly defined, is “an organization, establishment, foundation, society, or the like, devoted to the promotion of a particular cause, product, or program.[1]” You can see that this is a catchall term that can cover all kinds of contributors. Therefore, it helps to break this large category into two very different kinds of institutions: Public and Private.
The corner drug store is in the private sector, while the police precinct station next door is in the public sector. The elementary school maintained with tax revenues is part of the public sector, while the church-affiliated school is in the private sector.
These lines are hardly neat, however. Almost all private colleges, for instance, enroll students whose financial support comes partly from state and federal sources. Most corporations are in the private sector, but some operate with charters from the federal government, such as Amtrak (rail service) or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Institutions in both the public sector (governments at all levels) and the private sector (businesses, political organizations, trade and industry associations, foundations, religious organizations, unions and professional associations, etc.) generate information for a number of purposes. You must recognize that institutions develop information for their own internal purposes and may be disclosed to you selectively and with a specific purpose in mind. Organizations as different from one another as the U.S. Department of Defense and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom share this characteristic.
Let’s discuss the distinctions between the types of institutional sources and describe how and why they create and contribute information of use to researchers.
6.07: Public Sector Institutions
Jens Junge: CCO Public Domain
Public institutions are, essentially, all of the agencies, offices, and other entities that constitute local, state and federal governments. These organizations are funded by tax dollars and operate in the service of the citizens that pay those taxes.
The information they generate comes from the work they are charged with performing. The output of agencies which regulate particular industries might include databases of licenses issued, rules and regulations for the operation of an organization, analyses of business conditions, censuses of operations. The output of agencies that monitor the environment, or transportation, for example, would be reports and studies and statistics that track current conditions or make projections.
Organization of Public-Sector Institutions
One way to picture the complex organization of public-sector institutions that generate information is to visualize the information as it is presented below.
Branch
Local
State
National
Legislative
City Council
Legislature
Congress
Judicial
Municipal Courts
State Courts
Federal Courts
Executive
Mayor
Governor
President
Each level and each branch of government generates information. The information sources are so voluminous that it would require a book for each of the branches to discuss comprehensively the material available at each level and in each branch, and the tools to locate that material. The important thing for you as a communications professional is to understand that each level of government generates information that is likely to be important for most messages you will work on and that there are efficient and effective ways to locate that information if you know how and where it is generated. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/06%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who_Contributes_Information/6.05%3A_The_Library_in_the_Process.txt |
Private-sector institutions are funded by revenues made from the sale of products or services, through investment by stockholders, or through donations. There are two types of private-sector institutions: for-profit and non-profit. Under for-profit institutions there are two types: Publicly-held and privately-held. The distinction is important because different types require different kinds of reporting of information.
For-profit private-sector institutions:
Astros4477: “New McDonald’s restaurant in Mount Pleasant, Iowa“- CC BY 2.0
By definition, a for-profit institution “is a corporation that is intended to operate a business which will return a profit to the owners.[1]” There can be two types of for-profit private-sector institutions: publicly-held and privately-held. The distinction between the two is that the publicly-held corporation sells stock in the company – the public, therefore, can essentially be “co-owners.” Privately-held corporations do not sell stock; all of the company’s assets are in private hands.
For-profit private-sector institutions generate multiple types of information in support of the running of the business, to promote their products, or as required by the government. The required documentation for government differs with publicly-held corporations requiring more reporting than privately-held corporations (this is due to the government’s interest in protecting citizen’s investment in companies.)
Unlike public-sector institutions where some neutrality of position is expected, private-sector institutions may be more agenda driven since their information is generated to support their product, organizational goals or policy line. Much of what private-sector institutions produce is for their internal use only, but some is created for use both inside and outside of the institution.
Non-profit private-sector institutions
Channel 3000 Communities: CC by 2.0
Non-profit private-sector institutions differ from the for-profit in their ultimate objective. The for-profit’s goal is to generate revenue through the sales of goods and services. The non-profit’s goal is to influence, persuade, or receive support for a cause. They generate donations that support the efforts of the organization but that funding is invested back into the organization, not as revenue that delivers income to “owners.”
Non-profits are organizations like associations, churches, fraternal organizations, and other groups that have a focused set of activities that support the interests or concerns of the organization.
In both for- and non-profit private-sector institutions, information is generated and used for different purposes: some because law requires they make the information available, some to promote the organization, some to satisfy the organizational mission to inform the public or stakeholders about an issue or topic, some to support the network of members of the organization. The information may be available in databases of statistics, on institutional websites, as part of media kits prepared by the public relations department, in directories or annual reports, and in many other formats.
Private-sector institutions generate both public and private records about their own activities.
Private information created by both for-profit and non-profit private-sector institutions is intended for use by the company or organization and can be difficult to obtain by someone outside the institution. These can include:
• internal correspondence
• proprietary product recipes or unique manufacturing processes (for profit)
• marketing research about their customers or constituencies
• business plans for product line expansions (for-profit) or service expansions (non-profit)
But other records generated by private-sector institutions are public and more easily obtained. These can include:
• Public financial disclosure documents if they sell stock to shareholders or operate as a non-profit institution with tax exemption
• Compliance documents if they operate in an environment that requires licenses or regulatory oversight
• Information verifying compliance with tax laws, social security contributions, worker’s compensation payments for employees
• Evidence they are complying with federal and international trade and commerce laws and regulations if they operate overseas
You have legal and legitimate access to much more information from private-sector institutions and through public records than you would likely ever think to request. In fact, the potential problems involved in seeking information about for-profit and non-profit institutions is not the chance that your requests might be denied but, rather, that you will be overwhelmed by the quantity and complexity of it all.
You can reasonably expect for-profit and non-profit institutions to be reliable, accurate and complete in their information-producing and -disseminating functions. But you should not expect the information to be neutral in respect to social values and social structures. Nor should you expect that institutions will remain static as laws change and as social values and structure evolve. Rather, you should recognize that when you use information from these institutional sources, you have to decode the biases, assumptions and vested interests inherent in the information. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/06%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who_Contributes_Information/6.08%3A_Private_Sector_Institutions.txt |
Another major category of information sources is scholarly information produced by subject experts working in academic institutions, research centers and scholarly organizations. Scholars generate information that advances our knowledge and understanding of the world. The research they do creates new opportunities for inventions, practical applications, and new approaches to solving problems or understand issues.
Alan Cann: CC BY-SA 2.0
Scholars introduce their discoveries to the world in a formal system of information dissemination that has developed over centuries. Because scholarly
research undergoes a process of “peer review” before being published (meaning that other experts review the work and pass judgment about whether it is worthy of publication), you can be assured that the information you find from scholarly sources has met the standards for accuracy, credibility and validity in that field.
Academics, researchers and students at universities make their contributions to scholarly knowledge available in many forms:
• masters’ theses
• doctoral dissertations
• conference papers
• academic reports
• scholarly journals
• books
• individual scholars’ web pages
• web pages developed by the scholars’ home institution
All serve the purpose of publishing and distributing the new knowledge gleaned from the research efforts of these scholars.
Journals that publish scholarly contributions are different than the journals that might be published by an institution such as a think tank or by a media organization. Scholarly journals have a board of editors and a panel of peer reviewers who will determine whether the submitted material has sufficient merit to be published.
Materials from scholarly sources are usually found most readily in libraries with large collections of scholarly journals and books. Some scholarly materials can be located in the sponsoring institution’s library. For example, a dissertation written by a University of Texas student would be available at the University of Texas library.
There are now “digital only” scholarly publications which uphold the same rigorous peer review and high academic standards as their printed predecessors. An example is the Journal of Interactive Advertising. Research projects and papers of professors, doctoral students and researchers can be found on university websites. In some cases, institutional sources – such as associations – will make compilations of scholarly papers available, like the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s database of AEJMC conference papers.
The supporting datasets used to analyze the research are rarely available online, but the clever communicator will know that the database must exist and that the scholar will be the source they need to contact to find out about it. Since one of the tenets of scholarly research is replicability, scholars have an interest in making their data available.
Making distinctions between types of disciplines may help you determine the types of scholarly information sources that are most useful for your purposes. The clearest distinction is between the sciences and the humanities. The scientist and the humanist use different sorts of research methods and study different phenomena. They publish their findings in forms that are characteristic of their disciplines and make these documents available through a variety of tools.
Scientists seek experimental validity by studying the natural world and examining the regularities or irregularities that seem to govern natural phenomena. Their methods must be open to scrutiny and, in the best of circumstances, must be reproducible by others following the same procedures. Experimental validity, rather than individual interpretation of events or phenomena, is paramount. Immediacy in sharing results is very important for professionals in the scientific fields, so scientists rely on the research report and journal article.
The humanist’s method is shaped for interpretive validity; that is, the humanist tries to interpret a poem, a painting, a novel or a musical score by presenting an interpretation that will be considered valid. Humanists study the products of human imagination and combine a personal, unique perspective with the framework of accepted concepts and knowledge that their discipline provides. Humanists rely on books as the primary method of expressing their knowledge of a field because the book allows the in-depth exploration of context that characterizes humanistic investigation.
Social and policy scientists rely on a combination of experimental and interpretive methods. They have adopted the scientific method for much of their work and exhibit the same concern for openness and validity exhibited by scientists. However, because the subject of much of their study is human social activity, social scientists work interpretively as well. For the most part, they are concerned with the present and with the implications of their work in social organizations and in public decision making. Social and policy scientists publish their findings in a number of forms. Journals are important, but research reviews, yearbooks and handbooks are also valuable.
While it is easy to understand why it is important for scholars to share their work among themselves, why would scholars want to share their information with you as a communications professional? For one thing, scholars are as eager as anyone else to have their work recognized and appreciated. Taking a call from a reporter or public relations specialist seeking the most reliable “expert” on a particular subject is an ego-boost for the scholar who is used to toiling in relative anonymity in the quiet of the academic or research center environment.
Another motivation for scholars to talk to you is that they might be conducting their work with the help of a grant or financial backing from a foundation or research organization that would appreciate wider distribution of the findings and a larger public audience for the organization’s work.
In fact, it is your job as a communications professional to ask scholars who is supporting their work financially. It is not unusual for scholars to have grants from large companies (pharmaceutical companies, for instance) or government agencies (the U.S. Defense Department, for instance), and the work they do may reflect the interests or priorities of the funding source.
Scholars typically must reveal their funding sources in manuscripts they submit to journals for peer review so the experts reviewing the work know who “paid the piper” and who may be “calling the tune.” This is not to disparage the independence of scholars who work with grant funding but rather to alert you, the information seeker, to ask for full disclosure about the nature of the funding of the scholarly work you intend to use in your research. Bias comes in many different forms and even if a funding source is a reputable governmental organization such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), you should acknowledge that the agenda and interests of this organization are important for understanding the perspective of that research.
Much of the work you do as a communications professional requires you to range across many disciplines of knowledge and skim across many fields of expertise. That usually means that you will not, as the media professional, become an “expert” in any one subject area.
You must rely on scholars to help you accurately interpret information for your audience. You seek the help of scholarly sources to identify emerging social or scientific trends, to decipher specialist information or jargon that you cannot understand, to comment on the work of other scholars, to critique institutional policies or procedures, and for a wide variety of other purposes. The main use of scholarly sources in mass communication messages is as a source of expertise and knowledge about audiences, subject matter, or effects of messages.
As you move through the information strategy process, you will begin to identify the individual scholars and/or the scholarly publications or resources that are most appropriate for your message task. For instance, if you are working on the advertising account for a new type of low-fat snack food, your initial discussions about the product with the client may direct you to several researchers whose work documents the dietary effects of the new food.
If you are writing a news story about the possible effects of a new government–imposed tariff on imported steel, you are likely to want to discuss the policy with economics scholars who study trade policy whose names you find in the transcripts of testimony before Congress about the policy.
If you are preparing the news release about the introduction of curtain airbags in next year’s models, your supervisor may ask you to seek the expertise of a scholar studying the effects of the new devices on the injury rate in auto accidents.
In every case, the scholarly source is intended to provide credibility, depth, balance and/or expertise to your message. Rather than asking your audience to trust that you, the communicator, just happened to get it right, you seek the help of scholarly sources to ensure that audiences are receiving complete, accurate, and fair information in their news stories, advertisements and public relations messages. If you choose your scholarly sources carefully and with attention to their credentials, expertise and relevance for your topic, you are likely to produce a much more reliable and credible message for your audience. We will go into more detail about locating and using scholarly sources in later lessons. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/06%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who_Contributes_Information/6.09%3A_Scholarly_Sources.txt |
Another major category of information sources is journalistic materials produced for a general audience and distributed through the popular media (newspapers, magazines, radio, television, Web sites, etc.). Journalistic sources also include industry-specific news sources such as PRWeek, Advertising Age, or Editor & Publisher magazine—we will commonly refer to these specialized business oriented sources as trade publications.
Much of the work that media professionals do relies on the previous journalistic work in that area. The basic rule to “check the clips” before starting on any information task applies to newsrooms of all types. Advertising libraries maintain “tear sheet” files of ad examples from magazines and newspapers in a myriad of product and service categories so ad professionals have some idea about how a particular item has been advertised before launching off on a new campaign. Public relations professionals are judged, in part, by the coverage their clients receive in the popular media and therefore use a variety of means to document where their news releases were published in media outlets.
Biswarup Ganguly: CC BY 3.0 Unported
News media moved to digital production of their newsprint products more than thirty-five years ago. News organizations, with rare exception, now have a digital version of their print, television or radio counterpart available on the Web. And in the last decade, many digital-only news publications have been created. What this means for the communicator is unprecedented access to the news coverage from journalistic organizations around the world.
Many news sites will give access not only to current stories, but to the archive of previously published stories. Sometimes free, sometimes for a fee, these archives will be important resources to communicators needing background on a topic or event. Often, news sites will make the databases of statistics they have used to report a story available. The “computability” of the digital space allows the user of a news database to find the crime statistics, or school test scores, for example, for the specific area they are interested in.
Many journalistic organizations are making interactive, digital versions of their publications available in addition to their print versions, so you can see all the articles and ads as they appeared in the print publication. This is of particular interest to strategic communicators who need to track the placement and play of stories and ads.
As potential contributors to your information search, journalistic sources might be helpful in generating ideas for your news message (how have others written about this and what could we choose as a new “angle”), identifying possible problems or crises you might need to address with your PR messages (a news report identifies falling public confidence in your client organization), or suggesting an opportunity for a new ad approach (a news report might document that more women are doing home repairs so your client home improvement store should target women).
Depending on the context of the information request you present them, you will get different kinds of information from journalists as interviewees. If the media organization itself is the focus of the research, the information you will get is likely to be the “party line” of the organization. If you are tapping one of the employees of a media organization about a story they have written, you are likely to get more of a personal view of what went on in the crafting of that message. If you are seen as any kind of competitor, you are unlikely to get any information at all. The products of journalistic organizations are messages and if the journalist believes you are going after the same sort of message, that reporter won’t be a very willing contributor. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/06%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who_Contributes_Information/6.10%3A_Journalistic_Sources.txt |
Scott Cresswell: CC BY 2.0
Getting started on a new subject and grounding the information in “reality” are just two challenges you’ll face early in the information strategy. The best route to meet both of these challenges can be consulting people informally and observing the world around you.
When describing how informal sources might be helpful, we are talking about what people know, feel, and believe from their life experiences. A person you might consult as an informal source might also be an institutional, scholarly, or journalistic source in another context – one in which the information you are trying to get from them is related to their work.
lauradinneen – Social listening for innovation – CC BY-NC 2.0
Monitoring online forums, chat rooms and social networking sites has become a routine part of a communicator’s daily work routine. These sites allow individuals to share what is sometimes a disconcerting amount of personal information about their lives, interests, activities, acquaintances and future plans. Social networking sites as sources of information from informal contributors provide the communicator with a rich vein of material that was once non-existent or nearly impossible to tap.
The ability to find informal sources and “listen in” on what they are talking about has been greatly enhanced with the rise of social networks and microblogging services like Twitter. A challenge, though, is identifying those messages truly contributed by unaffiliated people and messages that look like they are from “informal” sources but which are actually marketing-sponsored messages.
Even at their best, informal sources provide just a portion of the information that is needed for a message. Informal sources may be incomplete, outdated, self-serving or contain errors of fact or interpretation. They are most likely to provide you with a “slice of life” perspective rather than an informed, credible perspective that other types of sources might provide.
6.12: Disciplines of Knowledge
Another major aspect of identifying possible contributors involves drawing the boundaries for the information strategy.
It is never possible to examine an idea in its entirety. You have to carve out a manageable portion of an idea if you are going to make your deadline and do a credible job with the message. When drawing these boundaries for the strategy, it helps to think about how and where information is produced. For this, you need to identify the disciplines of knowledge production in a subject area.
Information does not exist in the environment like some kind of raw material. It is produced by individuals who work within a particular field of knowledge
geralt – Knowledge – CC0
and who use specific methods for generating new information. Disciplines are knowledge-producing and -disseminating systems. Looking through a college course catalog gives clues to discipline structure. Fields such as political science, biology, history and mathematics are unique disciplines with their own logic for how and where new knowledge is introduced and made accessible.
