Response to Caroline B's Class Discussion titled "{Whostory?}"

Response to Caroline B's "{Whostory?}"

Let me just start off by saying I absolutely love her title. It is so creative and goes a long well with the theme and the message she is talking about in her blog post.

I also want to say that I agree with everything she said; it does seem kind of crazy that in school we are only being taught almost half of the truth when it comes to some things, like in history. For example, I always believed that Gutenberg had invented the printing press, and when I found out that he actually didn't and only really helped make an advanced version, I felt like I had been cheated. Like Caroline said, the school system just decided it would put in the education curriculum what it viewed as the most relevant, but that doesn't mean that it's the truth. I also agree with what she said about how you can't particularly do this at all as a journalist because when you are writing a news story you can't just tell half of the truth; everything has to be 100% true and factual and have reliable sources that provides evidence. In journalism we can't have those mysteries that exist in history about who created what, who said what, and so on. I am also in agreement with what she said about how some countries have a negative reputation with them when in reality (most of the time) the people to blame and the people who gave the country their bad reputation are people who are in power; it's not always the citizens' fault.

Go check out Caroline's awesome blog post by clicking on this link: http://letsbecriticalok.blogspot.com/2014/09/whostory.html

Binary Models

Binary Models: Class Discussion Response #4

There are four different binary models-

1. Hot-Cool- The amount of attention the mass communication requires.

Hot- Requires audience's full attention. In order to fully understand it, you have to completely focus on it.

Examples: Print Books, Audio Books

Cold- Does NOT require full attention. 

Examples: Music, Television, Movies; Can have any of these three things going on in the background and to understand it you don't have pay full attention; Can multi-task.

2. Elitist-Populist

Elitist- Concerned with it's message; it's message is it's number one priority, no matter it's audience size.

Examples: Slashdot, The Nation, PBS

Populist- Concerned about it's popularity; will post/talk about anything that it thinks will expand it's audience and make it more popular.

Examples: Buzzfeed, People, ABC

3. Content-Distribution

Content- Only produces it's own content; makes it's content.

Examples: Sony, Warner Bros, HBO

Distribution- Distributes and produces content to people and audiences.

Examples: iTunes, Amazon, Netflix

4. Information-Entertainment

Information- Stories are more information based; to inform.

Entertainment- Stories are meant to be entertaining to read; to entertain.

There is an "in between" version of this binary model called "Infotainment" in which people try to make the entertaining informational, but it always leans more towards the "entertaining" side.

Example: ABC News

I found this lecture to be the most interesting out of all of the lectures we've had because I liked learning about the contrasting forms of communication and I felt like I could relate some every day activities to some of these binary models. For example, I always knew that I could never multi-task while reading a book and that it required my full attention, but I never knew that it can be described as a model that is used in communication (the hot medium from the Hot-Cool binary model). I think it's pretty cool how things that you never really think twice about on a daily basis can have a more complex meaning to them and belong to models that you might have never guessed they belonged to.

Monopolies and Cartel

Monopolies and Cartel: Class Discussion Response #3

There are two types of monopolies:

1. Horizontal Monopoly- One company owns every business in one stage in a production process. 

Example- (Movie production process) One company owns every distributing business (such as Amazon).

This type of monopoly has NO competition in it's area of a production process.

It is threatening in which can change whatever it wants to change and can rid of freedom of expression because it has total control.

*THIS TYPE OF MONOPOLY IS ILLEGAL*

2. Vertical Monopoly- One company owns one of every stage in a production process.

Example- (Movie production process) One company owns one business that makes the movie, one business that processes the movies, one business that distributes the movies, and one business that gives the people/public access to the movies. 

This monopoly can still have competition with other companies and businesses.

*THIS TYPE OF MONOPOLY IS LEGAL*

Cartel- When companies work together to raise prices above the market price to make/force everyone to pay the same, above-market, high price.

Example- All the gas stations in a city decide to all raise their gas prices to $3.99 to get more money even though the market price is only $3.55, and in every other city the price is below or the same value as the market price.

