Chapter 1 Vocabulary

Mass Media- strictly speaking, mass media are the vehicles through which messages are disseminated to mass audiences. The term is also used for industries built on mass media: the television and book media. Also, companies in the business of delivering mass messages with mass media: Viacom is a media company. Media Multitasking- simultaneous exposure to messages from different media Mass Communication- technology-enabled process by which messages are sent to large, faraway audiences Symbiosis- mutually advantageous relationship Interpersonal Communication- between two individuals, although sometimes a small group, usually face to face Group Communication- an audience of more than one, all within earshot Feedback- response to a message Industrial Communication- synonym for mass communication that points up to industrial-scale technology that underlines the mass communication process Social Media- internet-based communication platforms for the interactive exchange of user-generated content Linguistic Literacy- competencies with a written and spoken language Visual Literacy- a competency at deciphering meaning from images John Debes- introduced term visual literacy in 1969 Scott McCloud- comic book author who refined understandings about media literacy Film Literacy- competences to assess messages in motion media, such as movies, television, and video

Media Literacy- competences that enable people to analyze and evaluate media messages and also to create effective messages for mediated delivery Marketplace of Ideas- the concept that a robust exchange of ideas, with none barred, yields better consensus Demassification- medias focus on narrower audience segments Sub-Mass Audience- a section of the largest mass audience, with niche interests Narrowcasting- seeking niche audiences, as opposed to broadcastings traditional audience-building concept

Chapter 1 Review
Media Ubiquity: Two-thirds of our waking hours is spent consciously or subconsciously with the mass media. The media is a major part of our environment. Mass media are so ubiquitous in our lives that we multitask when them without even thinking about it. We can be oblivious to the medias effects unless we cultivate an understanding of how the media work and why. This understanding is called media literacy. Mediated Communication: Technology has expanded the original forms of face-to-face communication. Today, we send amplified messages to great numbers of diverse people through mass communication. This sometimes is called industrial communication because of the underlying technology requires large capital investments. Literacy for Media Consumers: Media literacy begins with a factual foundation and becomes keener with an understanding of the dynamics that influence media messages. There are degrees of awareness, including abilities to understand and explain media behavior and effects and to identify significant media issues. Assessing Media Messages: Media messages are so embedded into the landscape of our daily lives that it requires a conscious effort to understand how they may be influencing us. Media literacy means recognizing message forms. It also means understanding the possibilities and limitations of various media and platforms, and placing media in a framework of history and traditions. Critical thinking is essential to make sense of it all.

Purposeful Mass Communication: People talk with one another with purpose and also listen with purpose. Sometimes its to be informed, sometimes to be amused, sometimes to be open to persuasion or enlightenment. Such is no less true in mass communication. Mass communicators have purposeor why do it? Media literacy requires understanding of the purpose of a mass message as part of assessing the content. Media and Society: The effect of mass media on society is changing. In the early days of radio and television, the same programs were beamed to everyone. Despite their cultural diversity, audiences across the country all watched and listened to the same comedy, drama, and music shows. The result: a strong cultural cohesion. Today that audience is fragmenting and the cultural cohesion is breaking apart. Todays media companies are constantly experimenting to find a following or a new niche audience, and the resulting audience fragmentation is sometimes polarizing, at other times simply diverging. What are the risks of weak media literacy? How does communicating through mass media and social media differ from other human communication? What literacies besides writing and reading are important for people to handle mediated messages? How do critical thinking skills figure into media literacy? What mass messages have you encountered recently whose purpose is a combination of information, persuasion, amusement, and enlightenment? How is mass communication both a unifying and divisive force in society? Media Literacy: Scott McCloud has taught us the principles for linguistic literacy can be applied also to reading visuals. Word-centric mass communication dating to the mid-1400s and Johannes Gutenbergs printing press placed a social premium on linguistic literacy. After Gutenberg, people who couldnt read faced a growing barrier in conducting the business of their daily lives and in social interaction. Over the past century, the visual competent of mass communication ahs grown to point that visual literacy is important for both the creators and consumers of mass messages.