You must become comfortable with identifying the disciplines that might contribute information to any strategy. You must learn how to:
• move seamlessly from one discipline to another during your strategy
• compare and evaluate information that comes from a variety of perspectives and knowledge systems
• decode the way people talk about a topic within a discipline
For example, think about the disciplines that might contribute information to a search on the topic of the role of sports in society. Try to anticipate the type of perspective each discipline might have on the topic. Consider the following types of questions as you examine what different disciplines might contribute:
• What is important about the topic to the people in that discipline?
• What is most likely to be the focus of their study about the topic?
• What perspective would they be likely to have on the topic?
We might identify three disciplines that have something to say about the role of sports in society: medicine, sociology, and economics. What would each of these disciplines raise as key questions or issues related to that topic?
• Medical scientists
• how sports affect individuals’ health and well-being
• sports injuries
• physical conditioning for those who take part in sports
• life-expectancy for those who regularly exercise
• Sociologists
• how sports affect social relationships
• how society treats its sports heroes
• how young people are socialized into the ideal of team cooperation
• differences between boys and girls and their participation in organized sports
• Economists
• financial aspects of sports
• the kinds of economic contribution a major-league sports franchise makes to a city
• public financing for building new sports facilities when a team threatens to leave
• management-labor relations represented by negotiations in major league sports contracts
So we see that a single topic can be approached from many different perspectives depending on how the disciplinary boundaries are drawn and how the topic is framed. This step of the information strategy process requires you to make some decisions early on in order to focus the topic on a manageable and appropriate scope for the rest of the strategy. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/06%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who_Contributes_Information/6.11%3A_Informal_Sources.txt |
Berkeley Public Library: CC0 1.0
For all that it offers in the information gathering process, the most essential resource for information from all types of contributors is the library. Libraries can be affiliated with a particular contributor type or they can be totally independent entities that contain information from different kinds of contributors.
Libraries are storehouses of recorded knowledge in print, digital, and other formats. But with all of the digitally stored and accessible information available from any computer with access to the Internet, it may not be easy to see why you would need to use the resources of a library at all.
The main reason why libraries continue to be major contributors to the communicator’s information process is that library material has been organized, indexed, and coherently arranged for ease of use. Despite the best attempts of the creators of some of the best digital services, most still lack even the more rudimentary organization schemes and retrieval systems that have been in use in libraries for centuries.
Quality control is an even worse problem for some digital services. Libraries continue to be among the few information repositories that clearly organize their collections and allow for evaluation of the relative quality and usefulness of almost everything retrieved.
Libraries are set up to preserve, collect, and make accessible recorded intellectual products. Most libraries have
• a catalog that lists the contents of their collections
• both book collections and periodical / magazine collections
• the tools (indexes, abstracts, bibliographies) to help searchers find what they need in the collections
• access to the Internet
• access to electronic databases of information
• the most important resource of all – the librarian or archivist – the person who knows the most about the collection and about how best to use it
It is especially important when you are working under a deadline and need accurate, appropriate, and verifiable information to understand how libraries differ from one another and how those differences affect the information strategy. Especially for freelance communicators and for those working in organizations without an in-house library, it is useful to know about the kinds of libraries that may be available in the community. There are five types of libraries that are important for communicators: public libraries, academic libraries, special libraries, archives, and media-organization libraries.
6.14: Types of Libraries- Public
Public libraries exist to serve a very special function. The need for an informed electorate is considered so important that residents are willing to tax themselves to make libraries available to the entire community.
John Benson – Madison Public Library – CC BY 2.0
Many public library collections reflect the history and makeup of the neighborhoods in which they are situated. They may include materials in the languages of the most dominant ethnic groups of that section of the city. The materials you will find in the public library reflect this community mission. The collection reflects the library’s attempt to meet the recreational and day-to-day informational needs of the general public.
Most public libraries are not equipped to handle in-depth or technical research projects or questions but it might well be the best source for in-depth and retrospective information about the community: telephone books and city directories, electoral-district maps, photographs of city landmarks over the years, and other community-related material.
At the start of your information strategy process, you might determine that it is crucial for you to have locally-relevant information about your topic, your community or your audience. In that case, some of the resources available from a public library might be good contributors to your process. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/06%3A_Question_Analysis-_Who_Contributes_Information/6.13%3A_The_Library_as_Contributor.txt |
Public relations practitioners, like advertising specialists, work closely with clients. Through these associations, legal and ethical decisions often arise as clients and publicists discuss information-gathering strategies. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission monitors the way corporations report their financial affairs, scrutinizing information about stock offerings and financial balance sheets for accuracy and omission of important facts. Their objective is to ensure that investors and stock analysts can get accurate information about the companies that are offering securities.
Increasingly, legal and ethical standards are holding public relations practitioners, along with stockbrokers, lawyers and accountants responsible for the accuracy of information they communicate to the public. When public relations professionals find themselves on the losing side of an important ethical question with a client, it is not unusual for them to resign their positions as a matter of principle.
The Public Relations Society of America’s Code of Ethics emphasizes honesty and accountability, in addition to expertise, advocacy, fairness, independence and loyalty. The public relations code, like those for advertising and journalism, reflects the concerns of society as well as the practitioners who adopt the codes. Provisions of all the codes are designed, at least in part, to provide the public with reasons to have confidence in communicators’ integrity and in the messages they create. Of course, the codes are also there to help keep communicators out of court.
For example, a large multinational PR firm resigned its account with a major tire manufacturer just months after landing the account. The reason was that the tire manufacturer failed to disclose to the PR firm that it knew about defects in its tires that had caused a number of fatal accidents. The PR professionals decided they could not ethically represent the tire manufacturer to the public under such circumstances and ended their relationship with the company. The PR firm’s adherence to professional and organizational standards was more important than the income that would have been generated from the account with the tire manufacturer. (Miller)
7.02: Individual Perspective
There is an individual level of responsibility for your own behavior. As a communications professional, you may find yourself confronting conflicting obligations in your daily routine. You will be doing your work in a decidedly ambivalent atmosphere. News professionals are criticized for reinforcing the assumptions of those in power and ignoring reality as experienced by most of the population. Advertising is criticized for contributing to materialism, wasteful consumption, and the corruption of the electoral system. Public relations is criticized for creating and manipulating images on behalf of those with narrow interests, failing to give public interest information a priority.
In confronting your social responsibility using the individual perspective, you are likely to place duty to yourself at the top of the list. You always need to abide by your own moral standards. But this may conflict with more worldly ambitions – desire for recognition, advancement, and financial security. The duty to the organization may be at odds with the loyalty to colleagues or to the profession. Let’s look at a few examples that illustrate these tensions.
Am I Comfortable Working on Advertising for This Client?
geralt – Untitled – CC0
Individual-level responsibility may arise when ad professionals object to ads they have to work on or have to accept. It is usually not necessary to violate your own standards.
Concerns about taking on an assignment will be something to discuss during the message clarification step. If, for example, you are a strict vegetarian, it may be difficult for you to work on a campaign to sell bacon.
Or let’s say that you are the advertising manager for a local magazine. You receive an ad that you think is offensive, even though the product or service being advertised is perfectly legal and the company is a big advertiser in your publication.
You don’t have to accept that offensive ad, but you also don’t have to forgo the ad revenue for your publication (again, we’re weighing two competing obligations—your obligation to your own standards against your obligation to your media organization to generate revenue).
The way to resolve this dilemma is to call the ad agency and ask for another version of the advertisement. Advertisers almost always have another version in anticipation that some media outlets will refuse to run a potentially-offensive version of an ad. With this solution, you can adhere to your own standards and still generate revenue for your publication by accepting the more appropriate ad. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/07%3A_Question_Analysis_-_What_are_the_Ethical_and_Legal_Considerations/7.01%3A_Professional_and_Organizationa.txt |
There are entire texts and semester-long courses that examine the specific laws and regulations under which mass communicators operate. We will discuss here briefly a few of the most relevant types of legal and regulatory constraints that affect communicators’ gathering and use of information in messages in this lesson. We will return to some of these examples in more depth throughout the rest of the lessons where appropriate.
Journalism Law and Regulation
You will learn about the relevant legal and regulatory framework for your career as a journalist in later classes. We will mention just a couple of examples that demonstrate the way that laws and regulations affect journalists’ information strategy process.
Federal, state and local law outlines the way journalists gather information. For example, photographers/videographers have a constitutional right to photograph anything that is in plain view when they are lawfully in a public space. Police officers may not confiscate or demand to view journalists’ photographs or videos without a warrant. However, the right to photograph does NOT give journalists the right to break other laws. For example, you may not trespass on private property to capture an image.
Likewise, there are a wide variety of laws that detail the types of information that are accessible to the public, including journalists. Public records laws will be discussed in more detail in Lesson 13. Suffice it to say that journalists have many tools in their toolbelt when they are seeking access to public record information.
Libel law defines the ways that journalists USE the information they gather in their messages. Again, there are many nuances in libel law and journalists generally defer to the experts within their media organizations when questions arise about whether a particular item in a news story exposes the news organization to a charge of libel. It is most important for you, as an information gatherer, to understand that best practices require you to double- and triple-check any facts, claims or evidence you intend to use in a message and to vet that information with the appropriate gatekeepers in your organization.
7.04: Legal Considerations - Adverti
The advertising substantiation rule is of paramount importance for anyone collecting and evaluating information to use in a comparison ad. The advertiser must be able to substantiate any claim about a product or service with information that backs up such claims. This means that you, as the advertising professional, will follow a comprehensive information strategy in preparing the background information for any such ad.
The main governmental regulatory agency for advertising is the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC regulates unfair and deceptive practices on a case-by-case basis and occasionally with industry-wide regulations.
The FTC has the power to require that advertisers prove their claims. If the FTC determines that an advertisement is deceptive, it can stop the ad and order the sponsor to issue corrections. Corrective advertising provides information that was omitted from a deceptive ad. Some companies are fined for their illegal acts. It is extremely rare, but someone could also be jailed for a deception.
Many states also have laws that regulate deceptive advertising. Individual consumers also have the right to sue companies for deceptive advertising.
The advertising industry also has a two-tiered self-regulatory mechanism. Advertising that is charged with being deceptive can be referred to the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. For cases that are not satisfactorily resolved through NAD, appeals can be made to the National Advertising Review Board. The Board can put pressure on advertisers through persuasion, publicity or even legal action if it is deemed necessary. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/07%3A_Question_Analysis_-_What_are_the_Ethical_and_Legal_Considerations/7.03%3A_Legal_Considerations_-_Journal.txt |
Public relations firms increasingly are investigated along with the corporations they represent in situations of litigation, disputes about investor relations, etc. In fact, after a number of highly publicized cases of major corporate financial malfeasance came to light, public relations departments and firms reviewed their own roles in unwittingly misleading the public about the financial health of organizations that were in deep trouble. In another example, athletic apparel giant Nike was taken to court by a workers’ safety advocate because it released press statements defending its reputation against charges of mistreating overseas workers. The news releases were said to represent false advertising. The case served as a wake-up call to public relations firms that send out press releases every day. (Egelko)
Pixabay
In a relatively new twist, a number of “guerilla marketing” firms tout their ability to generate “buzz” about products and services on web sites populated by teens. The firms were recruiting young people with promises of gifts and access to the newest gadgets. In exchange, the teens agreed to go online to popular social networking sites and sing the praises of the products they had received and encourage their peers to buy the merchandise, all without disclosing that they were actually working for a marketing firm.
These practices raised ethical questions about the truthfulness of messages that fail to disclose conflicts of interest (one of the negative obligations mentioned earlier). When confronted with ethical concerns, many of the marketing and promotion firms claimed that if someone asked, their operatives were instructed to say that they were working for the movie studio, the gadget company or the bubble gum producer. But how many audience members, especially younger ones, were likely to ask?
As we’ve said, the Federal Trade Commission has now ruled that “word-of-mouth” endorsers of products or services (such as those who post positive messages on social networking sites, etc.) must disclose that they are being compensated with money or free goods and services as part of their posts to these sites. Guidelines originally issued by the Food and Drug Administration regarding direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising now include similar advice for any person or company making claims about medical, food or cosmetic products through social media.
7.06: Social Responsibility and the
All of these levels of responsibility influence how communicators weigh their actions and make their decisions. Societal expectations, organizational and professional routines and norms, and individual standards are going to play a role in each decision you are faced with making. As long as you have a systematic method for evaluating each situation and for applying your professional standards, you should be able to make your information decisions in an ethical and defensible manner.
The information strategy provides you with the skills to ensure that you don’t have to resort to inappropriate, unethical, or illegal means to gather information. If one method of gathering information seems inappropriate, your skill with a well-developed information strategy means you can use another, more appropriate, method to find what you need. Being a highly skilled information gatherer in an information-overloaded society brings credibility to you and to your organization.
Further, using an explicit information strategy helps you explain your standards to others. When the public, colleagues, or supervisors challenge the information on which you base a message, you can present an ordered, rational account of your information search and selection process. Using the standards and methods available in the information strategy allows others to evaluate your skill and expertise as a communications professional.
7.07: Social Responsibility
In Lesson 1 we discussed the personal attributes that will help you succeed on the job. There are also standards for conducting your professional work ethically and legally that must be understood and heeded. Missteps in these areas will undermine not only your own credibility but can have wide ranging repercussions for the organization and profession within which you work.
Following is a discussion of the levels of responsibility that affect the information you gather and use, and the messages you create. Once you understand the constraints you must acknowledge in your work as a message creator, you’ll be able to think strategically about the information you need to create that outcome. Having this foundation will also help you evaluate the appropriateness of the information you find. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/07%3A_Question_Analysis_-_What_are_the_Ethical_and_Legal_Considerations/7.05%3A_Legal_Considerations_-_Public_.txt |
Being a socially responsible communicator requires attention to both ethical standards and legal requirements. First, we need to draw a distinction between ethics and law.
Distinction Between Ethics and Law
Karen Arnold – Scales of Justice – Public domain
Ethics
• A branch of philosophy
• Deals with values relating to human conduct
• Concerned with “rightness” and “wrongness” of actions
• Self-legislated and self-enforced
• Sometimes difficult to determine because of competing, equally-valid possible choices
Law
• Derived from ethical values in a society
• Formally / institutionally determined and enforced through courts and law enforcement officials
• Easily determined because it is a matter of statute and the legality of an an action and consequences for not adhering to the law is spelled out
In the previous lessons on developing your information task list and determining questions to answer, we’ve focused on specific information seeking goals. In each of the communication professions there are key legal considerations that must be understood that will either help, or hinder, the seeking of information to meet those goals.
In news, for example, if some of the information needed requires the use of public records then an understanding of public records and privacy laws will help you know what it is possible to get, and how to legally use these records.
In advertising, you might want to make the most of the attributes of the product you are promoting, but you will need to abide by laws dictating the substantiation of product claims.
For public relations professionals, you may need to issue a corporate response to a crisis, therefore it is important to understand the requirements or restrictions of corporate disclosure laws. We will discuss these legal perspectives later in this lesson.
Socially responsible communicators are not content with just staying on the right side of the law. While the law embodies a significant portion of our values, individuals and organizations that want to be considered socially responsible must go beyond the rough requirements of the law itself and adopt higher and more thoughtful standards.
In some cases these standards may have a legal basis as well as an ethical one. Following these standards requires the communicator to consider both “positive obligations” (things that you must always strive to do) or “negative obligations” (things that you must guard against doing).
7.09: Obligations in News
Let’s look at the positive and negative obligations that apply to those crafting news messages. These are drawn from the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, a long-standing professional association for news professionals.
Society of Professional Journalists logo
POSITIVE OBLIGATIONS (goals you try always to achieve)
1) Seek truth and report it. This requires that you:
a. test the accuracy of information from all sources.
b. fairly represent multiple perspectives and viewpoints.
c. identify sources whenever feasible so the public may judge the reliability of the information.
d. safeguard the public’s need for information.
Despite the rhetoric of First Amendment attorneys, the public does not have a “right to know” per se. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says that citizens have a right to assemble, speak, practice their chosen religion, petition the government for redress of grievances, and that the Congress shall make no law limiting the freedom of the press. It does not address the public’s “right to know” anything. But most communication scholars acknowledge the crucial role that the media play in nurturing an informed electorate and citizenry.
2) Minimize harm. This requires that you:
a. avoid privacy violations. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy and such intrusion may invoke legal sanctions if a source can demonstrate harm. In the context of information seeking, information that can be found should not necessarily be used.
b. be cautious about naming criminals before the formal filing of charges, identifying juvenile suspects or victims, or seeking interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
3) Act independently. This requires that you:
a. be wary of sources offering information for favors or money.
b. disclose potential conflicts of interest. IE: failing to label the content from a video news release in a TV broadcast story is a breach of ethics.
c. hold those with power accountable.
4) Be accountable. This requires that you:
a. admit mistakes and correct them promptly. Libel law may be invoked if the mistake injures a news subject.
b. stand up for what is right in the media organization.
c. abide by the same high standards to which you hold others.
NEGATIVE OBLIGATIONS: (actions that must be avoided)
1) Plagiarism. Never, ever, ever represent someone else’s work as your own. Never. Ever.