*THIS IS ILLEGAL*

I'm going to be honest; before we had this discussion I wasn't entirely sure I knew what a monopoly was, and I definitely wasn't aware that there were different types of monopolies. In fact, the only place I'd really heard about a monopoly was from the board game "Monopoly". I also didn't know what cartel was. But now that I do know, I definitely can see the connection. Just like in the board game, when someone has total control with a monopoly it can be a disaster for everyone else (in the board game, harmful to the other players: in real life, harmful to other companies) and can lead to total obliteration (in the board game, obliterating by losing the game: in real life, obliterating by harming the economy or causing other businesses to go bankrupt). 

In my opinion, although monopolies can help a certain company make more money, I think they are ultimately harmful and can hurt our economy more than help.

Magazines

Magazines: Class Discussion Response #2

• Magazines were invented by Benjamin Franklin, who made the first magazine, General Magazine.
• Magazines were the 1st national medium and national publications with national advertising, a national audience, and the creation of a national identity.
• National advertising was great for business.
• People became famous from their publications in magazines.
• Magazines are cheaper than books.
• They create something for everyone to talk about; rich, middle-class, and some poor alike read magazines.
• Magazines spread literacy all across the world as more and more people began to read them.
• Magazines were the first to do long-form, investigative journalism.
• They were the first to have personality profiles.
• First to have photojournalism.

All these points above and all the effects that have come from magazines are some that I would have never thought about before we had this lesson. I had always thought of magazines as a form of entertainment, but I learned from this lesson that at one time magazines focused more on elitist things instead of populist things. The fact that magazines have helped/benefited and continue to do so for our country in so many ways, from spreading literacy to broadening the field of journalism, simply amazes me. In fact, I didn't even know that magazines were beneficial until we had this lesson.

The Types and Process of Communication

Class Discussion Response #1

There are 3 types of communications-

• Mass Communication- sharing ideas with a mass audience (more than one person) but not being able to get instant, immediate feedback. 

Examples: Magazine, Television, Radio, Social Media, Billboard, etc.

• Group Communication- sharing ideas with a mass audience or group of people; one person talking to a bunch of people. Can get immediate feedback from audience; works as a 2-way form of communication. 

• Individual Communication- interactive; the sharing of ideas between two people.

Process-

1. Stimulus- starting point; "my idea"
2. Encoding- taking an idea and putting it in a symbolic form to where people can understand it. E.x. typing a recipe in a word document.
3. Transmission- sharing the idea with the public/making it available for people to see. E.x. uploading the recipe to a blog.
4. Decoding- when the public encounters the idea/communication. E.x. reading the recipe on the blog using your phone.
5. Internalization- remembering the idea; "your idea"

Impediments- external

• Semantic Noise- A problem/interference with encoding. E.x. Word Document crashes in the middle of typing a book and all content is erased.
• Channel Noise- Bad transmission. E.x. A book gets shipped to the wrong house.
• Environmental Noise- A problem with decoding; something around you is interfering with your ability to decode an idea. E.x. You can't focus on decoding a book because your mom is vacuuming and it is distracting you.

Filters- 

• Physical- Can prevent people from internalizing an idea; usually happens because there are physical features preventing the internalization.
• Psychological- Prevention from thoughts.
• Informational- Learning barriers. E.x. not knowing a language.

Before this lesson I had no idea how complicated the whole idea of communication and it's process is. It's pretty wild to learn that something that can seem so simple in the beginning is actually a lot more complex than it seems.

Response to Cicada Hoyt's Article Critique

Response to Cicada's Media Critique

As I was reading through Cicada Hoyt's media critique, I couldn't help but shake my head in agreement as I read line after line of her work. All of her main points excellently portrayed how the article she decided to critique violated the Nine Principles and Seven Yardsticks of Journalism. 

Her explanations were very analytic and helped me understand why certain aspects of the article violated the Nine Principles and Seven Yardsticks; for example, instead of just saying something as vague as "the article violates the explanation yardstick", she actually explained how there was a violation. She did this by using evidence that she discovered and collected, such as saying-

"... the reporter only said what happened and not why it happened. For example, he could've explained about what had happened with the shooting and after the shooting... Perhaps if the reporters reported the facts they wouldn't have been so quick to judge..."

This short breakdown of what she explained was used to support the idea that the article was violating the Explanation Yardstick, and overall, this allowed for me to better understand her critique and for me to understand her views on the topic. 

