SPCM 341 Exam 3 (Final)

McChesney

Newcomers can't compete with congloms, $$ barriers too high - Congloms have power to shape policy debates and prevent call for reform - Journalism now a for-profit enterprise - Congloms serve commercial agendas, have power to shape and withhold knowledge

Advantages for US Distributors

Global revenues = all profit US distributors practice variable pricing - US distributors can afford to undersell local/foreign producers; also undermines local production; advantage for foreign buyers too: US production cheaper and flashier

Forms of Media Conglomerations

** Classic Network Era ** - Vertical = Investment in each stage of single industry (production, distribution, exhibition) - Comcast TV holdings: Universal studios makes tv (production); NBC, Comcast cable, and internet (distribution); O&O's, modems, hardware (exhibition)

Telecommunications Act of 1996

** Pushed structural deregulation of ownership of ownership (remove barriers to growth of corporations) ** - Goal 1 = Allow any medium (phone, tv, web) to compete in any market (anyone can merge together); disregard any preventions in crossing media mediums; modern bundle services; eliminated cross-ownership restrictions; FCC extends length of b-cast license from 4 to 8 years -- less reveal hassle; b-casters are businesses, not " trustees" of public interest - Goal 2 = Preserve free speech by limiting gov control (mandate v-chip, industry created ratings, but allows "mature" content through labeling)

TV Regulation and the FCC (who regulates)

- 5 commissioners appointed be president to 5 years terms - Makes recommendations to the media industries and fines them - Serves as the mouthpiece of fed representations: corporate media and public interest - Commissioners often former telecom executives

TV's Contribution to Social Construction

- Asserts what it means to be a member of particular groups (nationality, class, race, sex, gender) - Privileges and repeats certain representatives over others

US Facing Increased Competition

- At home: Foreign programs finding more success in US - Aboard: Non US producers also sell to non US markets; US shows = wide appeal, $$ primetime; Foreign shows = niche appeal, cheaper, daytime (telenovelas)

Advantages to Digital TV

- Broadcasters get more signal space for free; Analog condensed to digital = more channels and ad $; digital offers more reliable delivery, less prone to weather and interference - Non Broadcasters benefit: consumer electronics get to sell new array of "digital ready" devices - Government profits: auction off airwaves to cell phone companies; boom in mobile data use (3g, 4g)

Deregulation (FCC)

- Corporations serve public interest best when allowed to compete without restrictions - Since 19802 = deregulatory trends allow more competition, but also more consolidation - FCC chairman fowler: TV "toaster with with pictures" just a household appliance

PBS Remaking to Compete for Corporate Attention

- Enhanced underwriting --> ad like visibility for donors - Ancillary markets --> licensing and merchandising - Gray = sesame streets move to HBO makes it easier for fed to remove funding from CPB

Fandom: Jenkins

- Fandom = Displaced form of bardic storytelling, folk culture - We use media to make our own stories - BUT: internet provider controls make this illegal "extreme" today

Interrogating Fandom: Gwenillian Jones

- Fandom is the industry's "adoring offspring" - Fandom prized more and more to foster loyal audiences - Based on consumption, not on critique - Industry goal today: Don't eliminate fandom, contain and channel it in profitable ways

Regulation - Four Basic Regulatory Functions of FCC

- Frequency/licensing allocation - Establishing technical standards - Policing broadcast content (AFTER the fact) fine you to make sure you don't do it again - Govern ownership and inter-industry relations

Cultural Imperialism

- Global flows are oneway from US/West to the rest - No real exchange of ideas, West imposes cultural values from outside - Cultural conceives of in monolithic nationalistic terms - Foreign countries protect domestic production with quotas, nationalistic policies

Black Representation

- Golden Age: "diverse," but anchored in urban nostalgia; reliant on pre-civil rights stereotypes - Early CNE: Assimilationist: "integrated," but assumes white norm that Blacks should aspire to; racial difference unacknowledged; racial issues solved by motivated individuals seamlessly slipped in alongside with white leads - CNE (Multichannel Era): Segregated: racial difference acknowledged, but isolated; separate-but-equal; "positive" in that it shows Black characters have "made it," but neglects history and context; race solved in episodes

Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)

- Gov. non-profit that distributes fund to member stations 1. BUT doesn't use Carnegie commissions recommendation --> CPB must apply for federal $ every year (it was recommended that the money just be there every year w/o renewal) - CPB creates public broadcasting service to distribute shows 1. Members station reduce programming, share with other member stations 2. Also license international imports - Monty Python, Downtown Abbey

HD VD dtv

- HD is a high quality type of digital signal, local multiplexing usually standard def digital - Analog vs digital = how you get your content - Standard def vs high def = quality of content

TV Representation

- Historically, TV has privileged straight, white, middle class men and women --> commodity audiences - Identities outside of these groups have been portrayed one-dimensionally

TV Representation Today

- Industry advocates to seek highlight not only quantity of diverse identities, but also quality - Goal today: characters openly discuss/engage diversity, even in "normal" straight white male dominated stories - Move away from positive/negative (Black-Ish) - Emphasize Intersectionality: make diverse identities visible AND narratively active in numerous ways -- even negative ones

Produce Practices of Consumption

- Interpretation - Discussion - Speculation

The Multi-Ethnic Coalition

- Many begin or focus TV toward minorities in CNE, issue yearly reports and recommendations - Goal: increase quantity of the under-seen identity groups - But focus creates diff problems: burden of representation & no above-the-line diversity

Critiques of Effects Model

- Meanings of messages and text = unstable; can be decoded in many different ways, can be contradictory or shift meaning - Message meaning can't be fixed by senders - Audience not passive: senders and receivers bring own fame of references to communication process

Complex Connectivity

- Media flows in all directions, beyond national boundaries - De-emphasize limitation of physical space; tv images transport us - TV no longer as strongly tied to place - BUT need to account for continue prevalence of US and capitalist ideology

Compaine

- Media industry is dynamic and changing - Corps must grow or lose market share - Larger corps but also more choice - TV now = more competitive (cable, satellite); bc corps seek profit, they serve audiences flexibly and give them what they want - Notion of what the public needs = elitist

Results of Telecommunication Act of 1996

- Media mergers accelerate due to deregulation; Historically = gov regulated monopolies; Today = gov removed regulations to increase competition - TV networks part of multi-media conglomerates; Enables cross-promotion, repurposing; Conglom now strives for both vertical (as in CNE) and horizontal integration (conglomeration)

PBS Funding

- Member stations PARTLY funded by CPB money appropriated from fed budget - Member stations mostly rely on: grants, non-profits, private donations, underwriting from corporations (reliance on corporate donors creates " safely splendid" programming - shows need to be corporate friendly, bias towards business friendly shows)

Wilson: Narrative Involvement and Narrative Activism

- Narrative Involvement: interaction designed by/complicit with producers (i.e voting for contestants - Narrative Activism: Interfering in producers plans - Active audiences can be complicit and/or oppositional - Commercial TV gives public voice little access but it might give them tools to work with

Self Regulation (FCC)

- Network standards and practices self regulate content at leave of production - Internal abitration and negotiation by network lawyers of what can be said and shown - Approves scripts before production, episodes before airing

Slashing (Cultural Production)

- New texts built upon pre-existing TV - Viewers can re-write TV for undeserved audiences and needs (putting two straight men from a show as gay) form of community building of those not represented in the TV world

Regulating Content 3 Areas

- Obscenity: Sexual content a la pron, profanity language referring to sex - Calin's "7 Dirty Words" in key case - U2's Bono saying f***ing brilliant creates a 5 second delay -"fleeting expletives" protection -both often just "indecency" material offsive according to communication standards; protected by 1st amendment; FCC limits these rights with safe harbor - broadcasters can show indecent material outside 6am-10pm

Regulating Content (FCC)

- One regulates broadcast content - Does not censor only reacts to incidents - Imposes fines on individual stations, but network foot bill (Janet Jackson situation fines CBS)

Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Continued

- PBS/member station relationship 1. Station owners = states, city, university community, non-profit 2. Pay a member fee to PBS based on size 3. Make programs, sell to/but from other stations - More autonomy than broadcast networks affiliates 1. Stations control when/if content airs based on local community interests

Fiske and Popular Culture

- Pop Culture = What we do with TV texts (i.e. fan activity, tweets, an videos) - Provides link between encoding and decoding - we "talk" back to the industry more and more today - TV = Resource bank of potential meaning (commercial ideas one of many meanings for us to make pop culture out of)

Public Interest Paradox

- Public Interest --> Public wants or public needs? - American system of broadcasting - Wants: TV is privatized, commercial system, required to make money Needs: TV is a "trustee of public airwaves" required by PICAN to service public interest (TV not to brainwash us - we trust TV) **ONLY IN REFERENCE TO BROADCASTERS

Aufderheide

- Public TV news to be a public forum for the people Needs insulted funding and clear mandate dis-associated from corporate world

Vast Wasteland: Newton Minow

- Public interest = what public needs, not wants (TV should be educational) - How to enforce: license renewal (if you don't serve public interest enough we can take away your right to broadcast) - Need non-commercial alternatives (this is concern for underrepresented children and a lack of education programming)

Broadcasters Use Digital For

- Quality: Very high def signal, nearly as big as old analog one - Quantity: Multiplexing: cram many standard def signals into new space; multiplexed subchannels provide secondary content less reliant on high def (weather and news); syndication: add. source of ad $$ outside regular broadcast station (CBS 4 Denver -- standard def subchannel for reruns)

Mandate for PBS

- Serve public in ways commercial TV doesn't - Content: 1. Program for underserved audiences (children) 2. Noncommercial content: frontline (generation like - "children matter" 3. Economic: not for a profit, not privately owned, but can it survive as a US gov increasingly privatizes public enterprise?

Impact of HD

- Slow initial growth; need consumers to buy new TVs - Programming created for HD

Synergy

- Synergy = conglomerates sharing across media to make a bigger hit than if each medium remained independent; Batman song that Prince did - Logic that drives horizontal integration - Each corporation division works together to advance the brand

TV's Influence

- TV doesn't cause DIRECT effects; watching football doesn't equal to men behaving more violently (contributes, but there are more factors) - Instead, TV contributes to the Social Construction of these behaviors and identities

Hall's Encoding and Decoding

- TV meaning is shaped in multiple stages - TV texts serves as sites of struggle where we debate terms of representation - Texts are POLYSEMIC (meanings are multiple and shifting no permanently fixed) - BUT polysemy is structured in hegemony because it has to appeal to a mass audience there are morns that need to be seen through (heterosexual couples, white leads, monogamy)

Why Self Regulate

- Threat of more imposed regulation - Affiliates refusing clearance - Pressure from public advocacy group - Pressure from advertisers - Corporations own political/commercial Interest

Airwaves Are...

...how gov enforces rules - Public: airwaves are a public resource - Scare: not everyone has access (money determines who gets airwaves) - Intrusive: "invade" private homes (can't shut them out of home all together still circulate in your airspace even if you're not watching

The FCC and Regulations

1. Regulation = FCC and governmental policies and and laws - contextual, goal driven 2. Self Regulation = Allowing the industry to police its own content 3. De-Regulation = Removal of structural rules (ownership, etc)

Media Conglomerates

1. Viacom 2. CBS Corporation 3. News Corporate (Murdoch) 4. Time Warner 5. Comcast 6. Disney

Transition to Digital TV

2009: FCC mandates all TV go digital - Pre 2009 all broadcast TV analog - Huge electromagnetic waves that take up lots of airspace FCC goal: make broadcast signal smaller, make room for mobile phone signals

Media Effects Model

= Sender --> Message --> Receiver

Results of Telecomm 1996 (cont)

Broadcast networks are part horizontally integrated conglomerates - Control and coordinate across media - Parents corps need not be media-related

Co-Production (Globalization)

Co-Production: Co-op btw producers from different markets/nations - Orphan Black: BBC (UK) and Space Network (Canada); shot in Toronto, distributed across UK and North America