2) Concealing conflicts of interest, real or perceived, in seeking or using information. If you have a stake in the outcome of what you are reporting on, you must acknowledge it and perhaps suggest that someone else cover the story.
3) Distorting the content of news photos or video. Image enhancement for technical clarity is permissible, but any other type of manipulation must not happen.
4) Eavesdropping. Listening in on others’ conversations, electronically or otherwise, is a form of information stealing and may invoke wiretapping laws or other legal sanctions.
5) Breaking the “contract” with a source. Publicly identifying a source who provided information confidentially, for instance, is both an ethical and a legal violation. We will discuss the details of the source contract in the Lesson 9 on Interviewing.
These are a sample of the negative and positive obligations that help you weigh your decisions when a situation arises in your information gathering for a news message.
Ethical thinking requires that you establish for yourself, ahead of time, how you value these various obligations and which take precedence in your own scheme of decision-making. You also must be fully aware of how your media organization has ordered these priorities for their own publications, and comply with the standards that your organization has established. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/07%3A_Question_Analysis_-_What_are_the_Ethical_and_Legal_Considerations/7.08%3A_Analyzing_Ethical_and_Legal_Co.txt |
Just as in news, advertising professionals adhere to a number of constraints when gathering and using information, regardless of the type of advertisement they may be creating. We can once again understand these in the context of positive and negative obligations. These are drawn from the principles and practices of the Institute for Advertising Ethics.
POSITIVE OBLIGATIONS
1) Create messages with the objective of truth and high ethical standards in serving the public. Advertising is commercial information that must be treated with the same accuracy standards as news and there may be legal repercussions if the standards are not upheld.
2)Apply personal ethics, like being an honest person, in the creation and dissemination of commercial information to consumers.
3) Clearly distinguish advertising from news and editorial content and entertainment, both online and offline.
4) Clearly disclose all material conditions, such as payment or a free product, that affects endorsements in social media and traditional message channels. This is both an ethical and a legal requirement, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission and other regulatory bodies. For example, a blogger who is paid by a company to spread positive information about the company’s product or service must disclose she being paid for her opinions
5)Treat consumers fairly, especially when ads are directed at audiences such as children. In fact, the legal requirements for advertising aimed at children are increasingly stringent.
6) Follow all federal, state and local advertising laws, and cooperate with industry self-regulatory programs for the resolution of complaints.
7)Stand up for what is right within the organization. Members of the team creating ads should express their ethical or legal concerns when they arise. This is a good example of the personal ethics that must factor into decision-making in creating messages.
NEGATIVE OBLIGATIONS
These are obligations that represent both an ethical and, in most cases, a legal/regulatory element. The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the National Advertising Review Board, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Food and Drug Administration and many other bodies enforce these obligations when necessary.
1) Do not plagiarize. Never, ever, ever represent someone else’s work as your own.
2) Do not use false or misleading visual or verbal statements.
3) Do not make misleading price claims.
4) Do not make unfair comparisons with a competitive product or service.
5) Do not make insufficiently supported claims.
6)Do not use offensive statements, suggestions or pictures.
7) Do not compromise consumers’ personal privacy, and their choices as to whether to participate in providing personal information should be transparent and easily made.
7.11: Obligations in Public Relation
Let’s look at the positive and negative obligations that help PR specialists gather and use information responsibly. These examples come from the Public Relations Society of America Member Code of Ethics. Once again, many of these obligations refer to both ethical and legal responsibilities.
POSITIVE OBLIGATIONS
1) Serve the public interest by acting as responsible advocates for those the PR firm or professional represents.
2) Adhere to the highest standards of truth and accuracy while advancing the interests of those the PR firm or professional represents.
3) Acquire and responsibly use specialized knowledge and experience in preparing public relations messages to build mutual understanding, credibility and relationships among a wide array of institutions and audiences.
4) Provide objective counsel to those the PR firm or professional represents. For example, the best advice for a client may be to admit wrongdoing and apologize. The PR practitioner must objectively weigh this advice and offer it if it is the best option.
5) Deal fairly with clients, employers, competitors, peers, vendors, the media and the general public.
6) Act promptly to correct erroneous communication for which the PR firm or professional is responsible. Again, failure to do this could invoke both ethical and legal sanctions.
NEGATIVE OBLIGATIONS
1) Do not plagiarize. Never, ever, ever represent someone else’s work as your own.
2) Do not give or receive gifts of any type from clients or sources that might influence the information in a message beyond the legal limits and/or in violation of government reporting requirements.
3) Do not violate intellectual property rights in the marketplace. Sharing competitive information, leaking proprietary information, taking confidential information from one employer to another and other such practices are both legal and ethical violations.
4) Do not employ deceptive practices. Asking someone to pose as a “volunteer” to speak at public hearings or participate in a “grass roots” campaign is deceptive, for instance.
5) Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. PR professionals and firms must encourage clients and customers as well as colleagues in the profession to notify all affected parties when a conflict of interest arises.
7.12: Levels of Social Responsibilit
You can see from the sampling of positive and negative obligations that as a communications professional you must weigh a wide variety of considerations when gathering and using information to create a message. The intended audience, the purpose of the message, the intent of the communicator, the ethical considerations, the legal constraints and many other variables help determine how you pursue the information strategy.
Peter Durand: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
As a communications professional you must also conduct your work in the context of a commitment to social responsibility at a number of levels. Because mass communication messages are pervasive and influential, media organizations and professionals are held to high standards for their actions. The social responsibility perspective helps outline how this works.
There are three levels of responsibility that affect your work as a communicator. These are:
• SOCIETAL: the relationships between media systems and other major institutions in society.
• PROFESSIONAL / ORGANIZATIONAL: your profession’s and your media organization’s own self-regulations and standards for professional conduct.
• INDIVIDUAL: the responsibility you have to society, to your profession, to your audience and to yourself.
We’ll examine each of these in turn. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/07%3A_Question_Analysis_-_What_are_the_Ethical_and_Legal_Considerations/7.10%3A_Obligations_in_Advertising.txt |
The societal perspective examines how media institutions interact with other major institutions in society. As a communications professional, it is important to understand the societal implications of your work and the rules under which you operate.
Professional education and licensing have been traditional means by which society has sought to ensure legal and ethical behavior from those who bear important social responsibilities. For law, medicine, accounting, teaching, architecture, engineering and other fields of expertise, specific training is followed by examinations, state licensing and administration of oaths that include promises to live up to the standards established for the profession.
However, there is no U.S. law that requires communicators to be licensed. Without the power to control entry into the field and withdraw the license to operate as in these other professions, it is even more important for mass communication professionals to police themselves. Especially in light of the huge explosion of “fake news” being generated by individuals with political, cultural or financial motives, legitimate news professionals must defend their crucial role in society.
Let’s look at examples of the way the media interact with other major social institutions. One of the major tenets of journalism is the goal of exposing public officials or business executives to public scrutiny. This “watchdog” role, one of the most important functions of the press, is used to justify journalists’ behavior in investigating what public officials or corporate executives are doing and whether or not they are meeting their responsibilities to constituents, citizens or shareholders. The First Amendment protects journalists’ rights to challenge government power.
However, serious observers argue that when overly aggressive investigative techniques expose individual politicians or corporate executives to scrutiny about their private lives that may have nothing to do with the performance of their official duties, it causes cynicism, it undermines public confidence in major social institutions, and it drives people away from participation in public and civic engagement. How far does the “watchdog” role go? When is a journalist crossing the line from examining public behavior to voyeurism about private lives?
Similarly, strategic communications professionals face questions about their interactions with other major social institutions. There is more and more agitation for government regulation of advertising because people perceive that advertisers do not police themselves enough.
In 2012, the Federal Trade Commission imposed the largest fine in its history on the company that manufactures Skechers athletic shoes and apparel. The company paid \$40 million because its ads falsely represented clinical studies backing up claims that Shape-Ups, Resistance Runner, Toners, and Tone-Ups would help people lose weight, and strengthen and tone their gluteal, leg and abdominal muscles. The ads used lines such as “Shape up while you walk,” and “Get in shape without setting foot in a gym.” As part of the settlement, Skechers had to take down the advertising and inform retailers to remove the deceptive claims. It also agreed to stop misrepresenting any tests, studies, or research results regarding toning shoes. And customers who purchased the shoes or apparel were able to file through the FTC for a refund from the company. (Bachman)
The example points out the interactions between advertisers, government regulators and the public at the societal level.
Another example points out the social responsibility interactions between advertisers, corporations and the customers they serve around the sensitive issue of personal privacy.
The social network Facebook, used by 900 million people worldwide, agreed in June 2012 to pay \$20 million to settle a lawsuit in California that claimed Facebook publicized that some of its users had “liked” certain advertisers but didn’t pay the users, or give them a way to opt out.
The so-called “Sponsored Story” feature on Facebook was essentially an advertisement that appeared on the site and included a member’s Facebook page and generally consisted of another friend’s name, profile picture and a statement that the person “likes” that advertiser. The suit was one in a long list of complaints against the social media giant and other online organizations such as Google that appear to be working with advertisers to intrude on consumers’ privacy. (Levine & McBride)
A group of digital advertising trade organizations called the Digital Advertising Alliance is concerned enough about advertisers’ interaction with consumers, technology companies,
Digital Advertising Alliance
privacy advocates and federal/state regulators that it has created a way for people to opt out of having their online behavior tracked. A turquoise triangle that appears in the upper right-hand corner of banner ads on web sites allows users who click on it to remove themselves from having personalized advertising directed at them.
The group created the option in reaction to pressure from other institutions, including the Federal Trade Commission, which are threatening to regulate mobile and digital privacy and exert more control over children’s privacy online. The example points out how various societal-level institutions interact to impose social responsibility on media practitioners if they do not regulate themselves.
As strategic communicators have adopted social media platforms to distribute their messages, scrutiny by other societal institutions has increased. The Federal Trade Commission was so concerned about claims being made by advertisers and PR practitioners via social media that they updated their social media guidelines in 2013.
The new FTC guidelines require social media marketers to:
• fully disclose their sponsorship of the information. If an advertiser has hired a blogger to endorse a product or service, the blogger MUST disclose that he or she is working for that advertiser; if a PR firm posts positive comments about its clients on social media, the firm MUST disclose that they are working on behalf of the client. Further, the disclosure must be clear and conspicuous; it cannot be buried in the fine print.
• monitor the social media conversation and correct misstatements or problematic claims by commenters.
• create social media policies to instruct employees about the expectations and practices that will be enforced.
The mention of company-specific social media policies leads us to the next category of responsibility: the professional or organizational perspective. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/07%3A_Question_Analysis_-_What_are_the_Ethical_and_Legal_Considerations/7.13%3A_The_Societal_Perspective.txt |
In addition to the societal level of interactions, communication organizations and professionals engage in self-criticism and set standards for their own conduct and performance as information gatherers. One of the most conspicuous examples of this lies in the proliferation of codes of conduct for mass communication activities at all levels. As our discussion of positive and negative obligations (above) demonstrated, every mass communication industry develops these professional and organizational guidelines for its practitioners.
In the news industries, codes have expanded in number and scope over several decades. Organizations that have adopted such codes include the American Society of News Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press Managing Editors Association, the Radio Television Digital News Association, and the National Press Photographers Association. Individual news organizations and publications frequently establish their own codes to which they expect their staffs to adhere.
7.15: Professional and Organizationa
Advertising codes reflect some of the specific criticism directed at the field, such as charges of deceptive advertising, unfair stereotyping, false testimonials and misleading claims. Organizations as diverse as the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association, the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Beer Institute have guidelines and codes for the content and placement of advertisements in their respective industries or for the audiences with which they are concerned.
For instance, here is a portion of the Advertising and Marketing Code for the Beer Institute. Any advertising professional working with a client who sells and advertises beer would need to adhere to this industry code.
“Brewers should employ the perspective of the reasonable adult consumer of legal drinking age in advertising and marketing their products, and should be guided by the following basic principles, which have long been reflected in the policies of the brewing industry and continue to underlie this Code:
• Beer advertising should not suggest directly or indirectly that any of the laws applicable to the sale and consumption of beer should not be complied with.
• Brewers should adhere to contemporary standards of good taste applicable to all commercial advertising and consistent with the medium or context in which the advertising appears.
• Advertising themes, creative aspects, and placements should reflect the fact that Brewers are responsible corporate citizens.
• Brewers strongly oppose abuse or inappropriate consumption of their products.” (Beer Institute)
Individual advertising agencies and corporate advertising departments also have codes and standards to help employees recognize and deal with ethical questions.
Most media outlets accept or reject ads submitted to them using a set of guidelines about what types of ads are acceptable and what type of content they will allow.
For example, here is a portion of the policy for acceptance of advertising that appears in Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine
• All advertisements are subject to approval of Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (Publisher), which reserves the right to reject or cancel any ad at any time if the ad does not conform to the editorial or graphic standards of the magazine as determined by the Publisher.
• Advertisements that are not appropriate for viewing by youth will not be accepted. Advertisements will not be accepted for tobacco or alcohol products. (Tex. Parks & Wild. Code §11.172(c); 31 Tex. Admin. Code §51.72. Other products that are not compatible with the mission of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will also not be accepted.
• Advertisers must keep in mind the diverse audience of the magazine when determining the suitability of an ad. That audience includes hunters, anglers, campers, bird watchers, state parks visitors, other outdoor enthusiasts and readers of all ages including children. (Magazine Advertising Policy)
Any advertising professional gathering information and creating an ad for a product or service that might appear in this magazine would need to be aware of the publication’s organizational level guidelines about acceptable advertising, and the societal level regulations (Texas state laws) about tobacco or alcohol advertising in this publication.
7.16: Endnotes and Resources
Endnotes:
Bachman, K. (2012, May 16). Skechers Settles Deceptive Ad Case with FTC for \$40M. AdWeek, at http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/skechers-settles-deceptive-ad-case-ftc-40m-140577 captured on July 26, 2012.
Beer Institute Advertising and Marketing Code, at www.beerinstitute.org/tier.asp?bid=249, captured on August 15, 2017.
Egelko, B. (2003, September 13) Nike settles suit for \$1.5 million, San Francisco Chronicle at http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Nike-settles-suit-for-1-5-million-Shoe-giant-2589523.php, captured on July 26, 2012.
Levine, D. and McBride, S. (2012, June 18). Facebook ‘Sponsored Stories’ Lawsuit: Company to Pay \$10 Million Settlement. HuffPost Tech Blog at www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/facebook-sponsored-stories-lawsuit-10-million_n_1602905.html, captured on July 26, 2012.
Magazine Advertising Policy, Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine, at http://www.tpwmagazine.com/advertising/policy/, captured on July 26, 2015.
Miller, K. (2000, September 7). Firestone’s PR Firm Resigns, Washington Post at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...231008_000.htm, captured on July 26, 2012.
RESOURCES:
A collection of news organizations’ ethics codes can be found at The Center for Journalism Ethics’ Ethics Resources page. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/07%3A_Question_Analysis_-_What_are_the_Ethical_and_Legal_Considerations/7.14%3A_Professional_and_Organizationa.txt |
A database record usually contains different “fields” of information that describe the resource it has indexed. Learning to search within specific fields can help you pinpoint the kind of information are seeking.
Fields might include:
• Author
• Publication
• Date of publication
• Keywords used (in a directory)
• Type of material
When you are searching in a structured commercial database like Academic Search Premier you’ll have a large selection of fields to search – here are some of them:
• TX All Text
• AU Author
• TI Title
• SU Subject Terms
• AB Abstract or Author-Supplied Abstract
• KW Author-Supplied Keywords
• GE Geographic Terms
• PE People
• CO Company Entity
• IC NAICS Code or Description
• SO Journal Name
These fields can be used to develop very specific search equations.
Using the “advanced search” feature on most web-based search engines offers the opportunity to specifiy the field in which you want your term to appear. Google’s advance search, for example, lets your search for terms within certain kinds of top-level domains (.edu or .gov, for example) or for specific types of files (.pdf or .xls) Searching within fields allows the savvy searcher to construct a very specific search.
8.02: Contributors of Information and Database Searching
The five different contributors of information generate their own types of database resources that communications professionals can search.
Public-sector Institutions: Databases of licensing information, lawsuits, nursing home inspection reports – all of the kinds of public records documents that government agencies generate are housed in specific databases. (More information about public records will be found in Lesson 13.) To find appropriate databases that might contain information you need, you have to go to the agency that would have generated the information – but that requires thinking about the topic you are researching and determining the type of agency at different levels of government that might deal with that topic. From there, you need to go to the website for the agency and locate where and what kind of databases they maintain. Public-sector institutional documents are also searchable through databases produced by private-sector commercial firms such as Accurint or Westlaw.