Another thing that I was impressed with was the use of photos as a visual aid to show violations. Cicada used a picture of police aiming weapons at a man who had his arms in surrender as a way to show the violation of the 5th Principle (Watchdog), which supported her explanation of how instead of keeping an eye on the people with power (in this case, the police) the article was directed to keeping the attention/keeping an eye on the citizens of Ferguson (in this case, the people who don't necessarily have power).

I also think it's pretty great that she took on the daunting task of finding violations in an article with a very controversial, commonly talked about (at the time) topic.

I did notice one little error; there was a lot of usage of first person words like "I" and a few opinions here in there in the article, which shouldn't really be used in media critiques (it should be in 3rd person), but nonetheless, nothing can distract from the fact that her critique was very factual, relevant, understandable, and overall superb.

Go check out her media critique by clicking on the following link:  http://cadylandia.blogspot.com/2014/09/article-critique-ferguson-shooting.html

Picture: https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8379/8672563295_9c270cbc79_b.jpg

Media Critique

Just Another Post About WDRB's Irrelevance

A Media Critique by Mikayla Hinton

Almost every single news website has a section on the home page that is solely dedicated to displaying the most popular stories from that day, week or even month. With this being said, popular stories, a.k.a the stories that are being talked about the most, should be those that fit well with the standards of the Nine Core Principles and the Seven Basic Yardsticks of Journalism.

Well, WDRB has a different idea when it comes to this concept.

On WDRB's website under a heading that says "Most Popular Stories" is a link that leads to a story that does not technically deserve to be listed under this title. The story is called "Miss America 2015 hammered on social media for playing a red cup". 

Miss America 2015 Winner performing her talent.

The whole idea of this story being referred to as 'popular' seems improper for the following reasons:

1. The story violates the principle "Make the important interesting". An important story is a story that talks about or explains something that could potentially or immediately affect a group of people in a short amount of time or long period of time, etc. This story is basically the complete opposite; it's purpose is to try to entertain with interesting aspects more than to inform its audience. This story is like the "backwards version" of this principle; it is trying to "make the interesting important". It might seem fun, entertaining or interesting to some people to read about a bunch of criticism that the new Miss America is receiving from her chosen talent, but it isn't important at all; a bunch of people's lives aren't going to possibly change over the course of time in any way just from reading and knowing about this story. And although this story may engage it's audience, it does not provide any enlightenment; when people read this magazine they aren't reassured by anything.

2.    This story violates the yardstick "Newsworthiness". For a story to be considered newsworthy it should have a core story topic, and have a lasting and widespread effect on diverse and mass audiences (just like with the above principle). This story is not considered to be newsworthy because the story topic is not core and it will not last in the media for a long time. By next week this story more than likely will have been completely forgotten; no one will remember it because it doesn't leave an excellent impact on it's audience and because now that the race for the next Miss America is over, the media production of stories about the Miss America ordeal will come to an end. This ultimately means that the audience of this story will decline, which further proves how this story will not be around much longer.

3. This story violates the yardstick "Local relevance". Local relevance means that most of the stories being produced are taking place in the area that the journalism team, news media team, etc., works in and how the stories directly concern that area. This story is about a national event, the Miss America Pageant, and although it is a national ordeal, it doesn't directly affect the region in which WDRB works in in any way. The pageant didn't take place in, help or benefit, or have anything to do with the region in which WDRB reports on, which therefore shows how this story is an example of local irrelevance. 

All in all, this story from WDRB is not a good example of a journalistic story, but something could be done to help it meet at least one of the standards that it violated. There isn't a big option range in which one can change this story to help it comply with the principle of making the important interesting or the yardstick of newsworthiness, because it's being portrayed as a more entertaining story, but  the standard of local relevance could be met with a little revising. For example, instead of just focusing on the winner and how people are critiquing her choice of talent, WDRB could extend the story by interviewing or writing stories about the representatives in the pageant for Kentucky and Indiana and their experience in the competition. This would at least add a little local relevancy, for those two women are actually from the areas that WDRB covers.

Picture from: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/miss-america-2015-miss-new-york-kira-kazantsev-2014149