Media Technology: President Franklin Roosevelt took to the radio networks in the 1930s, urging calm in the face of a global economic depression. Technology gave him a bigger audience than ever assembled before. A distinction between mass communication and other forms of communication is technology. Without technology like printing presses and broadcast transmitters, mass communication would not exist. The advantage of mass communication over inter-personal communication is the size of the audience that can be reached. Think about how Simon Fuller could possibly parade American Idol performances before a national audience if it werent for the amplifying technology of the mass media. Media and Democracy: 17th century political theorist John Milton favored a robust and unbridled exchange of ideas. Democracy cannot function without the mass media. Citizens need the information provided by mass media to participate in shaping their common course. This will be even truer in the future. People also need a forum for exchanging their reactions to information and their ideas. The mass media provide that forum. Media and Culture: Almost one-third of our waking hours are with mass media. We live in a culture thats increasingly media-saturated. So ubiquitous are mass media that their presence largely is invisible. Occasionally were jarred by in-your-face content, but mostly the mass media are taken for grantedlike air. Just as air affects us, and deserves scientific examination and monitoring, so do media. Audience Fragmentation: Demassification has led to media products geared to narrower and narrower audiences, like television networks like the techo CNET cable television network, low-power neighborhood radio stations, and micro-run book publishing. The American experience became a cohesive one with books in the early 1800s that fostered a sense of nationhood, and later with radio and television networks beaming the same comedies, dramas, and newscasts to the countrys diverse population. Today, media can still bond people, but increasingly messages are target to sub-mass audiences, a practice that is adding to the fragmentation of society. Media Effects: Media can create huge audiences for events, like 111 million for the 2011 Super Bowl. The effect is a shared experience that has a cultural unifying effect. Media affects us, and we affect media. Media messages influence our daily decision-making in ways that can be almost invisible. For instance, media influence us when we make a decision bout whether to go to Starbucks or McDonalds for coffee. Similarly, we arent always aware of the ways that we influence the media. Because media are economically dependent

on audience, we as media consumers influence the media when we decide which coffee to sip or which web sites to visit or magazines to read.

Chapter 3 Vocabulary
Capitalism- an economic system with private owners operating trade and industry for profit Venture Capitalists- investors who take substantial risk, typically in a new or expanding business Dot-Com Bubble- highly speculative investments in Internet companies from 1995-2000 Dot-Com Bust- sudden collapse of value in Internet companies in 2005 Frank Gannett- Found of Gannett Media Corporation Conglomeration- process of companies being brought into common ownership but remaining distinct entities Mary Baker Eddy- founded the Christian Science Monitor in 1908 Christian Science Monitor- notional daily newspaper sponsored by the Christian Science church Community Foundation- nonprofit entity to promote good in a community; generally supported by donations Cooperative- an organization owned and run jointly by members that share profits or benefits Associated Press- worlds largest news-gathering organization; a nonprofit and a cooperative owned by member newspapers Death Tax- a tax on inheritances 1789 Postal Act- provided government discounts for mailing newspapers

1927 Federal Radio Act- created a government agency to license radio stations Scarcity Model- too few resources for demand Marketplace Model- supply and demand determines the enterprises that remain in business Newspaper Preservation Act- 1970 federal law for exception from antitrust laws for local newspapers that combine all but news-editorial operations Joint Operating Agreements (JOAs)- combination under federal law of production, distribution, advertising, and business operations of competing newspapers Legals- paid advertising required by law, usually verbatim government documents Philanthropy- generous donations for good causes Underwriting- on-air acknowledgments of non-commercial broadcast sponsors Micropayment- a small sum generally billed with related charges, often on a credit card Auxiliary Enterprise- a business that generates revenue Oligopoly- an industry in which a few companies dominate production and distribution Monopoly- a single company dominates production and distribution in an industry, either nationally or locally Trade Groups- an organization created by related endeavors, sometimes competitors, to pursue mutual goals Andy Grove- Theorist on gentrification in industries Astroturfing- political activism designed to appear as grassroots but actually part of an organized campaign