Key resources for finding public-sector institutional databases:
• USA.gov: This resource provides a comprehensive database of information from federal, state, local and tribal agencies that generate public-sector information
• Government Databases by Subject : This compilation provides an interesting sampling of public-sector institutional databases
Private-sector Institutions: While most commercial databases are products of private-sector institutions (for example, Lexis-Nexis, Academic Search Premier, Factiva), here we are talking about the kinds of databases that private-sector institutions might make directly available to researchers. Searching within a private-sector institution’s website is a type of database containing the contents they want to share with the public. Corporations will also create databases to support their commercial enterprises. For example, General Mills’ product locator http://www.generalmills.com/ProductLocator.aspx is a database for consumers looking for local availability. Ford Motor Company has created a database to allow owners to see if their specific vehicle is subject to a recall – you search by your car’s VIN (vehicle identification number.) owner.ford.com/servlet/Conten...ge/RecallsPage The use of databases to compile large sets of private-sector institutional information is widespread and researchers need to be clever to find and use appropriate information.
Several alert or filter services that are especially useful for advertising and public relations professionals to monitor for-profit and non-profit institutions include Business Wire and PR Newswire. Both services allow you to customize your search preferences so that you automatically receive information (news releases, stock price information, analysts’ reports, alerts of news stories about those companies or organizations you are interested in) every time something important happens.
Many for-profit and non-profit institutions have also created their own information services. For instance, the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, a division of the beverage company, produces sports and nutrition information and publishes materials in bulletins and newsletters that are sent to thousands of sports medicine professionals in print and via email.
Scholarly Sources: Although Google is a private-sector institution, when talking about databases which contain information generated by scholarly contributors, you must consider Google Scholar. This database indexes the articles in thousands of scholarly publications and websites. In addition, the information that is written by scholars can be found in the individual databases of the journals that the private non-profit association or organization might publish. For example, the Journal of Public Relations Research has a searchable database of articles from the journal on its website. You can search within the current issue or over all the past issues. http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hprr20/current#.U7HPao1dX3B
Scholarly source information is also located through hundreds of databases produced by private-sector institutional sources who are in the business of selling subscriptions to their services. These databases are most often accessed through a library.
Journalistic Sources: Databases of the stories and articles generated by journalistic contributors usually consist of two different types. On a news organization’s website you will find a search function that retrieves material that has been published on the news organization’s website. There is usually another, separate search function as well – one that will search a different database containing the stories that were published in the newsprint newspaper (and it usually contains material going back several decades.) Searching news databases is a good example of the need to understand the “scope” of the database’s contents so that you go fishing in the datahole most likely to help you catch what you need. For an example of two search engines on a news website look at the Star Tribune:
Again, journalistic sources are also accessible through databases produced by private-sector institutional sources and found in library collections.
Informal Sources: Informal sources don’t create databases, per se, but the material / photos / postings they generate become part of databases. If you search for photos of cute cats in Pinterest, you’ll find pages that have been compiled by informal sources, for instance. Using the search function on social networking sites allows you to identify informal source information that has made its way into these private-sector institutional sources’ databases. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/08%3A_Research_Skill-_Searching/8.01%3A_Searching_Fields.txt |
As you can see from all the discussion about searching, finding a good database to search and constructing an efficient and effective search strategy can be time consuming. So, when you have found a good search string, save it, and have one of the many available tracking services regularly conduct the search for you and deliver the results to your mailbox.
Many web search engines provide the ability to save a search and get updates on new material that fits that search.
An excellent example is Google Alerts. alerts.google.com
Set up a search string, tell Alerts how often you want to be updated, what kind of resources you want the tool to check, and it will do the work of keeping up to date on a search topic for you.
There are specialized tracking tools, too. Many state legislatures or courts have a way you can be apprised of changes to bills, or the progress of legal cases. Again, it just takes having a good search strategy in hand to use one of these, essentially, automated search systems.
In conclusion: Searching is a complex skill that requires resourcefulness in scoping out where the best search sites will be, cleverness in selecting relevant keywords, efficiency in using search fields to the maximum effectiveness, and care when evaluating your results. As with any complex skill, practice, patience, and an inquiring mind will serve you well as you try to master it.
8.04: Getting Started on Your Information Strategy
It should comes as no surprise that the first of the “Research Skills” we will discuss is the one about how to effectively conduct a search. Unless you have been handed the exact URL for an online document or you know right where a book is on a shelf, you will need to conduct a search in a database to find where useful information might be found.
Searching usually involves goal-directed and highly targeted information strategies using well-established sources of information found in many types of information spaces – libraries, databases, public records repositories, and so forth. When we talk about the specific kinds of research skills related to locating certain kinds of information (public records, surveys, information about individuals or companies, etc.) you will need to have the ability to:
• find an appropriate databases to search
• construct an effective search equation
• evaluate and assess what you found
Getting Started on Your Information Strategy
In the section on Question Analysis we worked on developing a list of information tasks that you must undertake to get the information needed for your message assignment. These tasks and the questions that must be answered are crucial at the start of your information strategy.
Searching will be your first step to completing most information tasks. Whether your task is to find a quick fact (What does the W in George W Bush stand for?), a particular public record (I need the 10-K reports for our three main competitors), to get ideas or background (What kind of coverage has there been on digital wallets?), audience data (What is the demographic profile of people who buy energy drinks?), or a well-documented government statistic (What is the population of Duluth?), searching will be required.
There are a number of things that stand in the way of finding good information when you start your strategy:
• You may not know where or how to start.
• You may be asking a question that is too specific.
• You may be asking a question that is too broad.
• You may not understand the relevance of things you find as you search.
• You may not be focusing on likely sources for the information you are seeking.
Developing your search skills and knowledge of how and where searching is done online will help you address each of these issues.
Databases Are Not All Created Equally
geralt – Search, surf, find – CC0
Virtually all of the resources you regularly use online are giant databases. Google is a database with links to material stored on web sites. Facebook is a social media site with a database you search to find friends or people with particular characteristics. The library digital catalog has a database that will help you locate resources the library has available or database services it subscribes to.
Completing any information task will require skilled knowledge about how to locate and use databases with the kinds of information that will help answer your questions.
But remember, it starts with the questions. No one clicks on Google and thinks, “I’m going to search the topic ‘Google’.” Instead, you click on Google with a clearly defined topic that you need to research, and an information task you must accomplish. This will help you create a question to answer which will inform how to structure your search query.
For example – if the topic you need to learn about is “food insecurity” there may be a number of tasks:
Task: Get a clear idea of the definition of the term
Question: What does “food insecurity” mean?
Search: “food insecurity” AND definition
Task: Need experts or people involved in the area that I can talk with
Question: Are there any associations that deal with “food insecurity”?
Search: “food insecurity” AND association
Task: Get data that can help me understand the scope of the issue
Question: How many people are affected by “food insecurity”?
Search: “food insecurity” AND statistics
We understand that students these days believe they know how to search just fine, thank you very much. But the ease of “Googling” makes it easy to be a lazy and uninspired researcher. Just relying on doing a Google search without understanding and exploring the vastly rich and diverse search resources available will prevent you from becoming a truly inspired, clever, and resourceful researcher.
And this is what employers are looking for. In a survey in 2013, 93% of the 318 employers surveyed by Hart Research Associates for the Association Of American Colleges And Universities said what they most highly value in a new hire is “a candidate’s demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems.”
Honing your search skills requires all three of those capacities. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/08%3A_Research_Skill-_Searching/8.03%3A_Tracking_Your_Search.txt |
ENCYCLOPEDIAS:
General Encyclopedias: Cover a wide range of topics and different audiences. For example, the World Book Encyclopedia is aimed at a young audience and has a simpler reading level and less detail while the Encyclopedia Britannica is written for a more mature audience and is written with much greater authoritativeness.
Subject Encyclopedias: Allow greater depth and specificity and more detailed entries on narrow topics. Examples: Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock, and Soul, the Catholic Encyclopedia, or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Wikipedia: Although its status as a credible source of information is tenuous, any discussion about information sources in this era cannot ignore Wikipedia, by far the most widely viewed central source of information about everything—excluding search engines—for Internet users.
DICTIONARIES: Since the communicator’s stock in trade often is the word, the usefulness of a dictionary may seem obvious. Just as with encyclopedias, not all dictionaries are the same. For instance, the Oxford English Dictionary is recognized as the most authoritative source for looking up the etymology, or origin and evolution, of words.
General Dictionaries: These are your standard dictionaries of words in use in a language.
Specialty Dictionaries: There are rhyming dictionaries, dictionaries of acronyms and abbreviations, anagram, and homophone dictionaries, to name a few of the many varieties.
Subject Dictionaries: Law, medical, science and technology, slang, engineering, biographical, music — these are some of the types of special dictionaries that deal specifically with the language of a discipline, science or topic.
DIRECTORIES: Among the most useful kinds of one-step tools in the library are directories. Whether it is a familiar telephone directory, the ZIP Code directory, or something a bit more esoteric — such as the Prairie Directory of North America — the directory is an important source of information for mass communicators.
Publication Directories: These will help you locate newspapers and magazines and broadcast outlets. The Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media, for example, is organized by geographic area and by media outlet name. Market and economic data, summaries of population, statistics on agriculture and industry, and maps are included, making it of tremendous value for advertisers trying to identify how best to reach a particular community. The UMN library has a resource page on a number of these types of directories.
People Directories: Whether you are looking for a specific person whose name you already have or a particular type of person (an academic expert on nuclear power, the public information officer for the state Department of Education), directories are going to be the most useful starting points.
Institution Directories: As we’ve discussed, public-sector and private-sector institutions, scholarly organization and many other types of institutions generate important information for communicators. Using any of the directories that guide you to these institutions will help you identify the right organization and the appropriate people to contact.
ALMANACS AND YEARBOOKS: An almanac is an annual compendia of facts, figures, and tidbits of information.
General Almanacs: These cover popular information – such as The World Almanac or the Information Please Almanac.
Subject Specific Almanacs: The Almanac of American Politics, for example, compiles information or biographical data about a topic or person not included in more general almanacs.
Yearbooks: These are the year-end wrap up publications that cover the latest developments. The United States Government Manual publishes information on the activities, and chief officers of all agencies within the federal government. Many professions and industries also have yearbooks. For example, the newspaper industry has the Editor & Publisher Newspaper Data Book.
There are also subject-specific yearbooks, such as the Statesman’s Yearbook, the Europa World Year Book or the CIA World Factbook, which provide current information on countries and international organizations. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/08%3A_Research_Skill-_Searching/8.05%3A_One-step_Research_Tools.txt |
Stuart Caie – Card catalog – CC BY 2.0
Library Catalog: key to the entire collection of information. The catalog details the holdings of the library and includes information about how each item may be located.
Indexes and Abstracts: the classic “two-step” tool. An index is a listing, usually alphabetically arranged by subject categories, of articles and materials that have appeared in other publications. There are indexes to magazine, newspaper, and journal articles; poems; plays; songs; speeches, etc.
The abstract is an index with a brief, non-evaluative summary of each article being described. Oftentimes, the well-written abstract has the substance of the article so you can get what you need simply from the brief description provided – you don’t have to take that “second-step” to find the article itself.
You can see the tremendous variety of indexes in UMN library’s list of Periodical Indexes here.
Some of the reference resources discussed above are still published in paper form but many, if not most, are found digitally online. As online resources, you will have multiple entry points into the material. Learning how the repositories of information are compiled, and searched, is the next step for developing your researching skills.
8.07: Basics of Searching on the Web
There are two types of databases for searching on the web. There are site-specific search engines that locate material contained within a specific website, and there are web search engines that locate information widely from across the web. Both of these types of search engines have the same sorts of functions. What differs between them is how the database being searched was created, how searches within that database are best conducted, and what kind of information you’ll be retrieving from the database.
The first thing you should do when you go to an unfamiliar search site (or even one you’ve been using, but with some degree of frustration) is to find the search “help” file. Spending a few minutes with the help file will get you ready to do a thorough and effective search.
Directories vs. Indexes
The most important distinction for you to understand about a web search site is whether it is a directory or a machine-indexed search tool.
A directory search engine has hierarchically organized lists of subject categories. Its databases are compiled and maintained by humans, and these directories allow users to browse by subject in search of relevant information. Examples of directory search sites are Yahoo! and online library catalogs.
Instead of relying on humans to enter the information about sites, machine-indexed search engine sites rely on software. This explanation of how “spider” (sometimes referred to as “robot”) software works comes from founder Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Watch. Sullivan writes:
“The spider visits a web page, reads it, and then follows links to other pages within the site. This is what it means when someone refers to a site being “spidered” or “crawled.” The spider returns to the site on a regular basis, such as every month or two, to look for changes. Everything the spider finds goes into the second part of a search engine, the index. The index, sometimes called the catalog, is like a giant book containing a copy of every web page that the spider finds. If a web page changes, then this book is updated with new information. Sometimes, it can take a while for new pages or changes that the spider finds to be added to the index. Thus, a web page may have been “spidered” but not yet “indexed.” Until it is indexed – added to the index – it is not available to those searching with the search engine.” (2002)
A few examples of machine-indexed search engine sites are Google and Bing.
Database “scope”: It is important that you understand the scope of the contents contained in whatever database you are searching. The scope defines the range of materials that the database indexes. Google, for example, aspires to index all the contents of web sites in the surface web. Google News, however, indexes only news stories. Google Scholar indexes articles found in scholarly publications. The New York Times web site also has a database of news stories, but they would only be those published in the New York Times. And the Star Tribune has two databases of news stories on its web site – one with stories published by the newspaper online in the past 3-4 years, another with stories published in the newspaper since the 1980s. Knowing the scope of the database you are using will help you know where you are likely to find the kind of information you need. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/08%3A_Research_Skill-_Searching/8.06%3A_Two-step_Research_Tools.txt |
By T (Own work) – Deep web diagram – CC BY-SA 3.0
There are billions of web pages connected through the Internet. However, estimates are that traditional search engines on the web index just a small fraction of those pages. The rest has come to be known as the “deep web.” This “deep web ” consists of material in databases embedded in websites, Flash animations, information that is password protected or behind registration screens that cannot be “spidered,”, and “dynamic” content of various sorts such as airline flight schedules and news pages that are updated minute-by-minute.
Notably, this information is not necessarily completely “buried” and inaccessible to you as a user. Rather, much of this information is that which cannot be accessed through broad search engines such as Google or Yahoo!. It is important for you to know, then, that the material accessible to you through a web search site is significantly limited in scope – there may well be valuable information out there that you will have to dig a little more deeply to find.
If you need to do a thorough search on a topic, particularly one for which important information would be found inside a database, a directory, or in an Excel spreadsheet, you will have to look into the hidden nooks and crannies of the web to find what you need.
Some of the search engines that claimed to provide results from the deep web are no longer around. The experts now suggest that you identify some of the specialized search engines in the specific field or area of interest and use those to locate materials that the huge general search engines can’t reach. Examples include Economagic for data files, charts and Excel files for a vast array of economic data or Guidestar for information from and about the hundreds of thousands of non-profit organizations in the U.S.
8.09: The Disappeared Web
One of the greatest fallacies of the information age is that the information found online is secure. Nothing could be further from the truth. After a candidate loses the election, her campaign website comes down. When a news organization puts a new publication system in place, the contents of its former website might disappear. Some information, like user comments, might be ephemeral or updated information will overwrite what was previously there.
Archiving “born-digital” content is an issue more specialists are paying attention to and there are some efforts to capture the web that searchers should be aware of.
A massive effort to archive the web is available through the Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive. They capture websites (somewhat sporadically) which allow people to retrieve web page contents by entering the URL of the site. Searchers can see what a site, and links, looked like – sometimes from 10-15 years ago.
It is also possible to look at the “cached” version of a website if the current site appears to be unavailable. For example, you might search Google for a topic or issue and when you click on one of the top search results, you get the dreaded “404 not found error,” meaning you can’t link to that site. Sometimes this is because the server is temporarily down, sometimes it is because the site may no longer exist. In that case, you can click on the little green down arrow right next to the URL in the Google results listing to see the “cached” version of the site. That is the version of the site that was “spidered” or “crawled” before the site went dark or the server became unavailable. In most instances, you will be able to look at the home page of the site but the links on that home page may no longer work. But at least you can see what the home page looked like before the site disappeared.
8.10: Key Words and Subject Headings
People in different disciplines have their own jargon and terminology for discussing their field and the ideas they work with. You must know how to decode this language in order to be able to talk to experts, understand what they are writing, and make the material clear for the non-specialist audience that will see the final message.
The language of a topic is also the key that opens the door to effective searching. Language is the access code through which formal collections of information in libraries and databases are indexed and organized. In addition, terminology shifts over time with the introduction of new words and as some language falls out of use and is replaced.
Political perspectives also play a role in decoding language. A body of water in the Middle East is called the Persian Gulf by some and the Arabian Gulf by others, depending on their political perspective. Think about the different connotations of the terms “pro-choice” or “pro-abortion;” “right-to-life” or “anti-choice.” You must understand how the audience will react to language and terminology choices. During your information search you must use appropriate terminology to locate relevant information.
Subject Headings
A major characteristic of information searching is the use of subject terms or headings. The major purpose of subject headings systems is to provide a standardized method of describing all information in the same general subject area so that everything pertaining to a topic can be identified. When you are searching for information in print or digital form, you are likely to have a general notion of the topic area you are researching rather than a detailed list of authors or titles of materials you are seeking. For that reason, information catalogers and indexers have tagged records with subject headings as a finding tool.
