This past week, we worked on our papers during our class period, and then I was absent on Wednesday when we covered Globalization. From reading the chapter, I have a fairly good understanding of the concept. Globalization refers to a variety complex and sometimes contradictory social and economic developments that have been taking place for centuries. What is unique about media globalization is the potential or capacity of worldwide communication ability to send messages almost anywhere in the world instantly.

The book discusses how America media industries dominated parts of globalization because the industry here as long operated under a commercial mandate. I found this interesting and very true because since the release of televisions in the 1930’s the primary goal behind those first few media companies was to generate money. In which they did, as those industries are not only still around, but booming.

America’s trends in media globalization, in my opinion, could also correlate to other aspects of our economy and culture. Our culture is similar to other larger countries such as England and Austrailia and Canada. Having a similar culture could allow us to relate to similar things, for example, how One Direction exploded all over the world and not just in America. They were likable across countries because the content was transmittable and very enjoyable to their target audience.

I also feel that media globalization occurs easier currently because of the technology and rapid growth of the media industry. With niche audiences now and advanced data analytics, targeting people by country and culture is no longer the limit, interestingly groups of people can be exposed to media of their choice based on interests and who they are.

This past week, we went over the topic of over the top distribution, or OTT. This is the delivery of video content via mobile broadband instead of broadcast, cable, or satellite. This results in a variety of content and allows the content producers to be far more flexible with what and when they put videos out there.

I can relate this to my own viewing habits and where I get my entertainment from. Oddly enough, I do not spend much time watching Youtubers. I have found them to be interesting when I do sit down and watch, but I do not actively go out of my way to watch anyone. However, I follow multiple influencers on Instagram who all have successful Youtube channels.

Generally, famous Youtubers succeed for a reason. They are likable people with viable content to share with others. Those who are very successful at producing videos on Youtube are typically successful on other platforms as well. I follow Megan Grubb, a fitness influencer who puts out weekly Youtube videos, and occasional short snippets on her Instagram channel. For me, her Instagram is enough for me to be entertained. I also follow a girl named Summer, who I consider very fashionable an good at taking pictures, so I like her Instagram feed. I do not follow her million+ subscriber Youtube channel, however.

I consider these people to be professional amateurs. They may not access to large infrastructure, but they have a solid following and must produce content on a regular schedule in order to keep their fans around and to gain more attention. They’re generally focused on producing content for OTT. By doing this, they tend to generate a lot of revenue from things such as sponsors or product placements in their videos or social media.

This past week, we had a guest lecturer on Monday, as well as discuss our upcoming paper on Wednesday. The guest lecturer from Monday provided thoughtful insight into some of the topics that we had discussed prior that I found to be really interesting.

We had talked about the concept of the Longtail graph. The longtail graph shows how products bring in revenue, and then which ones are the most profitable for the company producing that product. When applied to the media industry, it becomes unique compared to other industries.

What I found most interesting about this concept is that due to the way the movie industry works currently, movies that are far down the tail, which are ones that are not bringing in an abundance of revenue the same way Marvel movies do, now have a chance to be seen. Movies that are not coming from big-name studios and have millions of dollars behind them can be seen on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon.

For example, when I go on Netflix to find a film to watch, the businesses that are not technically good enough to be in theaters have a great chance to be seen by viewers like me and everybody else. This allows for much more diversity in the types of films being produced, and the way we can choose what we want to watch.

Another interesting factor is with the power of social media now, people who maybe only have 500 dollars to produce a film can access ways to advertise their films to the right niche audiences, thus, having a chance that they didn’t have before to get more people to access their product. This allows for again, more diversified products as well as more opportunities for filmmakers.

This past week we covered chapter 7. Chapter 7 discussed creative practices and media work, touching upon how digitization is changing the nature of creative work nowadays.

A section of the chapter that I found to be the most interesting was the concept of casualization. Casualization is the commonness of project-based work where employees work short-term and have little to no job security. By working this way, they are also losing the potential to have any full-time benefits.

Since I want to go into the media industry, I have met a few different people who experience this project-based work. A passed alumn from Lasell who works in video production has already worked for three or four different companies. One was a short film she helped produce, one was a television show for Netflix, and the other was a television show for Disney.

I had also come into contact with her director for the Netflix series she is currently working on.  He had given a seminar speech on what it’s like to be a write and a showrunner for a Netflix series.

Netflix is a business that I find embodies casualization greatly. They overproduce hundreds of shows just to see what will land. For the shows that do not land, people rarely consider the crew and cast that are now out of a job. Not only that but the time it takes for a show to air and potentially succeeds is already about an 8 month time period of uncertainty. This is very fascinating to me because of how often it happens, and because I know people who are currently experiencing this concept.

On Monday, we covered chapter 6. Chapter 6 went over a few different aspects of technological determinism, which is the idea that technology drives culture. We talked about dystopianism and utopianism which are two different extreme ideologies of how technology could affect us.

The idea of whether technology drives culture or if culture drives technology is very fascinating to me. I had a conversation about this with my boss, and I have come to the conclusion that it works like a spectrum where both things influence each other equally.

The way that social media works has changed the way we interact with one another. From one perspective, it could have made us less social face to face and took a negative effect on how humans function day to day. It’s not as common to communicate to people you don’t know in public because there is not a need to, or it no longer feels as safe to do so. Social media replaces many of our day-to-day social actions in life.

If we were to look at it from another perspective, social media has positively affected our lives greatly. We are now able to connect with people we would have never had the chance to before. We are capable of connections across the world, and in turn, we have never been as social than now. We cannot imagine our lives without social media, and in turn, our culture has changed. In this situation, it appears that technology influenced culture.

However, we could have created that technology because our culture was growing. The idea that technology drives culture is true, but it can also be looked at from the other side and still make sense.