Analog vs Digital

Content delivery method: - Analog: sends a physical copy to the content; degrades over time, bulky and unwieldy; if signal is weak lots of static - Digital: sends instructions to make your own copy of the signal (binary code); exact same output every time; as long as tv is receiving a signal, picture is perfect

Re-Define Public Interest

Fair use of culture by consumers

No Above-the-Line Diversity

Focus on-screen saps efforts at getting diversity among writers, producers, etc

Conglomerate and Power

In US, public discourse circulates mostly through commercial media - What happens when control of that discourse is concentrated in hands of six companies? - McChesney & Compaine thoughts

Burden of Representation

Increased representations don't necessarily have narrative agency

Formatting (Globalization)

License and adapt premises for local context - Enables cultural specificity --comedy, reality - Attractive to local programmers bc they are proven successes no development $$ - Cheaper to buy ides (programs, niche channels) than import - Foreign formats go global: Expeditions Robinson (Survivor), The Office

Global TV

Media accelerates it post WWII - Tech = satellite, digital networks - Political = end of cold war and opening up of new foreign markets - Economics = Deregulation neoliberal ownership regs, and trade treaties - Cultural = new migration patterns

Horizontal Integration

Now media corps have both ability and economic necessity to expand - Why not focus on vertical integration? --> with rising competition, nets losing viewers, cant just be in TV business anymore; becoming part of horizontal integrated conglomerates = strategy to shift viewers to other in-house holdings rather than losing them

Public Interest Codified in PICAN

PICAN = Public Interest Convenience and Necessity (airwaves that TV is broadcasted over is property of all Americans - given that TV must be in the public interest, convenience and necessity of all Americans, must serve public interest in some way)

Global TV Today

Proliferation of outlets worldwide means increased demand for content - Non American TV increasingly a force - BUT: US still dominates bc it has libraries, tech infrastructure to supply

Carnegie Commission's Idea for Public TV

Recommends: - Educational and cultural programming - Insulated funding (guaranteed $$ regardless of political whims) - Federally funded body to oversee national public TV network - Results = PBS

Effects of Synergy

Shows redefined as intellectual property across multiple media - Move by conglomerates to secure/defend copyright for everything -- Marvel & Disney, DC & Time Warner, Comcast buying DreamWorks - TV must provide short-term ratings and prospect for long-term growth

Global TV Distribution

TV moves between global markets via... Importation: Programs made in one nation and sold to another - Havens argues US distributors are in a position of power because: broadcast strategy works internationally; wide appeal domestically abroad: primetime drama, films = expensive foreign producers lack H-wood $$; traded at NATPE, MIPCOM

Decoding

Texts are decoded at the level of consumption by viewers - Hegemonic: Viewer holly accepts producers preferred meanings (CEO is white male, he cares about his business) - Negotiated: Viewer recognizes preferred meaning, but adapts it to own ideas recognizes a meaning but says this doesn't apply to me - Oppositional: Viewer recognizes preferred meaning, rejects it and reconstitutes message using alternative ideas

Encoding

Texts are encoded by producers w/ preferred meanings that they hope the audience will decode. These meaning are structured by: - Frameworks of knowledge and professional ideologies: "objectively" in journalism - Relations of production: Who's making decisions? (Casting, green lighting, etc) Technological infrastructure: tools, skills, style

Public Interest Commercial Systems

The gov has favored private commercial interests because it believes: - Avoided issues of gov propaganda (fear too much control of gov) - Market-driven approach would appeal to viewer interests (matters of entertainment and culture is the domain)

HDTV: Lotz

Theatrical Presentation: - "Home theater" content and tech a niche experience for wealthy viewers early on - Advertisers initially wary of HD (too expensive) BUT: this changed w increased adoption - "Prestige" content and media events

Cyclical (Fiske)

We make our own culture from commodities - Excorporation = Making pop culture out commodities (start to rip holes into jeans) - Containment = Dominant power (industry) re-incorporates that pop culture we make (jean makers begin to produce only hole jeans)