Indexers spend enormous amounts of time developing subject headings that accurately reflect the structure of information in a subject area. You can use these subject headings in many ways. They appear on the records in a library’s catalog; they appear in the entries of indexes and the headings in abstracts, or they may be used to organize material on web sites.
Information organizers may use the subject classification system created by the Library of Congress, a system that is called the Library of Congress Subject Headings and which is particularly appropriate for very large collections. Smaller collections may use the Sears List of Subject Headings. Special collections may have their own subject headings, such as the Medical Subject Headings used, obviously, in medical collections.
You do not need to know the intricacies of these systems. The point is that you can be a much more efficient information searcher if you know how to use the specific subject headings for your search. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/08%3A_Research_Skill-_Searching/8.08%3A_The_Deep_Web.txt |
Strategic searching in databases requires constructing a “search equation” that details the relationship between the words you use. That is, knowing how the words you type into a search relate to each other is important because your decisions about how to enter the terms will greatly affect the results. Boolean logic is the phrase used to describe the system that applies to electronic search logic.
Mathematician George Boole invented Boolean logic with the publication of the system in a thesis in 1854. It was of little interest to anyone at that time, as it dealt with pure logic, and was mostly forgotten.
However, with the advent of computing, computer developers realized that Boolean logic, which had little practical use in the 19th Century, was ideal when applied to searching computerized databases.
Boolean logic uses three ‘logical operators’ to represent relationships between terms and define what a search should find. These ‘operators’ are AND, OR, and NOT.
The relationship between terms connected by Boolean logic are represented in this diagram:
You use Boolean logic in your web searches without realizing it. When you enter two different words in Google, there is an implied Boolean connection between the two words. The “default” logical connection between terms entered in Google is an “AND.”
If you use the “advanced search” template that many sites offer, complex boolean relationships can be constructed and you can more elegantly control the relationship you want between your search terms.
For example, if you wanted to find out information on the behavior characteristics of three different dogs (westies, aussies, and collies) and you type behavior westies aussies collies in Google’s search bar, you will get results that have ALL of those terms when what you want is the behavior of any of those dogs. Plugging the search terms into the advanced search box lets you retrieve that have articles about the behavior of any of the three.
A basic tutorial on the use of Boolean logic and Boolean operators is found here. If you don’t know how to represent the relationships between words in a search equation, review the information so you are able to improve the precision of your searching.
8.12: Resources and Endnotes
For more information about how to construct search equations and develop keyword lists:
Key words and SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Endnotes
Sullivan, D. (2016, November 29). How Search Engines Work at https://www.linkedin.com/learning/danny-sullivan-on-seo/how-search-engines-work captured on August 15, 2017.
8.13: One-step and Two-step Research
Dictionary – CC0
Research resources can be categorized in one of two ways. One-step resources refer to those that provide the available information directly. Look up “beagles” in an encyclopedia and whatever information that reference book has about beagles will be in the “article”. Examples of one-step reference works are dictionaries, encyclopedias, directories, almanacs, yearbooks, and syndicated market research sources.
Two-step resources differ in that they indicate where information you might want resides and you have to take a “second step” to actually get the material. If you search for “beagles” in the library catalog, for example, it will point you to where on the book shelf a guide to raising beagles sits. Examples of two-step resources are library catalogs, publication indexes, abstract services, bibliographies, and news aggregation services.
In the pre-digital era, printed two-step tools, like the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, would enable researchers to look up a keyword and get citations to articles on that topic. They would then have to find a physical copy of the magazine and locate the article within the magazine.
Today, the two-step tool (of which Google would be an example) often provides a ready link to the material being indexed.
Each type of one-step and two-step tool is useful at various stages of the information process. At the beginning of your information gathering process, some of the uses might be checking terms so you know what you are talking about, finding contacts that will be useful to talk to, or locating facts and figures that might give you an interesting angle. During the search, these tools will be fact-checkers, and reality checks for the things you hear / discover in your research. When you are at the point of writing or developing the final message, these are the tools that will help you tie up loose ends, find interesting facts to brighten the piece, or give it context.
In order to give you a sense of the rich variety of one-step and two-step research resources available (many or most now online) here are some of the categories and types. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/08%3A_Research_Skill-_Searching/8.11%3A_Search_Logic_and_Boolean_Connectors.txt |
Communicators share a number of goals in their information-seeking interviews irrespective of whether they work in news, advertising, or public relations positions. For example, a corporate official of a firm that manufactures street-sweeping equipment might be interviewed on a given day by a news reporter asking questions about unusual capabilities of a new piece of equipment being marketed, by a member of the firm’s public relations staff who is working on an article for the employee magazine, or by a staff member in the advertising agency that handles the advertising for the firm.
Many of the questions they ask will be similar but some will be distinctive, reflecting the differences in the ultimate use of the information. Their common goal is the gathering of accurate, factual, and comprehensive material that will contribute to an appropriate and interesting message.
Sometimes the content of an interview is used strictly as background or just to inform the reporter or strategic communicator and only small portions of the actual interview content will be seen in the story, ad or PR piece. In other cases the interview itself is the story.
For instance, in the verbatim interview, the dialog of the interview is reproduced for the reader. The interviewer’s question is printed as it was asked, followed by the response. The technique is used principally in magazines, usually with a source who is very newsworthy or who is a recognized expert. The interview itself is preceded by a short introduction that establishes the context of the interview and gives background material on the interviewer and the topic. (Example: Keith Richards interview in Esquire.)
The goals of the interview may vary by the intended use for the information (for advertising, public relations, or journalistic purposes) and by the type of story that is being told (business, human interest, civic issues.)
Here are some different types of interview goals and how they may fulfill different information tasks.
9.02: Human Interest
Your information task might be to gather insights about people and give you the detail that adds interest to your story or copy. These interviews are less about facts and figures and more about impressions, ideas, and emotions. In these human-interest interviews:
Photo by Lilibeth Serrano, Public Affairs Specialist, USFWS: CC BY 2.0
• Journalists look to get a good story, get the flavor of an experience, and, possibly, get some ideas on how to proceed with the writing
• Advertisers will interview people who might become part of a testimonial ad
• Public relations practitioners will be looking for stories that they can pitch to feature segments of morning television shows or features sections of news sites
9.03: Corroborative
Sometimes the task is to follow-up on another interview. This follow-up interview can provide you with either corroborating, or conflicting, opinion or information. Journalism, in particular, is often said to be about “truth-telling” – in fact it needs to be about “truths-telling” – the truth according to different constituencies in an issue might be very different. These interviews might involve asking the interviewee to reflect on what some other interviewee said.
9.04: Investigative
geralt – Untitled – CC0
Good investigative reporters know their information task includes tireless checking of often dull material. Multiple interviews are the rule for investigative journalism. In addition to extensive use of records and documents, investigative journalists try to run down all relevant leads and double- or triple-check all facts. Interviews often lead to additional sources that must be checked out. The investigative report provides perhaps the widest range of interviewees of any type of reporting and cover every type of contributor.
9.05: Opinion Seeking
Third Way Think Tank: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Perhaps the information task is to understand public opinion. An interview might take place through a poll or focus group session seeking information about consumer behavior and attitudes. The results of a consumer poll may also be included in the actual copy of an advertisement (“J.D. Power and Associates reports that car brand X had the highest rating among new car purchasers.”)
Public relations research relies on poll or focus group data to measure public opinion as part of a campaign to change attitudes. The results of a poll might also be used as part of a public relations campaign to persuade policymakers about decisions they are considering.
9.06: Methods- Face-to-Face
Conducting an interview in person is certainly the preferred method for communicators, whether they are interviewing for a news story or conducting focus groups.
adabara – Interview – CC0
Advantages of face-to-face interviews
• Picking up clues about the person, beyond what they say (tone of voice, body language)
• Holding the interview in the interviewee’s “space” allows you to observe their environment, giving clues about the person and providing “color” for the story
• Interviewee can be recorded
• Longer, more complex question strategy can be used
• Interviewee can respond to visual images or objects
• Non-verbal responses to questions or displayed objects can be part of the information gathered
• Interviews can be edited but still maintain the feel of a live interview
Disadvantages
• Labor and transportation costs for the interviewers’ training and travel to and from the respondents’ locations can be high
• Interviewees can be reluctant to allow strangers into their homes or offices
• Interviewer’s appearance, age, race, sex, dress, or nonverbal behavior may affect respondents’ answers to survey questions.
9.07: Methods- Telephone
For journalists who need to get information from busy or distant experts, the telephone interview is the second favorite method for interviewing. It is a widely used approach for advertisers and public relations professionals who need to speak to clients about the message campaign, or to potential audience members to get the prevailing opinion about a topic or product.
Advantages of telephone interviews:
• Steven Depelo – CC BY 2.0
Still get the verbal clues of tone of voice and emotion
9.08: Purposes and Information Gathering
Most communicators use interviewing to meet the information task of backgrounding themselves on their topic/client/industry and gathering basic information. Think about the street-sweeping equipment example. Depending on the purpose, and audience, for which you are crafting the message, you will seek different kinds of basic information:
• debbienews – Street sweeper – CC0
PR piece in the company’s magazine for employees and shareholders: you’d ask questions about the impact of the new equipment on the work force of the firm.
9.09: Methods- Digital
Digital interviewing is becoming a popular method for initial contact with a prospective interviewee.
Advantages of digital interviews:
• stevebp – Typing – CC0
It is easy to establish basic information exchange without playing “phone tag” | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/09%3A_Research_Skill-_Interviewing/9.01%3A_Purposes_of_the_Interview.txt |
Up to this point, only two-person interviews have been discussed. However, group interviewing and eliciting information from a large number of people through polling / surveying is also an important information gathering technique for communicators.
In focus groups, you meet with a small group of interviewees who have agreed to discuss a topic or a product. You have a list of questions you present to the interviewees, probing for details and encouraging those in the group to respond to other interviewees’ comments. Subjects for discussion arise from the group, as well as from your agenda of questions. A special strength of the focus group is its capacity to raise issues and enlarge the scope of the discussion.
Penn State – CC BY-NC 2.0
Focus-group interviews are prominent in advertising and marketing research and less frequently used in news and public relations work. Potential members of focus groups can range from grade school students, gathered to taste and judge a new snack, to retired people who discuss the services of travel agencies.
The moderator of a focus group lets the discussion flow freely while it is moving productively and producing useful comment. Tasks include making certain that main points are covered, being receptive to new points that arise, and making sure that each respondent has a chance to talk. The moderator also has the task, at the outset of the discussion, of telling the group how the interview works, of setting up recording equipment and explaining its use to members, and of collecting any permissions that are required of the participants. Focus-group sessions typically are recorded and transcribed for ease of later analysis. Group members are told the method of recording and the subsequent use of their comments. Paying participants a small sum is a typical practice.
Group interviewing is also used in news reporting. For news work, where direct quotes generally are required, group interviewing presents some difficulties. Even if the session is recorded, identifying the voices accurately is difficult (unless it is videotaped.) Under some circumstances, however, group interviewing has advantages. You may find that individuals are unwilling to be interviewed for attribution but are willing to have their stories told as a part of the group’s story. For example, for a story on alcoholism, members of Alcoholics Anonymous may relate their experiences to one another while you listen.
Having permission to record the discussion is important in such group interviews, although the recording generally is flawed by extraneous sounds and inaudible voices. As a precaution against flaws in the tape, you should take as many notes as possible. Further, you should, at the end of the session, pass around paper and a pencil, requesting names, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses to contact for later clarifications and as a check on accuracy. While this may seem to violate the “anonymity” provision, group members may have come to trust you during the meeting, and some may be willing to be called after the interview so their comments can be clarified or verified before the story is written. In addition, follow-up telephone calls may elicit other important information that did not emerge during the group interview.
9.11: Methods- News Conference
News conferences range in style and size from televised presidential news conferences, with hundreds of reporters assembled, to informal sessions, with one source and a handful of questioners.
NASA – CC BY 2.0
The news conference undoubtedly is the journalist’s least-favorite method of news gathering. From the viewpoint of the source, the news conference is a time-saving convention. But from the reporter’s perspective, there is little to recommend it. If the news conference is televised, reporters for newspapers find that their questions and the answers to them have been broadcast on television or placed as a video file on a news Web site before they can write their own stories.
Follow-up and clarification questions are difficult at large news conferences. Reporters who have prepared particularly well often do not reap the benefits of their preparation. They may not have a chance to ask their questions, and, if they do, they reveal their lines of inquiry to competitors.
Despite the limitations of news conferences, they continue to be a standard method that busy or celebrated people use for giving information to the media. Behind the scenes at press conferences, the work of public relations staff members is critical. For many news conferences, public relations staff have prepared handouts that give the essential information about the announcements to be made that day.
In these packets, reporters find the basics related to the announcement – names, titles, dates, places and decisions – that free them to ask more substantial and interpretative questions than they otherwise would be able to ask. From the viewpoint of the public relations staff, these information packets are designed to promote accuracy in the news reports that follow the conference.
Questions in news conferences should be short. Reporters who seem to be making speeches instead of asking questions draw the anger of their colleagues. So do the unprepared, whose questions do not advance the topic but require the source to repeat information that well-informed reporters have already acquired. Well-prepared and attentive listeners are in the best position to present important follow-up questions during news conferences.
9.12: Preparing for an Interview
The information strategy is critical in helping you identify people who might be good sources of information for your message and, therefore, good interviewees. But it is also important to arm yourself with background information on the topic of the interview so you can go to the interview prepared.
Pre-interview information backgrounding will help you:
• geralt – Strategy – CC0
Identify key issues to raise in the interview
9.13: Information Contributors as Interviewees
The information strategy model identifies five types of information contributors: public-sector institutional sources, private-sector institutional sources, scholarly sources, journalistic sources and informal sources. You may choose your interviewees based on the type of contributors you need to tap to meet your information task. Interviewees differ based on the type of information contributor they represent. Let’s talk about each. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/09%3A_Research_Skill-_Interviewing/9.10%3A_Methods-_Focus_Group.txt |
Public-sector institutional sources are among the most important for some types of communicators to interview. Whether it is the investigative journalist seeking a statement from the state’s Department of Natural Resources spokesperson about new limits on hunting in the state, the business reporter gathering information from the federal Commerce Department about import/export regulations, the PR professional working for the university athletic department seeking clarification about how to submit federally-mandated information about scholarships for athletes or any other myriad of purposes, public-sector institutional sources are crucial interviewees.
Local government interviewees
How do you locate the appropriate public-sector institutional source for your interview purpose? Local governments provide substantial help to communicators and community residents who search for information. Most local governments maintain websites that allow citizens to search for information; fill out applications for license and permit requests; send e-mail messages to city officials and staff; and learn of city activities, proposals, development plans and other important aspects of civic life. These websites also identify the various public officials, staff members and related individuals who keep the local government functioning smoothly.
Many local government offices and agencies now maintain a social networking presence along with more traditional sources of information. For instance, when the City of Minneapolis launched a new “311” mobile app for people to use to make service requests, they included an announcement about the app on the City’s official Facebook page. In addition to seeing the City’s announcement and identifying the relevant city officials to interview, a communicator could also read the reactions posted on Facebook from citizens who had downloaded the app and started using it.
State government interviewees
Like cities and counties, states have established websites where they provide access to information about the individuals working for the state. For example, the state of Minnesota’s “Northstar” Web site is found at www.state.mn.us/. State and local government information on the Web is indexed at www.usa.gov/Agencies/State_and_Territories.shtml
State government agencies also have a social networking presence with Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. Take care that you have found the government sanctioned profile when searching in social networking sites, however, as there are often pages with similar names that are not official government sites.
You will usually seek interviews with a limited number of state officials rather than from a wide range of them.
The ad agency that has the tourism account might do most of its business with the staff of the departments of tourism, economic development and natural resources.
A public relations staff member with the Association for the Blind, for instance, may have frequent contact with the state officers of the departments of health and education administration.
Legislative reporters, obviously, will be broadly familiar with the state legislature as an institution. They frequently seek interviews with officials from both the legislative and the executive branches of the state government. You can contact the various departments and agencies directly to seek specific interviewee information.
Federal government interviewees
A comprehensive guide to federal government information is at www.usa.gov
Federal offices employ public information officers who are responsible for assisting information searchers in locating material and identifying interviewees.
In addition, each member of Congress has an office and staff that constitute a separate information factory. If you need to interview a member of Congress, there are established press offices and procedures for making those arrangements.
Kevin Harber – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Sometimes it is more effective to interview a legislators’ staff rather than the member of Congress his/herself. Each legislator has staffers who are responsible for the bulk of the work done by that member of Congress. Individual members’ websites (as members of Congress, not their political campaign/election sites) or the websites of the House or Senate are appropriate search resources for staffers’ names and titles.
As with local and state government agencies, many federal government agencies now host a Facebook page, send information out using Twitter and engage the general public through many of the digital gathering places that are now so common. Again, be certain you are looking at the official page or feed if you use social networking information from any government agency.
As with any other interview, the best strategy for public-sector institutional sources is to go into the interview extremely well prepared. Because many of them are savvy interviewees, institutional sources will try to take your measure and determine how likely they are to be able to dominate the interview. They can usually tell within the first few questions whether or not you’ve done your homework.