This week, we had the midterm on Monday and then watched the episode of Black Mirror on Wednesday. This episode was kind of frightening to watch, but also seemed creepily realistic. The episode showed people living life’s that all had the main goal (for most people) to be well-liked and have a high social score. This is relatable to the real world and how we use apps like Instagram.

Many people do things “for the insta”. I used to even sometimes go to certain places and do certain things so I could take a picture for my Instagram. An example is going to a certain coffee shop, food place, or landmark that’s aesthetically pleasing to get that one picture. I don’t do this anymore because I felt like I wasn’t living my real life, but many many people still do this.

In class, we also discussed how China is looking to start a similar social system that would have similar restrictions on what people can do based on their social ranking. This is concerning for me because it was evident in the episode that it is not a healthy way of living.

This episode relates to chapter 6 because chapter 6 was about the technological conditions of the media industries. The chapter discusses technological utopianism and dystopianism, two extreme ideas that have to do with technological advancements and the effects they could have on a society. Technology can influence a society immensely, and that is clear when we look into how humans are now, and how they were hundreds of years ago. We are less social, crave more attention from social media apps, and similarly to the black mirror episode, live our lives to impress those around us.

This past week, we covered the economic conditions of the media and production costs for various types of media. We talked about the development costs, which is the financing that allowed producers to acquire creative goods. Something that made me think about this is from my internship this past summer.

As an intern, one of my jobs was taking the senior producers credit card, and going to target to buy snacks and drinks for one of our upcoming shoots. I never considered this to really be a part of development costs, but after learning about it more in class I’ve realized that the senior producer was using the money from her credit card as a part of the budget given for the production. This was interesting to find out, because if we had not spent money on food and drinks, then the entire team would have gotten fatigued, and the end result would not have been the best it could have been. It’s surreal how many little things put together are needed in order for media to be produced to the best of its ability.

Another thing we covered this week was financing media production. Advertising was seen as something that supported media greatly. Something I saw first hand was in the production of a Red Sox baseball game. I was observing the announcers booth at Fenway, and I watched how the announcers read off their ads for the night. Inside the booth is a worker who has a pile of paper and hands one to the announcers each time an ad is scheduled to be said. They read it off between announcing the plays, and then carry on until another piece of paper is passed to them. It was really cool to watch how ads play a role in a live production.

This week in class we discussed regulating content, and how the U.S has a right to protect citizens from harm. This includes copyright infringement, incitement or threats, false advertising, or obscenity.

Something I found to be relevant to this weeks class in the world right now is the issue with violence. Violence is not nearly as regulated as strictly as sex is in America. There is an obvious trend of violence within our television shows, video games, films, and all other media. The trend reflects the way American’s perceive violence and may be the reason we are seen as such a violent country.

In comparison to other countries with similar cultural structures as ours, such as the UK, Canada, and Australia, we have far more gun violence issues and gang-related crimes being reported in the media. Unlike those countries, we also do not restrict violence in our media.

Children being exposed to violence at a young age could potentially be desensitized to seeing violent acts being done, and be influenced to even act in violent ways as well. If this is a real trend and issue, why hasn’t the government stepped in, and tried to regulate violence more?

In my opinion, sex and violence are along the same lines of things children do not need to be seeing. Nowadays, specifically in games and movies, sex is not as common as violence. I may not be sure as to why that is, but I do know that it is not okay for children to be exposed to violence at such a young age, and the government should step in and regulate that content.

This past week we covered Chapter 4. Chapter 4 discussed various types of media regulations, including those imposed by governments as well as both formal and informal regulations. It gave a better understanding of how certain content and structural regulations affect how media industries operate and the outcomes of their content.

An example of regulations that have an effect on a media output is on Apple TV. A few weeks ago, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook released a statement about how the company wants to make scripted television shows to stream on Apple TV, but without sex, violence, politics, or risky plotlines. He says this is because the tech-company needs to keep up with a family-friendly perception.

Apple regulating their television shows is risky because it doesn’t give their producers enough freedom to create as they please. It will also be difficult to execute television shows like this since Netlifx, Hulu, and Amazon will stream shows without guidelines like this. Thus, the shows must be very entertaining on their own without initially having to appeal to mature audiences. I will not expand too deeply on this as it is also my presentation for current events.

Something that I consider to be interesting in media regulations is within Facebook. Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerburg had to argue with Congress about the data breach that the social media giant experienced. Facebook was being blamed for not regulating the amount of data that third-parties had access to. As a result, Facebook came out with a campaign about getting the website back to its initial purpose, bringing us together. This shows that the company is paying attention to what is being regulated, and how Congress can step in at any point within a company and have a say in its regulations.

This week we discussed some of chapter 3 from the textbook as well as additional readings online. Chapter three went on to talk a little bit more about mandates. Mandates are what shape the operations of media industries. The three primary questions that come into play when talking about mandates are: who pays for the media? Whom does it serve? What determines success?

We went over commercial media, public media, and government media and answered the questions above for each category. I liked learning about this because it helps to clarify the types of media that exist. All to often people talk about “the media”, which is an extremely broad term. This chapter breaks down different aspects of different types of media and explains how they are different. I appreciated learning about this because I can apply it to the real world when I consume media, and can now tell if it is commercial, public, or government media.

Another aspect that we learned about that I found interesting is the idea of the commodity audience. This is the idea that we are being bought and sold to advisors as if we are a product. The ads being shown to us are based on our interests that are gathered from Google searches and social media. It’s a little creepy to know that we are all in niche’s that determine what people want to sell to us, but extremely profitable for those sending out the ads.

I also enjoyed reading about Star Wars, and the fandoms that exist because of such great movies. Convergence plays a huge roll in the explosion of films and the growth of fan-bases.