Chapter 3 Review
Financial Foundations: Mass media fit well into the profit-driven capitalistic system until two major revenue streams began drying up. Advertising revenue has fallen dramatically, dooming most daily newspapers and many magazines. The broadcast industry also faces new challenges with declines in advertising. A second significant U.S. media revenue source historically has been sales. This revenue too has declined for companies that have been losing audience. Might there be lessons from how other countries finance their media? Or from the experience of niche players in the U.S. media landscape? Ownership Structure: The structure of the mass media in the United States has followed a common business pattern. Most companies began with a hardworking entrepreneur, often a visionary whose media products bore a personal, sometimes quirky imprint. Ownership then moved into chains or conglomerates. In general, the result was a blander product with the corporate imperative being to enhance profits and less on distinctive products to serve the commonweal. The chain and conglomerate structure hit rough sledding in some media industries, especially newspapers and magazines, when profits vaporized in the early 2000s. No longer financially viable, some chains broke up. Others were auctioned off, and then broken up by new owners. It is unclear what new ownership structures will emerge from current uncertainties. Alternative Media Ownership: Tremendous energy is going into rethinking how the mass media need to be restricted to survive economically. The first to be hit hard in the Internet age was the record music industry. After significant downsizing and painful adjustments, equilibrium has been found for the radio industry to, it seems, sustain itself. More radical changes may be necessary for the withering newspaper industry and magazines. Brainstorming is as farranging as heavier government funding, as foundations taking on publications as charity cases, and as positing universities as news-gathering institutions. Nobody has come up with a panacea. Government Role: An ideal of government-press separation dates at least to democratic political philosopher John Locke in the late 1600s and still has many followers. Democracies have found ways, however, to channel public funding into the media and both serve the common good and avoid government control. If government is to have a greater role in supporting the mass media financially, the challenge is to assure that the media retain the ability to be a watchdog on government for the people.

New Media Funding: Losses in the twin traditional sources of U.S. mass media incomeadvertising and subscription revenuehave been substantial. One new model is for products like newspapers to give up their bundled content. The bundling concept, going back to the 1830s, was to create an affordable package with something for everyone. That model now is failing. One proposal is charging the audience by the itema micropayment, perhaps just pennies for, as an example, a sports story. Customers would pay a monthly bill for content they choose. Such a system already works in pay-perview television and iTunes downloads. More government funding and charity support is a possibility in a new patchwork of media revenue streams. Media Economic Patterns: Some mass media are in a mature stage of their development. After a history dating to the 1830s, the daily newspaper industry probably is on its last legs, eclipsed by technology and unable to reinvent itself in time to save itself. These patterns of business are predictable, with industries moving through phases of innovation, entrepreneurship, and maturation. The process is evolutionary. Major media industries are not exempt from the process and inevitably fall into a trap of their success an either fade in the face of new competition or radically reinvent themselves. How have mass media fit historically into the capitalist economic system? What are problems inherent in conglomerate ownership of mass communication? Describe alternative business models for new revenue streams for mass media. What lessons do you see for us today from the U.S. experience of government-aided communication? What are downsides and upsides of alternatives being discussed for historic mass media business models? Project out and apply Andy Groves maturation business model to the developing social media industry. Where do you see it ending up? Media Economics: Declining readership and advertising is sending dailies online. The mass media are part of a capitalistic economic system in the United States, dependent almost entirely on finding consumers willing to buy media products. If no one wants to see a movie, the studio behind it will be in big trouble, maybe flop. It is the same for book publishers and music marketers that invest in new products. For some media, a more complex