The best advice is to know your stuff and approach the interview with an attitude of professionalism seasoned with empathy and friendly openness. Assume that institutional interviewees are talking to you in good faith and with the intention of being forthcoming unless and until they prove otherwise. Public-sector institutional sources are public servants and there is a presumption that they will interact with the public, including communicators, on an open and straightforward basis.
It is possible to ask difficult questions while still remaining on friendly terms. For instance, you can ask a government official about a controversial decision by phrasing a question such as, “Some of your critics suggest that your tax proposal will provide large advantages to the wealthiest citizens at the expense of those in the bottom third of the earning brackets. How do you respond?” This type of question phrasing helps you retain your “neutral” stance, without putting you in the role of adversary and forcing the interviewee into seeing you as the “enemy.”
A very important strategy for successful interviews with public-sector institutional sources is to gain the trust of your source. That is why it is so important for you to cultivate sources that you may need at some point in the future, even when you aren’t seeking something specific.
In other words, identify the people you are likely to need to talk to on a regular basis in your line of work (your public-sector institutional ad clients, the government officials on your beat, the PR officers in the agencies you interact with) and those people who have connections to other potential important sources.
Talk to those people on a regular basis, just to check in and touch base, and to let them get to know you as a conscientious and professional practitioner. Then, when you need to conduct a formal interview with that person or people within that person’s network of acquaintances, your contact knows you and knows that you can be trusted to do a good job .
No matter how hard you try, however, there are times when you will need to talk to someone you haven’t previously interviewed, someone who knows nothing about who you are, or someone who is well-trained to resist your questioning.
The most important strategy for you is to stay in control of the interview. Asking vague questions or demonstrating that you aren’t well prepared assures that your savvy interviewee will be in control. Avoid this.
Good interviewers know how to establish rapport without fawning, know how to admit when they don’t understand something without sounding ill-prepared, and know how to ask sophisticated questions without sounding too clever for their own good.
Well-trained public-sector institutional sources can avoid answering questions in any number of creative and frustrating ways. Author Sally Adams lists the strategies that institutional sources (in this case, politicians) use to deflect questions:.
• ignore the question
• acknowledge the question without answering
• question the question
• attack the question
• decline to answer
• make a political point, for example attack an opponent
• give an incomplete answer
• repeat a previous question
• claim to have answered the question already (ftnt 1)
Many sources may use some or all of these tactics. The sophisticated interviewer understands this ahead of time and knows how to counter. In almost every case, you can get the interviewee back on track by using some stock phrases or understanding responses that demonstrate that you are going to be persistent.
For instance, in response to an interviewee who gives an incomplete answer, you can use the stock phrase, “tell me more about …” In response to an interviewee who ignores a question or acknowledges a question without answering, you can use the stock phrase, “let’s return to the issue of…” And always, ask every institutional interviewee, “How do you know that? What is your evidence?” | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/09%3A_Research_Skill-_Interviewing/9.14%3A_Public_Sector_Contributors.txt |
geralt – Executive businesswoman – CC0
Maybe you are working as the corporate communicators specialist for a major business in your community and you need to determine how the CEO wants to position the decision to open a new factory overseas. Maybe you are producing advertising for your computer manufacturer client and you need to understand what types of ads have worked in the past. Maybe you are writing about a possible financial scandal at the non-profit foundation in your state that is supposed to help low-income residents gain employment skills. In each case, you want to interview the key people who work at those institutions to get the benefit of their expertise. For these examples, you know the name of the specific person or people you need to interview.
Other times, you may need to identify an appropriate private-sector institutional source who can speak knowledgeably about your topic or issue. Using some of the search tools mentioned here can help you identify the right person and prepare for the interview.
The Who’s Who volumes (Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the Midwest, Who’s Who in the Press, etc.) are sources of biographical information about an entrant. These are good resources only if you have a specific name you are looking for.
“Biography master indexes” can help you locate biographical information published in various books, magazines, and newspapers. These are valuable resources for communicators because they provide supplemental or supporting information about individuals beyond what you can get during an interview. If some facts have to be verified, if the person in question will not agree to an interview or is unavailable, these biographical references are often the only method for gathering the required biographical information. A resource guide to biographical sources in the UMN library can be found here.
Hundreds of online news sites and news indexes can help you locate background information about possible interviewees. The powerhouses of news searching have been the large commercial database services such as Newsbank, Proquest Dialog, LexisNexis or Factiva. These provide cross-title searching of multiple news organizations’ materials – for a fee. These large subscription database services are best accessed through a public or university library, or through the media organization library that may have subscriptions to one or more vendors for all staff to use.
The growth of news websites has been a boon to the researcher. Even publications too small to have been attractive to the major news database vendors in the past now have their articles available in electronic backfiles. So if you want to be sure you’ve done a thorough job of identifying background information about a private-sector interviewee as part of your preparation for an interview, you would want to identify the news organization websites on which you want to search.
NewsLink – Find newspapers, magazines and radio / TV websites by region and by category.
Radio Locator — Links to more than 10,000 radio station websites and more than 2,500 audio streams from radio stations in the U.S. and around the world.
Public domain
LinkedIn is the social networking site used by individuals and organizations to advance their professional careers and institutional goals. Once you create a LinkedIn profile, you have access to thousands of individuals and organizations. The more contacts and connections you have through your profile, the more contacts you will see when you conduct searches. You can follow a company LinkedIn page if you are doing advertising or PR work for that organization. You can locate specific individuals by name or conduct searches for types of people (business managers using Six Sigma management techniques; CIO’s at consumer electronics companies, etc.)
Private-sector institutional interviewees pose special challenges for communicators. Many are well-trained to talk to communication professionals, wary of saying too much and sophisticated in their ability to take control of an interview. Particularly for private sector institutional sources such as business executives or advocacy group spokesperson, you have to be diligent in your preparation and persistent in your questioning to generate anything new or useful from an interview and to counter-act the spin they might put on the information.
Sources such as senior business executives are likely to be surrounded in their day-to-day activities by people who defer to them. They are not used to being asked rude or challenging questions, or to being subjected to criticism about their actions. Therefore, you need to phrase your interview questions in a way that demonstrates respect.
Just as with public-sector institutional sources, it is possible to ask difficult questions while still remaining on friendly terms. For instance, you can ask an executive about a controversial decision by phrasing a question such as, “Some of your critics suggest that discontinuing that product line will allow your competitors to enter the vacuum created. How do you respond?” Maintaining your neutral stance during the interview is crucial to a successful interaction.
Business executives are especially well trained not to reveal too much information. They are concerned about sharing something that might affect a company’s stock price, about inadvertently providing information that might advantage competitors, or about somehow putting their company in a bad light.
Assume that a business interviewee has been briefed about you and your media outlet before the interview. Before you can even schedule an interview, you may be asked to provide information about the topic of the interview and some of the questions that might be asked. This forces you to think carefully about your interview purpose and to structure questions that optimize your efficiency for generating the information you need. You will rarely have the chance to go past the allotted amount of time with a business interviewee, so you need to get into the substance of your interview quickly. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/09%3A_Research_Skill-_Interviewing/9.15%3A_Private_Sector_Contributors.txt |
While it is easy to understand why it is important for scholars to share their work among themselves, why would scholars want to share their information with you as a communications professional? For one thing, scholars are as eager as anyone else to have their work recognized and appreciated. Taking a call from a reporter or public relations specialist seeking the most reliable “expert” on a particular subject is an ego-boost for the scholar who is used to toiling in relative anonymity in the quiet of the academic or research center environment.
dr. coop – Professor Gray in her office – CC BY-NC 2.0
Another motivation for scholars to talk to you is that they might be conducting their work with the help of a grant or financial backing from a foundation or research organization that would appreciate wider distribution of the findings and a larger public audience for the organization’s work.
In fact, it is your job as a communications professional to ask scholars who is supporting their work financially. It is not unusual for scholars to have grants from large companies (pharmaceutical companies, for instance) or government agencies (the U.S. Defense Department, for instance), and the work they do may reflect the interests or priorities of the funding source.
As they have done with many other information niches, Google has created a resource for drilling down into information generated by scholars. Google Scholar describes itself in the following way:
“Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.”
One of the most helpful parts of Google Scholar is the “cited by” feature. If you locate an article of interest you can click on the “cited by” link. This pulls up a list of other articles that referred to the article you are looking at. This can help determine the influence this particular scholar and his/her ideas have had on other scholars and their work. In addition, it can help you locate other scholars you might want to interview.
Any group with a fairly sizable membership usually publishes a directory. The Encyclopedia of Associations is perhaps the best place to begin a search for any type of organization or association. By searching in this directory, you will find the names of the officers and key staff of professional associations. In the past, directories of scholars published by different associations or scholarly societies would have been one of the only resources for locating people who are studying certain topics.
Now, there are a variety of resources that let you tap into networks of scholars and find people with specific academic interests and expertise. Here are two rich resources for finding scholars.
ProfNet.com: This resource for experts and journalists was created by PR Newswire, a public relations dissemination service. Communicators can send out a request for experts, detailing the story they are working on, their deadline, and other aspects of the message they are working on and experts will contact them to be interviewed. This is a way that both are served; the experts have the potential for their names to appear in the news as people with valuable things to say, and the journalists are able to connect with relevant sources.
Academia.edu: Taking a page from other social networking sites, Academia.edu seeks to link the worldwide community of researchers and scholars (1.6 million are in the network currently.) Searching for a topic in Academia.edu will bring up profiles of people who have joined the network. In addition to people, a search in Academia.edu will find research papers, special research interest groups, journals and research centers.
In addition to these services an excellent technique for locating scholarly sources is to contact the public information office of your local university or community college campus to ask for a referral to a local expert in your subject area. Many times the public information office maintains an internally-generated database of scholars at that institution who have agreed to speak with communicators on a variety of topics. Some universities now post a list of subject experts publicly on their Web sites.
Some examples of these university generated lists of subject experts include these at the University of Southern California or at Washington State University,
LinkedIn is also used by scholars. You can locate specific scholars by name or conduct searches for types of people (scholars studying HIV transmission, scholars who claim expertise in nuclear engineering, etc.)
Conducting an efficient and focused interview requires considerable preparation. This is especially true for the interviews you do with scholars. The worst thing you can do in an interview with scholarly sources is ask the interviewee to “teach me the topic.” Someone who has spent a career studying a specialized and focused sliver of a complicated discipline will not appreciate being asked to summarize his or her entire field in a few convenient sound bites.
Further, it should be unnecessary for you to ask the academic expert for basic information about the field that you could easily find in books and in other publications. If anything, it will be to your great advantage as an interviewer to enter the interview prepared with some background knowledge about the subject.
In fact, scholars usually delight in being recognized for their expertise and sharing their knowledge in a discussion with a communicator who demonstrates some familiarity with the field. Many of the topic backgrounding strategies we’ve already discussed help you prepare for your interviews with scholarly sources. You will also be able to speak intelligently about the field, using the appropriate terminology and buzzwords that are important to the knowledge-creators in that area.
There are a variety of methods you can deploy to get appropriate biographical and background information about your interviewee before you show up in her office or call him on the phone. These include the routine to:
1) Contact the public information office of the scholar’s institution and ask for that person’s resume, or, as they call in the academic world, his or her curriculum vita (CV). This summary of a scholar’s career is usually a public document and you may even be able to find it online by searching the Web site for that institution or that scholar’s specific academic department. A curriculum vita typically lists scholars’ degrees, their publications, the courses they teach, the research grants they’ve received, the conference papers they’ve delivered, etc.
2) Check to see if the scholar you will be interviewing has a profile on a social networking site such as LinkedIn or Academic.edu. They may link from their profile to a personal webpage containing their CV.
3) Check to see if the scholar has a Twitter feed or participates in the “public arena” in other ways through mass media. Perhaps the person has published opinion pieces in his or her local newspaper, or has a blog where more informal types of information are shared.
Researching someone’s background helps you decide whether the potential source has the needed knowledge, expertise, reputation, background and characteristics to warrant an interview. These biographical information searches also help you develop an agenda of questions. If conflicting information turns up in the preliminary information search about the person’s background, you can use the interview to clarify and correct those problem areas.
Tips for Interviewing Scholars
• Schedule the interview as far in advance as possible
• Explain the topic, the context, and the probable use of the information to give the interviewee time to prepare
• Ask permission to record the interview on audio or video
• Use the principles of interpersonal communication
• Be cordial, smile, make eye-contact right away
• Start with some small-talk or make a personal observation to get interviewee at ease
• Appear curious but not pushy or cynical
• Use your biographical backgrounding of the interviewee to ask about something you know interests your source
• Don’t talk too much
• Remember, you are there to get the source to talk, not to show off your scintillating personality
• Get comfortable with silence – resist the inclination to jump in and ask the next question as soon as your source is finished speaking
• Ask questions that will generate the most information and keep the interviewee talking
• Don’t ask yes/no questions
• Don’t ask about things you should already know from your background information unless there is some discrepancy you need to clarify
• Ask lots of “how?” and “why?” questions
• Use summary questions throughout the interview. (“Let’s review what we’ve covered…,” “I want to be sure my notes are accurate. First,…,” or “Let me check to make sure I understand your points….”)
• Don’t let pride get in the way of a good interview
• Don’t be afraid to ask if you don’t understand something
• Remember, there are no dumb questions when it is in the context of avoiding a misinterpretation or a mistake
• Keep asking until the material is clear so you’ll be able to make it clear to your audience
• Clarify jargon or specialized terminology. (A good question to ask in that situation may be, “How would you explain that to a layman?”)
Scholarly sources typically are not experienced interviewees. You may be the first person who has ever called or e-mailed to ask for an interview, which puts you at an advantage in one sense, but poses some special problems in another. The advantage for you is that, unlike highly “coached” institutional sources from business or politics, your scholarly source is usually not polished in evading or skirting difficult or provocative questions, meaning that you are going to get an “honest” view of their expertise and opinions.
The disadvantage is that the person may be nervous, apprehensive about how you are going to conduct the interview and use the information, and fearful of saying or doing something that will hurt his or her reputation or standing in their academic community. There are several ways to deal with this particular problem. The most effective, as we’ve already stated, is to be totally prepared for the interview by knowing as much as possible about your source and the topic before you ever make the call. A nervous interviewee will be put very much at ease when he or she realizes that you’ve done your homework in advance.
Another strategy is to use an interview technique in which you demonstrate that you understand the interviewee’s agenda. The source has probably been thinking about the interview, rehearsing what to say, feeling nervous about making the right points and being clear. How do you let your source know you understand his or her agenda? You might start this way: “I have six questions I think are important for you to answer. After we finish with those, I will ask you whether we’ve left out any important information. And I will make sure you have my phone number and e-mail address so that if something occurs to you after I leave, you can contact me.”
This saves time and prevents a “filibustering” interview, which happens when your sources become concerned after your first question that they will never be allowed to say what they think is really important. They may then react by immediately going off on a tangent from which it is nearly impossible to recover and bring them back to your point. By setting up your questions to recognize the interviewee’s perspective, the source knows that he or she will get a chance to identify important information even if you miss it in the first pass. Again, this points to how important it is for you to become knowledgeable in advance of the interview about some aspects of the source’s particular work and expertise.
Avoid the “Expert on Everything” Syndrome
A particularly vexing problem for media professionals who are searching for appropriate scholars to help with their messages these days is overuse of a small subset of possible interviewees. An enterprising journalist discovers a good scholarly source who returns phone calls on time, who speaks in clear language rather than obscure jargon, who has impeccable credentials in their subject specialization, and who knows how to provide provocative quotes and sound bites. That source gets interviewed and quoted in the journalist’s work.
public domain
Soon 10 or 20 more journalists will find that interview archived in a database or on a website and call the same person. Pretty soon, that scholar is a recognized “pundit” in his or her area, and gets more opportunities to interact with media professionals than his or her expertise or credentials may warrant. Or, regardless of how outstanding his or her credentials, some scholars are simply used so much by popular sources as to obscure audiences from the complexity and differing perspectives in the field that may emerge if media professionals were to sample from a greater variety of expert sources.
Remember, it is hard for any human being to resist the urge to respond to the promise of flattery, attention and wide recognition. Especially with scholarly sources, who are usually not celebrities and who are sometimes diffident and hard to interview, it is tempting to use the same people over and over because they make the journalist’s job easier.
This is a serious error. Most scholars work in highly specialized sub-fields of widely disparate disciplines of knowledge and expertise. An expert on the political situation in Kenya is usually not qualified to speak equally authoritatively on the political situation in Egypt just because both countries are in Africa. Do not fall for the easy, lazy way out. You need to use the techniques we’ve mentioned throughout this lesson to identify the scholars who are truly appropriate for your message, not those that have become “pundits” for one reason or another.
Beware of the “Research Center”
Another serious error is to assume that anything or anyone associated with a “research center” is producing independent scholarship. Quite the opposite. There are myriad numbers of think tanks, research centers, institutes and foundations that publish journals that appear scholarly, provide “fellows” for interviews with communicators who ask, write “briefing papers” and call news conferences to announce their “findings”, and otherwise mimic scholarly endeavors.
