Assignment 7: Media Ownership Influences

Assignment 7: Media Ownership Influences

Objectives:  

To identify the impact of economic imperatives on the globalization of media.  

Skills: 

For this activity, you will practice using critical thinking skills to evaluate influences on media content.

Background:

Originally, mass media ownership was relatively decentralized, with nearly every city hosting its newspapers, radio stations, and even television stations. Over time, consolidation and mergers led to the rise of large media conglomerates fueled by the deregulation of media ownership restrictions with the Communications Act of 1996.  This led to a handful of major corporations exerting significant control over multiple media outlets and across various platforms. Comcast, Disney, AT&T, Sony, Alphabet, and Meta are just a few of the major media companies in the United States and globally. 

Activity:

A. Before you tackle this assignment, read  Chapter 12 and Sections 13.1, 13.2, and 13.4 of Saylor’s  Understanding Media and Culture.

B. Then, choose a news media outlet, such as  The Washington Post or CNN, and visit its website to determine its parent company. Often this will be in the “Corporate” or “About Us” sections.

C. Consider and respond to the following questions: 

1. Which of the three basic media business models does this media outlet fall into? 

2. How does this media outlet employ each of the two ways that media receive revenue? 

3. Does it exclusively use one way or a blend of the two? 

4. How large is the parent company of this media outlet? Does it own any other outlets? 

5. How might the parent company be using vertical integration to its advantage? What about horizontal integration? 

6. Were there any surprises to what you found? Were there any corporate connections that you did not expect to see? Explain. 

Requirements: 

1. A thoughtful, thorough 1-2 page (about 500 words), double-spaced essay in 12-point Times Roman or similar serif font, with all the basic components for a beginning, middle, and end.

· The  first paragraph should contain a thesis that introduces your main idea or position on the question posed to you in the assignment prompt. What is the point you intend to make in your answer?

· The middle paragraphs should provide information, examples, and details to support your main idea or position. This is where you should show use  because statements and detail what you know or think about the topic.

· The final paragraph should sum up your main idea or position on the topic. 

2. Support your comments with relevant information that you researched in the course’s learning resources.

· Use  APA-style in-text citations  to cite the sources of the information that you used in assembling ideas for your argument. 

· Create a matching  APA reference list  at the end of the document.   

Once you know what you want to say and have checked the assignment’s grading rubric to ensure you have met all the assessment requirements, you will be ready to submit your essay in a  .doc, .docx, or  .rtf format. Do  not  submit it as a .pdf, .Pages, .txt, .Gdoc, or other file format. 

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12.1 Advertising

Learning Objectives

1. Describe important eras in the history of American advertising.

2. Analyze the overall effects of government regulation on advertising.

3. Identify the types of advertising used today.

4. Describe the impact of advertising on American consumerism and cultural values.

Advertising is defined as promoting a product or service through the use of paid announcements. Dictionary.com, s.v. “Advertising,”  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/advertising . These announcements have had an enormous effect on modern culture, and thus deserve a great deal of attention in any treatment of the media’s influence on culture.

History of Advertising

Figure 12.1

History of Advertising

Advertising dates back to ancient Rome’s public markets and forums and continues into the modern era in most homes around the world. Contemporary consumers relate to and identify with brands and products. Advertising has inspired an independent press and conspired to encourage carcinogenic addictions. An exceedingly human invention, advertising is an unavoidable aspect of the shared modern experience.

Ancient and Medieval Advertising

In 79 CE, the eruption of Italy’s Mount Vesuvius destroyed and, ultimately, preserved the ancient city of Pompeii. Historians have used the city’s archaeological evidence to piece together many aspects of ancient life. Pompeii’s ruins reveal a world in which the fundamental tenets of commerce and advertising were already in place. Merchants offered different brands of fish sauces identified by various names such as “Scaurus’ tunny jelly.” Wines were branded as well, and their manufacturers sought to position them by making claims about their prestige and quality. Toys and other merchandise found in the city bear the names of famous athletes, providing, perhaps, the first example of endorsement techniques.John Hood,  Selling the Dream: Why Advertising Is Good Business (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005), 12–13.

The invention of the printing press in 1440 made it possible to print advertisements that could be put up on walls and handed out to individuals. By the 1600s, newspapers had begun to include advertisements on their pages. Advertising revenue allowed newspapers to print independently of secular or clerical authority, eventually achieving daily circulation. By the end of the 16th century, most newspapers contained at least some advertisements.William M. O’Barr, “A Brief History of Advertising in America,”  Advertising & Society Review 6, no. 3 (2005),  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/asr/v006/6.3unit02.html .

Selling the New World

European colonization of the Americas during the 1600s brought about one of the first large-scale advertising campaigns. When European trading companies realized that the Americas held economic potential as a source of natural resources such as timber, fur, and tobacco, they attempted to convince others to cross the Atlantic Ocean and work to harvest this bounty. The advertisements for this venture described a paradise without beggars and with plenty of land for those who made the trip. The advertisements convinced many poor Europeans to become indentured servants to pay for the voyage.Christina B. Mierau,  Accept No Substitutes: The History of American Advertising (Minneapolis, MN: Lerner, 2000), 7–8.

Nineteenth-Century Roots of Modern Advertising

Figure 12.2

Early penny press papers such as the New York Sun took advantage of advertisements, which allowed them to sell their issues for a penny or two.

The rise of the penny press during the 1800s had a profound effect on advertising. The  New York Sun embraced a novel advertising model in 1833 that allowed it to sell issues of the paper for a trifling amount of money, ensuring a higher circulation and a wider audience. This larger audience in turn justified greater prices for advertisements, allowing the paper to make a profit from its ads rather than from direct sales.Jennifer Vance, “Extra, Extra, Read All About It!”  Penny Press,  http://iml.jou.efl.edu/projects/Spring04/vance/pennypress.html.

P. T. Barnum and Advertising

The career of P. T. Barnum, cofounder of the famed Barnum & Bailey circus, gives a sense of the uncontrolled nature of advertising during the 1800s. He began his career in the 1840s writing ads for a theater, and soon after, he began promoting his own shows. He advertised these shows any way he could, using not only interesting newspaper ads but also bands of musicians, paintings on the outside of his buildings, and street-spanning banners.

Barnum also learned the effectiveness of using the media to gain attention. In an early publicity stunt, Barnum hired a man to wordlessly stack bricks at various corners near his museum during the hours preceding a show. When this activity drew a crowd, the man went to the museum and bought a ticket for the show. This stunt drew such large crowds over the next two days, that the police made Ba

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