revenue stream is from advertising. Companies pay newspaper, magazine, radio, television, and online companies for space and time for advertisements. In effect, advertisers are buying access through mass media to reach potential customers. Media Technology: Major media companies like the Murdoch empire are position to exploit technology to expand. Technology and advances, some incremental, some incredibly transforming, vastly increased the reach of mass media to larger audiences and created giant industries beginning in the 1800s. Since then, media companies ranging form local newspapers to national magazines and broadcast networks became major employers and significant components in the economy. Media and Democracy: Government hands off the press. The concept that mass media must be independent from government for democracy to work is being rethought. Why? Because newspapers, magazines, radio, and television today are vulnerable with advertising diminished as their financial engine. The concept of media independence from government is mythical at least to some extent. Government policy from the earliest days of the nation has favored mass media in ways both small and significant. History has numerous models for using tax-generated government policy and revenue to maintain mass media, as we know them. These models include the BBC broadcast empire in Britain and the public broadcasting infrastructure in the United States. Audience Fragmentation: audience demassification may be at its ultimate with wireless delivery of digitized messages. The economic dislocations that are reshaping mass media are due largely to continuing shifts in audience habits and preferences. Every moment that someone spends on a web site is a minute less that could be spent with a book, for example, or a magazine. Modern life also has other alternatives for people, Do the math: nobody has more than 24/7 available. People have unprecedented choices on how to spend their time. Consider television alone: fifty years ago, three U.S. television networks dominated the nations television programming. Today, there are dozens and dozens of networks that gear programming to narrow audience segments. This kind of audience fragmentation is rewriting the economics of mass media industries. Media Future: Media serve their own interests through organizations that lobby for favorable public policy. An unresolved issue is the lobbying practices of mass media industry groups going too far in lobbying government for their special interests, which are mostly economic, which can run contrary to the

medias responsibilities for public service. Can media be a watchdog against government abuses of power and misdeeds when the media are dependent on the government for tax breaks and regulatory favors? The question: watchdog or lapdog? The question has special poignancy because the media have followed the model of other industries and made lobbying a standard practice. Further, also like other industries, mass media trade groups routinely hire powerful public office-holders as lobbyists when the retire from government positions but retain old and newly useful contacts in Congress and government agencies and departments. Media and Culture: critics warn of cultural impact of media conglomeration. The shift from individual and family ownership of mass media has been consistent with the move to a corporate created culture. A pattern for financially successful media companies has been to acquire other media companies. This trend is the result of inheritance taxes that make it almost impossible for heirs of media companies to keep them. The heirs have no choice but to sell the inheritance to pay the taxes. What happens goes by many terms, among them chain ownership and conglomeration. One result has been the rise of diverse shareholders controlling media companies. The primary focus of these shareholders is on improving profits. Often profitability has trumped community service, investigative journalism, and cultural enrichment as values to which media can contribute.

Chapter 11 Vocabulary
Johannes Gutenberg- progenitor of advertising media, his movable type permitted mass production of the printed word and made mass-produced advertising possible William Caxton- issued the first printed advertisement in 1468 to promote on of his books John Campbell- published the first advertisement in the British Colonies in 1704 trying to sell real estate in the Boston News-Letter Benjamin Day- recognized and exploited so many opportunities to bring advertising to a new level through his penny newspaper, the New York Sun in 1833

Wayland Ayer- at 20, speculated that merchants, and even national manufacturers, would welcome a service company to help them create advertisements and place them in publicationsthereby founding the first advertisement agency Media Plans- lay out where ads are placed Cost Per Thousand CPM- a took to determine the cost-effectiveness of different media Media Reach- size of audience exposed to an advertisement through a particular medium Audit Bureau of Circulations- created by the newspaper industry in 1914, it verifies circulation claims and provides reliable information based on independent audits of most dailies and major magazines Shelf Life: how long a periodical remains in use Pass-Along Circulation: all the people who see a periodical Sponsored Link: on-screen hot spot to move an online advertisement Click-Through Fee- a charge to advertisers when an online link to their ads is activated; also, a fee paid to web sites that host the links Advergame- a sponsored online game, usually for an established brand at its own site Brand- a non-generic product name designed to set the product apart from the competition David Ogilvy- headed the Ogilvy & Mather agency, developed brand image in the 1950s and gave the advice: give your product a first-class ticket through life Brand Image- spin put on a brand name Store Brands- products sold with a store brand, often manufactured by the retailer. Also, called house brands and private labels