But their purpose is to advance a particular point of view, usually politically or socially aligned with one side of the opinion spectrum or the other, and they are perfectly willing to let you believe their work, publications and “fellows” are independently scholarly.
Don’t be fooled. These institutions have an agenda and are operating with a different set of standards and procedures than are legitimate scholarly institutions or scholars. Remember that true scholarly work is characterized by peer review of findings, independent authority to conclude what the findings and evidence support regardless of sponsorship or ideological concerns, and something called “academic freedom.”
Once again, asking how a particular research center or individual scholar’s work is funded and how their work is reviewed before publication is the best method for ferreting out these differences and nuances. If you want help determining whether a publication or journal is peer reviewed, you can also turn to an independent reviewing source such as Ulrich’s Periodical Directory, to help you determine whether a particular title is a popular, scholarly or trade publication. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/09%3A_Research_Skill-_Interviewing/9.16%3A_Scholarly_Contributors.txt |
Public relations professionals interview journalists on a regular basis, but not usually as sources to be quoted in messages. Rather, the PR professional interviews the journalist about the types of stories the PR specialist might successfully “pitch” to the publication for which the journalist writes. Journalists and PR professionals can help each other as long as each recognizes that the other has a legitimate, but decidedly different, role to play in generating information for an audience.
Keith Jenkins – Washington Post Newsroom – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Journalists, for whom interviews are the mainstay of their work, are notoriously reluctant interviewees themselves. Unless they are promoting themselves for a book, have just won an award, or are one of the pundits found on television “talking heads” news programs, journalists would much rather be the interviewer rather than the interviewee.
If you are looking for personal commentary, insight, or advice from individual journalists, first you have to find them. You might locate the name of a reporter you’d like to talk with from a byline on a story. Some news organizations include email addresses on their reporters’ bylines. Most news organizations have on their Web sites a listing of names and contact information for people in their newsroom.
If you don’t have a specific name of someone and are just looking for a journalist who has experience or knowledge about a particular story, posting a question to a listserv or social networking site where journalists correspond might be a useful tactic. Tell them you are interested in someone who has covered, say, the rising cost of prescription drugs and ask them to email you offline. You might also try searching the Resource Center maintained by the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization to find specific types of stories. If you find a story similar to the one you are working on, you can then contact the journalist who worked on that piece.
9.18: Informal Contributors
What motivates an informal source to talk with you?
• Stefano Montagner – People – CC BY 2.0
Are they outraged at something and want to get their viewpoint heard?
9.19: Interviewing as a Research Skill
Interviewing will be your bread and butter as a communicator. It is the means by which you will elicit information from people, get new perspectives, and achieve new understandings.
Tapping into people – primary sources – through interviewing is a skill honed over time. In this lesson we will talk about the types of interviews, how to select interviewees based on your information task, and the steps involved in the interviewing process.
geralt – Exchange of ideas – CC0
Interviewing is a technique that is incorporated at more than one point in the information seeking process. Advertising researchers might use focus-group interviews to learn about issues they intend to examine more extensively through survey interviews later in the research process. News reporters do a preliminary set of interviews, along with background research in the news archive, in order to get themselves up to speed on the issues of the story they are covering. Public relations practitioners often interview sources such as company officials when writing news releases.
Interviews differ according to purpose, format, and medium. The techniques used for interviews also differ depending on the goal you hope to reach through the interviewing process. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/09%3A_Research_Skill-_Interviewing/9.17%3A_Journalist_Contributors.txt |
Evaluating the credentials of those who might be interviewed is a small research task in itself. A sensible first step is to review all of the background material you have already collected about your information tasks and to make a list of those who have written or spoken on the subject.
For example, consider the background research for an advertising campaign on behalf of the Coalition for Literacy. The coalition seeks volunteers to work with functionally illiterate adults. Potential interviewees include officials of the coalition and of other groups concerned with adult illiteracy. Annual reports,
www.coalitionforliteracy.org/
newsletters, and boards of directors’ minutes of meetings also reveal names of important individuals in this field. Government documents display the names of members of Congress who have shown concern about the problem and the identities of specialists who have testified before congressional committees. Some of these specialists have published articles on the subject in scholarly journals and have been quoted in news magazines.
Another type of expertise you might seek is that of people who have themselves experienced the disability of illiteracy. Their expertise may not be evident in the indexes and journals, but members of the literacy organizations probably can help you to locate them. Perhaps some of the formerly illiterate adults have gone on to become volunteer teachers or members of the groups combating illiteracy. You can search a “create-one-yourself” social network site such as Ning.com to find people who have created an online community for those dealing with the issue.
After drawing up a roster of promising interviewees, you need to check the reputation of those on the list. You can do this by checking such standard reference sources as Who’s Who. In this case, Who’s Who in Education may include biographical information on some of those who have written on the subject or spoken before congressional committees. In addition, clicking on the author’s name on Amazon.com may reveal titles of relevant books written by these people.
Credentialing potential interviewees by their digital profile is now an important step for communicators to take. Checking social networking sites to see what people say about themselves, what interests they have, the people they know and connect with can give you important information about a potential interviewee’s likely contribution to your message. Professionals are likely to have a LinkedIn page; “informal” sources are likely to have a Facebook page, and many individuals “live” in more than one digital community that represents various aspects of their interests and connections.
9.21: Planning Interviews
Once the interview roster is ready, you can determine the willingness and availability of the sources. Some potential interviewees may be unavailable – out of town or tied up with other responsibilities. Others may be unwilling to be interviewed. Some may have research results that they do not wish to make public yet. Others may prefer to send you a copy of their testimony before Congress and save the time an interview would take. Some specialists who are unavailable will suggest others as substitutes. However, a good percentage of people on a well-constructed source list should be available.
Careful planning of interviews involves a number of steps and almost innumerable considerations.
Interviewee’s conditions: In some cases, the interviewee stipulates some conditions for the interview which can include:
• Amount of time they will talk with you
• Interview method (face-to-face, telephone conversation or online)
• Permission (or not) to record the conversation
• Request that another person be present (their lawyer or agent).
• Request that they review the material before you may publish or use it
• The “contract” for the way the information will be used in the message (see more about this below)
Review your own material: Looking over material gathered earlier in the information process will help you devise a strategy for using the interview to fill in questions, corroborate information, or to discover new angles to take.
• What is disputed? Can inconsistencies be explained or resolved? What is the significance of the disputed facts?
• What unexplored aspects of the subject should be developed? What is ”new” that should be reflected in my questions?
• What questions are appropriate to each interviewee?
• What sensitivities and special perspectives should I be aware of in asking questions of each interviewee?
• What information in my files may need updating or confirming?
• What human-interest information can be elicited from the interviewee?
Consider interviewee “inhibitors:” Interview preparation also involves getting ready for the social and psychological aspects of the interview. Before you draft your questions, consider the situation of the interviewee. People may have competing demands for their time. They may have painful memories of the topic you want to explore with them. They may not trust your motives in seeking the interview. This might make some interviewees unwilling to share information.
Other factors may affect the interviewee’s ability to share accurate information (as opposed to their willingness to do so). The person’s memory may have faded, they may not accurately recall the sequence of events, they may be confused by your questions. All of these inhibitors affect the way you approach your subject and the types of questions you ask. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/09%3A_Research_Skill-_Interviewing/9.20%3A_Evaluating_Interviewees.txt |
Having assessed both the information needs and the interviewee’s potential to respond, you are ready to develop an agenda of questions. These should be a comprehensive list of questions, setting forth everything you would like to know. The interviewer might ask some of these questions of a number of respondents while other questions might be designed only for a particular interviewee.
Types of questions
Ken Whytock – Invite open ended questions – CC BY-NC 2.0
Except in survey research interviews, open-endedquestions are most effective. An example of an open-ended question is when the focus group interviewer asks, “Now that you’ve tried our new product, tell me what you think about it.” Open-ended questions have the advantages of inviting interviewees to provide more specificity and depth in their response. In journalistic interviews, open-endedness is stressed, for it leads to spontaneity, interpretation by sources, cues for additional questions, and quotable phrases. An open-ended question in a journalistic setting might be, “What do you think about the new tax proposal?”
In the closed-endedquestion, the respondent must select one of a set responses provided by the interviewer. For example, most questions asked in Gallup and other polls are closed–ended: “How do you feel about the economy of the United States at this time?” “Very optimistic,” “somewhat optimistic,” “neutral,” “somewhat pessimistic,” or “very pessimistic.” One advantage of closed-ended questions is that a large number of interview responses can be analyzed relatively quickly and inexpensively.
Closed-ended questioning in the journalistic context is usually problematic. Compare the closed-ended question, “Do you think the new tax proposal is good?” with the open-ended, “What do you think about the new tax proposal?” Which will elicit more information and opinion from the interviewee?
Question Order
Arranging the questions into an effective agenda is the next step. Many interviewers use a strategy of beginning with reassuringly easy questions. Some may be questions verifying that what has been learned through earlier parts of the strategy is, indeed, still accurate and up-to-date. While the opening questions may be simple, experienced interviewers avoid overly broad questions that send the interviewee off the topic or set off an avalanche of irrelevances. Generally, experience suggests that embarrassing, touchy, or ego-threatening questions best be kept until late in the interview. By then, the context is well established and you have had a chance to develop a persona as a fair, accurate, and sensitive individual. Touchy questions always bring about the possibility that the subject will declare the interview to be at an end. In that event, at least you have the earlier portions of the conversation for the record.
Each question in the interview agenda can give rise to additional questions. Some of these are follow-ups, such as requests for more information based on the idea just stated by the source. If you are too tightly tied to your own interview agenda, you may neglect to use appropriate follow-ups.
But don’t forget your original question agenda once the follow-ups begin. Rigidly adhering to the question agenda promotes one kind of completeness at the expense of expanding the topic and developing its new dimensions. Experienced interviewers learn, in time, to walk the line between the two hazards. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/09%3A_Research_Skill-_Interviewing/9.22%3A_Interview_Questions.txt |
Perhaps the most crucial step in planning and conducting interviews is establishing the contract with the interviewee. The contract with an interview source is a legal contract that must be upheld once it is agreed upon. This was established in a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Cohen v. Cowles Media Co. case.
You must be aware that there are different kinds of source attribution that you can use. You should be certain that your interviewee understands these options and what they imply about the information, and you both need to agree upon how the information will be attributed in any message you produce. The types of attribution in news stories can be:
• For attribution: everything the interviewees say will have their name attached and you can use the information in any message you produce
• Attribution by title only: the interviewee’s identity is protected in the message, identified only with something like “a highly placed official” or “sources close to the president”
• No attribution: the interviewee agrees to talk but the information will not be attributed in any way in the message — “CBS News has learned…”
• No publication, or deep background: the information can’t be used in any way except to inform the communicator, sometimes referred to as “off the record.”
Your goal is to be sure your source understands how the information from the interview is going to be used before you ask any questions or start to gather any information. For most types of interviews, a “for attribution” agreement is the appropriate arrangement. Most news interviewees want to be recognized for their expertise or input into a story.
Participants in a strategic communications focus group sign releases indicating that they understand the terms of the interview and how the information will be used. It is not unusual for the focus group to be recorded while clients and researchers watch and listen to the focus group participants from behind a two-way mirror so participants must be told that they are being observed.
Respondents to a survey interview are generally assured that their responses will remain anonymous. The survey interviewer will typically ask whether the respondent would agree to provide a name and contact information for a follow-up individual interview after the survey results are analyzed. But it is always within the survey respondent’s right to say no and withhold their individual identifying information.
Interviewees who seek to avoid a “for attribution” agreement may be doing so because they want to protect themselves from the consequences of their words. Or they may be floating a trial balloon to gauge public opinion in advance of an official announcement. Or they may be leaking damaging information about a competitor. Any agreement other than a “for attribution” interview should put you on alert to be especially vigilant about checking the interviewee’s information against independent second and third sources of information.
Interviewees, particularly ones with controversial or damaging information about an organization with which they are affiliated, might seek an “off the record” status for their interview with you. Journalists normally attribute all information in a story because without attribution the reader or viewer cannot really judge the validity of the information presented. So before you agree to this condition in an interview ask yourself these questions:
• Do I have enough information to make this decision?
• Is this story important enough to justify using an anonymous source?
• Is this anonymous material confirmed by a reliable second and third source?
• Can I explain in the story the reason for the anonymity?
• What is the journalistic purpose of reporting this information without attribution? Is this a story that simply cannot be gotten or told without use of anonymous sources?
• Would more reporting get this material on the record?
• Does my editor or producer know enough about this source to justify my offering a verbal contract?
• If the story quotes an anonymous source, will it still be accurate, complete, fair and balanced? (Some reporters have a rule that they will not use comments or personal attacks about another person from an anonymous source.)
• Does the source understand the meaning of anonymity? Does the source know that at least the editor or producer will need to know his/her identity?
• How far will I and my organization go to protect this person’s identity? Will my organization back me up if I am sent to jail to protect my source?
• Can I tell the reader enough about the anonymous source so he/she can judge the validity of the comment?
• Would this story be improved if I cut the anonymous material
Be sure you understand the policies of your media organization before you give ANY promise to a source.
Sometimes you can persuade a source who is reluctant to speak on the record to agree to attribution of a quote—you might explain certain benefits to the source for being identified that they don’t realize. Try to read back individual quotes and point out that each one is not so damaging or problematic. A good reporter can sometimes get an entire interview back on the record.
This is not a generally-recommended practice, however. Anything that confuses the clarity of the contract you made with the source at the start of the interview should be avoided. That way, there can be no disputes with sources or supervisors about the terms under which the interview was conducted or the agreements that were made about the use of the interview information.
What kind of contract?
Compare these two sources in a recent news story. What kind of “contract” was established for each?
1. Meanwhile, a federal source law enforcement official told The Associated Press late Saturday that a semi-automatic assault rifle used by the shooter jammed during the attack, forcing him to switch to another weapon. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to in order to discuss the investigation, said that the jammed weapon had a high-capacity ammunition magazine.
2. The Aurora police chief says the trap was meant specifically to kill a police officer who might have opened the door. “We sure as hell are angry,” Chief Dan Oates said about the trap being aimed at officers.
9.24: Recording the Interview
Sophieja23 – microphone – CC0
Think about how you will record the interview. Will written notes, a digital audio or video recording, or an e-mail transcript of questions and responses be the best way to keep track of what goes on during the interview? You have to let your interviewee know how you will record the interview. It is a breach of ethics, and in some states illegal, to record someone without their knowledge. If you use a digital recorder, always use it in conjunction with a notebook.
Focus group sessions are almost always recorded for later review by the ad and marketing researchers. Participants must sign a release indicating they understand the session is being recorded and how the information will be used.
9.25: Some Interviewing Cautions
No matter how careful you are in selecting your interviewees, planning your questions and actually conducting the interview, there are many ways for things to go wrong. Here is a cautionary tale that illustrates some of the problems that might arise.
Dog and duck – CC0
An investigative reporter for a local TV news station in Minneapolis, MN had what sounded like a hot tip. It appeared that a Minnesota puppy mill might be sending dogs to a meat market in New York City’s Chinatown.
The reporter called the shop in New York and asked “Do you sell dogs?” The man who answered the phone said, “Yea. We sell dogs.” Reporter: “Dogs for people to eat?” The man: “Uh, yea. We sell many kinds of meat.” The reporter asked again, “Dogs for people to eat?” The man: “Yes.” The reporter subsequently went on the air with a sensational story that alleged that the puppy mill owner in Minnesota was selling puppies for food. The story and video was also posted on the station’s web site.
Now, substitute the word “ducks” for “dogs.” Those two words might sound the same over the phone, and in fact, the New York shop sells ducks for food, not dogs. The man who answered the phone misunderstood the reporter’s question, and the reporter misunderstood the man’s answer in a cascading comedy of errors.
A simple communication error led to a major faux pas for the reporter and the TV station. The story was pulled from the website and the station issued a terse “no comment” when questioned about the error.
Listening skills are as important as speaking skills. And double- and triple-checking the “facts” of an interview are equally important. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/09%3A_Research_Skill-_Interviewing/9.23%3A_Contract_with_the_Interviewee.txt |
Environmental Illness Network: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
We live in an information-inundated world. Making sense of facts, opinions, assertions, claims, and appeals has become such a challenge that educators from preschool through higher education now recognize the importance of teaching critical thinking skills. You are especially responsible for applying critical thinking to the information you may use in messages. There are many formulas for critical thinking, but the underlying skill is the ability to ask intelligent questions that help you decide which information to accept on behalf of your audience.
The information strategy you apply as a mass communication professional will usually result in generating far more information than you could ever use in any particular message. Your powers of critical thinking and careful scrutiny are crucial at every step in the process.
Evaluating information requires:
• Careful, detailed analysis
• An eye for discrepancies
• Attention to accuracy
Communicators ask themselves a set of questions:
• What should be verified?
• What needs to be reinvestigated?
• What is the element of risk involved in using the information?
• What are the consequences of putting this information into the public arena?
By asking yourself these kinds of questions, you begin to develop patterns of verification and pathways for tracing information. You need to develop alternative interpretations of facts in order to protect yourself against being taken in or to avoid spreading mis-information.