Branding- enhancing a product image with a celebrity or already established brand name, regardless of any intrinsic connection between the product and the image Lowest Common Denominator- messages for broadest audience possible Unique Selling Proposition- emphasizes a single feature Rosser Reeves- as part of the giant Ted Bates agency in the 1960s, coined the term unique selling proposition and advised to create a benefit of the product, even if from thin air, and then tout the benefit authoritatively and repeatedly as if the competition doesnt have it Jack Tout- developed the idea of positioning instead of pitching to the lowest common denominator and worked to establish product identities that appealed not to the whole audience, but to a specific audience Positioning- targeting ads for specific consumer groups, like the cowboy image for Marlboro cigarettes that established a macho attraction beginning in 1958 and Virginia Slims, which did the same thing, but aimed at women Ad Clutter- so many competition ads that all lose impact Flight (or Wave)- intense repetition of ads Viral Advertising- media consumers pass on the message like a contagious disease, usually on the Internet Stealth Ads- advertisements, often subtle, in nontraditional, unexpected places Product Placement- writing a brand-name product into a television or movie script TiVo- a television recording and playback device that allows viewers to edit out commercials. A competing device is ReplayTV Infomercial- program-length broadcast commercial Zine- magazine whose entire content, articles, and ads, pitches a single product or product line

Chapter 11 Review
Importance of Advertising: Modern consumer economies are driven by the demand stirred by advertising for products. The demand contributes to economic growth and prosperity. Also, because advertising brings attention to consumer choices, it fits well with the democratic notion of people making decisions individually on what serves their interests. The question can be asked whether advertising is a negative in consumer decision-making because it is aimed at selling products and not at promoting the common good. Conversely, it can be argued that prosperity is the common good. Despite the critics, the role of advertising is undeniable. Advertising comprises as much as 2.9 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. Origins of Advertising: The printing technology that developed from Johannes Gutenbergs movable metal type made possible the mass production of advertising messages. Actual advertising evolved slowly, but some 400 years later, when the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, advertising became integral in the nascent U.S. national consumer economy. Massproduced products for far-flung markets were promoted through national advertising with ads in national magazines and in hundreds of local newspapers. Later, radio and television became part of the media mix through which manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, promoted their wares nationally and locallyand increasingly globally. Advertising Agencies: Retailers and other advertisers tried managing their own promotions in the growing U.S. consumer economy in the 1870s. Gradually they farmed out the advertising to new agencies that specialized in creating advertisements. These agencies also chose media outlets for reaching the most potential customers efficiently. Agencies charged for the services, generally as a percentage of the cost of the time or space purchased from media companies to carry the ads. More variations on this so-called commission system have been introduced in recent years. Placing Advertisements: Advertisements dont appear magically in mass media. Media companies, dependent on advertising revenue, energetically court agencies and advertisers. Also, agencies and advertisers conduct extensive research before buying space and time to reach target consumers. Each type of media outlet has advantages. Brand Strategies: Brand names became a vehicle for distinguishing a product from competitors in the late 1800s. Brand names have endured as an

advertising strategy. For commodities, with products largely the same, advertisers linked brands with extraneous qualitieslike racing excitement with Dodges, daring and adventure with Hathaway shirts, class with Grand Dad whisky. Today, it seems, everything is branded. Does a Paris Hilton watch keep time better than a Timex? In the media, CNN is promoted as a brand. So is Fox News. Each has its own cachet. Less glamorous than branding in promoting products are had-sell pitches, especially those that refrain from going over anyones head by using lowest common denominator messages that hammer away. Redundancy works in selling, which makes those hard-sell messages annoying but no less effective. Advertising Tactics: Like all mass messages, advertising has the potential to reach the largest possible audience when it appeals to a lowest common denominator. Tactics include often grating, heavy-handed messages and repetition. Contemporary Techniques: Modern life has become advertising saturated. On prime-time network television, dozens of 15-second spots drown each other out. Inundated, viewers zone out. The problem, called ad clutter, is a critical challenge for advertisers that need somehow to get their messages across. The original pre-media advertising, word-of-mouth, is back. This time its called buzz communication. The goal is to get people talking about a product. Many buzz campaigns originate on the Internet with the hope of spreading in a virus-like way. The term viral advertising has come into favor. What is advertisings role in a capitalistic society? In a democracy? In mass media? How has advertising evolved since the days of Johannes Gutenberg? What is the role of advertising agencies in todays society? Why do some ads appear in some media products and not in others? Brand-name advertising is under siege somewhat. What affects whether a product loses its brand cachet? What new advertising tactics are being devised? And how do they increase the visibility of the product they advertise? What do you see as effective responses to the problem of ad clutter? Media Technology: For better or worse, mass media greases the consumer market for mass-produced products. As a form of media message, advertising

didnt take off quickly after Johannes Gutenbergs invention of movable metal type. But by the time the Industrial Revolution was transforming economies 400 years later, advertising became key to drawing customers to new massproduced products. By then, in the latter 1800s, printing technology was advanced to the point that thousands of copies of a message could be distributed. Broadcasting, particularly the television networks, augmented this audience. Media Economics: While advertising spurs economic growth, it also encourages materialistic consumption. Of all the messages that use mass media to reach huge audiences, advertising is the most obvious. Its in your face, sometimes shouting: See me. Buy this. The core message of advertising smacks of a circus sideshow barker, but media magnification adds potency of which a circus barker could only dream. In the United States its estimated that two percent of the gross domestic product goes to advertising. When advertising succeeds in exciting consumer demand and spending, it contributes to prosperity. Not unimportantly, advertising is the economic engine for the newspaper, magazine, radio, and television industries and increasingly the Internet. It is from these media outlets that advertisers buy time and space for their spiels. Media and Democracy: In advertising, like democracy, the idea is that people make choices. When democracy works well, people choose their common course through informed decision-making. This conceptually dovetails with the societal role of advertising, which provides people with information to make choices as consumers. The emphasis is on individuals reasoning their own way to conclusions about whats best. In some ways, however, advertising falls short. Ads seldom are aimed at even-handed and intelligent discourse but rather at a quick sell, often with emotional and one-sided appeals. Audience Fragmentation: Insurance company Geico has grown rapidly with multiple ad campaigns, geared to different audience segments. Advertisers see no point in buying time and space in media outlets that dont deliver the likeliest customers. The American Associated of Retired Persons (AARP), for example, doesnt recruit members through the magazine Seventeen. To deliver the audiences that advertisers want, media companies have narrowed the focus of their products to coincide with what advertisers are seeking. The mutual interests of media companies and advertisers have led to fragmentation of the mass audience into countless subsets. Even media products that continue in the tradition of seeking mega-audiences with something for everyone are dissected by advertisers and advertising agencies

for modicums of difference. Demographically there are differences between CBS and Fox primetime audiences. Likewise, advertisers know whether the Yahoo or MSN homepage is better for delivering the customers they seek. Media Future: Expect more innovative techniques to address the problem of ad clutter. Newspaper and magazine publishers delight when ads comprise 70 percent of the space in their publications. Thats the max allowed by the U.S. Postal Service to qualify for discount mail rates. In television, networks can cram six to seven ads in sequence during single prime-time breaks. Consumers, over-whelmed by the quantity, tune out. This ad clutter, as its called, is a major problem that the advertising industry needs to solve. A message lost in the clutter is wasted. One answer has been to find alternative media with better chances for ads to get attention. New tactics also include word-of-mouth campaigns. Another tactic, called viral advertising, offers compelling story lines continued through a series of ads. Stealth advertising is a tactic that puts messages up where people least expect them, sometimes as time-proven as skywriting and chalked messages on sidewalks. Elitism and Populism: Redundancy can create household words in the popular culture, like snuggie, and phrases like diamonds are forever. Advertising messages generally are brief. A rule of thumb for billboards is no more than seven words. Any more than that, motorists going 60 mph will miss the message. The requirement for ads to be compact can make for cleverness, but it also can lead to simplistic buy me exhortations that not only lack cleverness, but also are downright annoying. Worse is buy me in all caps, bold type, and italics followed by multiple exclamation marks. These are appeals to the lowest common denominator among consumers. On a populistelitist scale, these LCD appeals, repeated to the point of being annoying, are at the populist extreme.