This evaluation process also helps communicators create fresh and effective messages. News professionals want to figure out other possible meanings of information, to avoid the “handout syndrome.” For example, a journalist receiving a news release about the amazing new features of some just launched product will check with independent experts in the field to get their take on the claims. Advertising professionals want to be creative and original in their selection and use of information for their attention-grabbing messages. Public relations professionals want to select the “best light” material so they and their clients can be sure to target messages properly and in ways that will have the intended effect.
When evaluating the information found via the Internet there are some foundational ideas that need to be remembered.
• The Internet did not invent misinformation or disinformation
• The Internet did not create rumor mongering and propaganda
• The Internet is not responsible for dirty data and stupid statistics
All of these have been around forever. The Internet is just a new distribution outlet. The Internet does make it possible for misinformation, disinformation, rumor mongering, dirty data and stupid statistics to be distributed more quickly and widely than in the past. It is incumbent on you, as the communicator, to develop ways to detect and avoid these information traps.
10.02: Tests of Evidence
Will Lion – proper browsing – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
One of the best “checklists” a communicator can integrate into their reflexive evaluation practice is the “tests of evidence.” (Jensen) Evaluation of the “evidence” is part of the deliberation process in many professional areas. Courts of law and legal professionals (law enforcement officers, lawyers, judges) are concerned about the admissibility of evidence, the appropriateness of evidence to the making of a case, and other judicial standards. Rhetoricians and scholars of debate concentrate on the types of data that communicators can consider as evidence, sources of evidence, and the classification of evidence for the purposes of effective persuasion or debate.
For mass communicators, the use of standards in considering the information / evidence you discover during your information seeking tasks takes on a slightly different hue. Evidence can be in the form of written materials (articles, books, letters, court records, websites), oral communications (interview testimony, focus group sessions), or personal observation, knowledge or experience.
You can apply traditional tests of evidence to all the information that you gather through the information strategy process. When skillfully applied, these tests of evidence can alert you to potential problems or inconsistencies in information, to the gaps or “holes” in your information search, and to areas that require further investigation.
The tests of evidence – also known as standards of evaluation – as they apply to mass communication information gathering are:
Clarity
During an interview with a person who witnessed a holdup, you discover that the witness can be clear on just two points about the robbery and the perpetrator. You would have to evaluate the testimony of the witness based upon their clarity and you may decide that the evidence is not trustworthy and can’t be used. Similarly, as an advertising account executive you might decide that the advertising campaign goals of the client are unclear, requiring further information gathering before you can effectively plan the campaign.
Verifiability
Miracle Cure – public domain
A famous author may write an autobiography that includes a number of impressive claims about his or her education, achievements, and financial success. You may be unable to verify that the author actually attended the schools because enrollment and alumni records may not include the author’s name. You would have to do further research to determine the truth of the author’s claims. On the strategic communications side, an advertising client may wish to make claims about the superiority of the company’s product but may not be able to provide the substantiating documents to verify the claims. If this is the case, then you can’t create an ad which makes that kind of claim.
Accuracy
You are a reporter attending an event as an observer and count about 75 people in the audience. Two hours after you get back to the newsroom room, the event sponsor sends out a news release claiming that about 250 people were there. You would reject that news release on the basis of accuracy.
Recency
A public relations firm working on the problem of airport noise for an airport commission needs the most recent figures on the number of takeoffs and landings since expansion at the airport. Information about how recent flight activity compares with pre-expansion activity is also useful. Or, an ad campaign for a new brand of pizza might require the most recent information about consumer preferences and media habits of pizza eaters. You would reject a marketing study that was two years old on the basis of the recency test.
Relevance
An advertiser evaluating market research about consumer characteristics must decide whether the research is relevant to the product or service being advertised. A particular market research study about people who buy chicken may or may not be something that is relevant to an advertiser for a turkey company. Or, a reporter writing about the nation’s fiscal policy may reject the notion of interviewing an expert on monetary policy based on the relevance test.
Reputation
People, institutions, and print and digital records have reputations. A reporter might try to arrange an interview with a government official who has a reputation for being candid and forthright on the issue of tax reform. The same reporter might avoid another official because of his or her reputation for stonewalling the press. Or, a public relations practitioner may rely on a scholarly study of the effects of factory emissions on air quality rather than on a study done internally by the factory’s own staff because the PR professional knows that the public will hold the independent study in higher regard.
Sufficiency
You’re in charge of the ad campaign for a new chain of teen athletic clothing stores. You get a marketing research report from a group that monitors teen spending. However, the category for teen spending in the area of clothing does not break down the specific clothing types—the report is not “sufficient” or complete in its analysis of teen spending for athletic clothing. This report, then, would be rejected on the basis of the sufficiency test because the data available are not adequate for you to make decisions on the direction of the campaign.
Internal Consistency
You might decide not to use a particular document because, for example, the figures about average household income used on page 15 of the study are inconsistent with those on page 38, indicating a serious internal consistency problem. This should make you question the accuracy of all the data if there is so little attention to detail. Or, the testimony of an interviewee varies widely over the course of a three-hour interview, suggesting that the interviewee is being inconsistent in his story.
External Consistency
Two reports on the implications of a change in property taxes come to different conclusions about the projected tax on a \$300,000 house, alerting you that there is an external consistency problem with the evidence. Further information is therefore needed to clarify the inconsistency. Or, an advertising firm conducts its own research about the market for a new brand of jeans, and the conclusions differ from those of an industry-wide research project about the same product, suggesting an external consistency problem. Using reports of breaking news from multiple sources (eyewitness Twitter posts, Associated Press wire service filings, etc.) can be a challenge in evaluating the consistency of information as an event is unfolding.
Comparative Quality
Decisions about what constitutes “good” information or the “best” information are necessary at some point. Through a comparison between two studies of new parents, an ad researcher preparing an ad campaign for a new line of strollers might decide that the study that specifically addresses new parents’ leisure activities is the most useful compared to a report on the impact of parenthood on their careers. Or, a reporter might decide that among all the interviews she conducted with “experts” on the subject of rising health care costs, two stand out as being the most informative and containing the freshest perspectives on the topic.
Contextuality
All information exists within a particular context. An interviewee’s comments at one point in an interview cannot be taken out of context of the rest of the interview. You also cannot take isolated figures from a report about the incidence of police loafing on the job and report them out of the context of the rest of the report. The complete context may indicate that the problem is not widespread. Both the context and the time period within which information exists must be recognized and respected. If the context or time period cannot be determined, the information is suspect.
Calculator – CC0
Statistical Validity
It is not necessary for you to become a statistician in order to test the validity of statistical claims. Simple questions about the method of gathering the statistics, the method of analyzing the data, and the standards for drawing the conclusions from the data are within your ability.
Ambiguity
Words and phrases have amazing flexibility, suggesting one meaning to some and another, very different, meaning to others. Think about the different connotations of the words “terrorist” and “freedom fighter,” the words “tax increase” and “revenue enhancement,” or the words “layoffs” and “reorganization.” The words carry entirely different meanings and these meanings change even more when the word or words are placed in the larger context of a sentence, a paragraph, or a fully-developed document, speech or publication. You need to be able to recognize and flag the key words or phrases that can convey the main point in any document, interview transcript, Web page or other source of information. Pay attention to the role these key words play in the overall argument or conclusion the information source wants to make.
There are many examples of how the tests of evidence are applied in mass media message-making:
• Fact-checking articles that appear in a magazine
• Evaluating information about audiences and consumers for advertising and marketing decisions
• Verifying information for news accounts
In the context of this course, knowing how to apply the tests of evidence as you find and evaluate information is one of the key skills that must be developed.
Tests of evidence also must be considered when thinking about the audience for your message. Is the material understandable, believable, useful to the point being made, from a familiar source? If not, you may need to collect more evidence than you’d normally need to gather and present if you are to overcome the audiences’ natural skepticism.
For example, if a fast food restaurant is going to make a claim in an advertising message that its food is healthful, you need to understand that the audience will demand a higher level of evidence than would normally be the case because it is counter to common sense that such food is healthy. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/10%3A_Research_Skill-_Evaluating_Information/10.01%3A_Thinking_Critically_about_Information.txt |
Fundamentally, all the content of mass communication originates with observation. In news reporting throughout most of the nineteenth century, a high percentage of the information originated with the reporter as the observer. Today, reporters and other mass communicators rely on others – from citizens with mobile phone cameras to specialists in various fields – as their observers for much more of the information that is transmitted.
When three tardy whales became stranded in the fall ice off the coast of Alaska, journalists from around the world converged on the area to cover the story. They described, taped, and photographed what they saw. But for additional sources, they used local villagers, marine biologists, state historians, engineers who knew about equipment to keep ice from forming, ice-breaking ship experts, meteorologists, and economists who could talk about the effect of so many visitors on the local economy.
Together, these varied and expert observers undoubtedly gave a more complete and accurate account of the stranded whale situation than reporters could merely using their own powers of observation.
Photo by the Jof: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
An important qualifier about information that is collected through observation (yours or others’), it that observation derives from a single perspective with a particular point of view and that the information gathered through this method is always filtered through inferences and interpretations by the observer. In the case of the whales an outside observer at the scene might infer that this situation highly unusual and upsetting.
However, local villagers might tell the observer that every fall a few tardy whales are trapped by ice and die or are killed by hunters, that this is part of a relatively natural process. The villagers might even add that any whale so unwary as to stay too long in waters that freeze should not be freed to propagate its defective genes. What may seem like a tragic incident, the death of these trapped whales, to others would be a fitting and appropriate turn of events.
Bias on the part of the observer invariably affects the observation process. Professional communicators try to be aware of bias in themselves and in others upon whom they rely. They are aware that all individuals have assumptions about the world – beliefs about what is ordinary and normal, as well as convictions about what “ought” to be. These convictions influence what is perceived and how the perceptions are interpreted. It is the part of the communicator’s role to understand the underlying biases that those who provide information might have, helping to put their observations into a more accurate context.
The effect of the observer on the scene is an additional factor to be reckoned with. The presence (or intrusion) of observers can change the event being observed. This is most clearly seen in confrontations that take place specifically for the purpose of attracting media attention. Even in a mundane an event such as a parade, the bands make sure they are playing when they pass the television cameras. Similarly when an observer visits a classroom, kindergarteners (and their teachers too!) adapt their behavior to the presence of the stranger.
Observation, then, is affected by the inherent perceptual limitations of the observer, expectations, inference, bias, and the effect of the observer on the action. The mass communicator as an observer may be more or less affected by these factors than are others who supply information to the communicator. Skill, experience, and awareness of the problems in accurately observing events can help to counteract the inevitable difficulties of observation. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/10%3A_Research_Skill-_Evaluating_Information/10.03%3A_Evaluating_Observations.txt |
Verifying the accuracy of visual information is another challenge for communicators trying to apply the tests of evidence to information. The increasing use of freelance images and video opens the media to the possibility of fraud.
Digitally Manipulated – Manipulation – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
With today’s computer and photographic equipment, there are more and more sophisticated ways to manipulate images. Rank amateurs can use digital techniques for doctoring photos, creating video of things that never happened, and causing all sorts of mischief with visual information. And now that every mobile device includes a camera, eye-witness photos and videos are posted online almost instantaneously any time an event occurs that might have even the remotest likelihood of being newsworthy.
The growing availability of such images has led to a number of services that attempt to verify whether a picture has gone through manipulations of various sorts. For example, a company called Fourandsix offers forensic image analysis using something called FourMatch. The software extension for Photoshop tests a JPEG image to determine whether it is an untouched original from a digital camera. If it appears that an image has been manipulated, the savvy communicator will reject it on the basis of the verifiability test of evidence.
The online Verification Handbook provides multiple chapters and specific resources and tips for verifying information of all types, but especially for material shared on social media sites, sometimes referred to as “user-generated content.” Here are some of the book contributors’ best advice:
Verifying user-generated content (from Verification Handbook)
• Start from the assumption that the content is inaccurate or been scraped, sliced, diced, duplicated and/or reposted with different context.
• Follow these steps when verifying UGC:
• Identify and verify the original source and the content (including location, date and approximate time).
• Triangulate and challenge the source.
• Obtain permission from the author/originator to use the content (photos, videos, audio).
• Always gather information about the uploaders, and verify as much as possible before contacting and asking them directly whether they are indeed victims, witnesses or the creator of the content.
The book pays particular attention to the skills needed to verify user-generated images or video:
Source (or Provenance)
For verifying provenance of images (ie: where the original image came from)
• Use Google Image Search or TinEye to perform a reverse image search. If several links to the same image pop up, click on “view other sizes” to find the highest resolution/size which usually is the original image.
• Use software like Photoshop or free tools such as Fotoforensics.com or Findexif.com to see information about the model of the camera, the timestamp of the image, and the dimensions of the original image.
• Use Geofeedia and Ban.jo to identify the GPS data from the mobile device that uploaded the image.
For verifying provenance of video:
• Use acronyms, place names and other pronouns for good keyword search on video sharing platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo and Youku.
• Use Google Translate when dealing with contents in a foreign language.
• Use the date filter to find the earliest videos matching the keywords.
• Use Google Image Search or TinEye to perform a reverse video thumbnail search
Date
Verify the date and approximate time, particularly when dealing with photos/videos:
• Check the weather information on the day and the location where the event happened. Is the weather condition the same from the (local) weather forecasts and other uploads from the same event? Use Wolfram Alpha to perform a search (e.g., “What was the weather in London, England, on January 20, 2014?”).
• Search news sources for reports about events on that day.
• Using video and image search (YouTube, Google, TinEye, etc.), see if any earlier pieces of content from the same event predate your example.
• For images and video, look (and listen) for any identifying elements that indicate date/time, such as clocks, television screens, newspaper pages, etc.
Location
• Does the content include automated geolocation information? (Services such as Flickr, Picasa and Twitter offer the option of including location, though it is not foolproof.)
• Find reference points to compare with satellite imagery and geolocated photographs, such as:
• Signs/lettering on buildings, street signs, car registration plates, billboards, etc. Use Google Translate or free.orc.com for online translation.
• Distinctive streetscape/landscape such as mountain range, line of trees, cliffs, rivers, etc.
• Landmarks and buildings such as churches, minarets, stadiums, bridges, etc.
• Use Google Street View or Google Maps’ “Photos” function to check if geolocated photographs match the image/video location.
• Use Google Earth to examine older images/videos, as it provides a history of satellite images. Use Google Earth’s terrain view.
• Use Wikimapia, the crowdsourced version of Google Maps, to identify landmarks.
• Weather conditions such as sunlight or shadows to find approximate time of day.
• License/number plates on vehicles
• Clothing
For Videos:
• Examine the language(s) spoken in the video. Check if accents and dialects match up with the geographical location. Ask those who speak the language for support.
• Are video descriptions consistent and mostly from a specific location?
• Are videos dated?
• If videos on the account use a logo, is this logo consistent across the videos? Does it match the avatar on the YouTube or Vimeo account?
• Does the uploader “scrape” videos from news organizations and other YouTube accounts, or do they upload solely user-generated content?
• Does the uploader write in slang or dialect that is identifiable in the video’s narration?
• Are the videos on this account of a consistent quality? (On YouTube go to Settings and then Quality to determine the best quality available.)
• Do video descriptions have file extensions such as .AVI or .MP4 in the video title? This can indicate the video was uploaded directly from a device.
• Does the description of a YouTube video read: “Uploaded via YouTube Capture”? This may indicate the video was filmed on a smartphone.
The fact that the book includes an entire chapter on this topic demonstrates the importance of these skills and the seriousness of falling prey to a manipulated image. It is not just digital manipulation that causes problems. There have also been several incidents of staged photos. Soon after the 9/11 disaster a photo was circulated of a tourist on the World Trade Towers as one of the planes approached. This list of the ways to analyze the photo is a good lesson in applying logic. Another classic (and infamous) example occurred after the death of England’s Princess Diana, her companion, and their driver in a gruesome automobile accident in Paris in 1997. Shortly after the world learned of the accident, a photo appeared on the Internet and was subsequently distributed by several news services and published on the front page of a French newspaper. The photo showed a mangled Mercedes with a blonde victim in the back seat and rescue workers and emergency vehicles surrounding the crash site. Even the most rudimentary check of the authenticity of this photo, however, would have revealed that the rescue workers’ uniforms did not match any used by Paris fire brigades and the phone number visible on the side of a rescue vehicle would not work anywhere in France. (Harmon) There is a related problem in using satellite images. Several firms now sell satellite images as a commercial venture. Interpreting information from a satellite photo requires expertise usually not available in news organizations. The choices made by photographers can greatly influence the emotional impact of an image. The photographic processing and framing can be manipulated by the photographer to generate a wide variety of effects.
The old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words” was never true (photographers have always chosen the way to represent their images and a photo was never an objective representation of reality), but now it is even less useful as a way to think about visual information. Again, common sense and a critical mind will help avoid problems. | textbooks/socialsci/Communication/Journalism_and_Mass_Communication/Information_Strategies_for_Communicators_(Hansen_and_Paul)/10%3A_Research_Skill-_Evaluating_Information/10.04%3A_Evaluating_Visual_Information.txt |
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