IF25 Response 2: Wanted: The Media We Need

It’s Halloween today! My costume of choice? A cat, of course!

Socially it’s entirely acceptable for me, a 21 year old university student, to dress up as a cat on the 31^st of October. Culturally? Oh heck, my culture dumped Halloween on me long before I could even spell the world. If I recall correctly, my family dressed me as a unicorn 19 Halloween’s ago. That was the norm for this day in my culture!

While I completely respect the opinions of those who choose not to celebrate this day, I believe it to be an important day, especially for the media. Every year as Halloween approaches, television shows start airing spooky, frightful, fun episodes for its viewers, magazines alter their covers, celebrities dress up in celebration, everyone rallies and buys tons of candy for themselves, their children, the kiddies in their costumes, etc. Halloween is a huge deal here; the media helps make it so. Even if I didn't celebrate Halloween, I would certainly know all about it with the help of the media.

There are lots of aspects of social, political, cultural and economic goings-on that make it into the media, directed for our eyes and ears, but there are definitely some things we have to dig deep for in order to find out more.  Because the media is so big, if one outlet isn't delivering the information we desire, there will always be another that would love to in order to boost their ratings/popularity. “Nowadays there are thousands of media choices that we can make; there are hundreds of channels on our TVs and radios, and hundreds of different magazines and newspapers that we can choose from.” (http://st12tq.wordpress.com/). This is the very purpose of the media.

Because modern media is so quickly expanding, the variety we have in terms of access and coverage is overwhelming. Of course there will always be the media giants that most people flock to, but we do have the choice to change the channel, to pick up another newspaper, to click a different link, etc. “Media that ends up successful is media that the consumers genuinely want. If they don't want it, then they will switch to another brand of media…” (http://pharaohjoe85.blogspot.ca/) is a quote I found in another student’s blog that applies well to my point. Sometimes the masses share a common social or political interest and those interests may dominate some media coverage for a while, but if certain consumers are looking for something more they have every opportunity to simply look elsewhere.

The media thrives on delivering to the masses what they want to see; their success depends on it. An example I found in another student’s blog of just how far the media have gone to be inclusive of other cultures’ and other groups’ needs: “They have even gone on the televise Hockey Night in Canada in Hindi, as well as many other languages, just so they can get a larger following.” (http://taradactyl25.wordpress.com/). The media does what it needs to in order to please and satisfy its viewers, followers, readers and so forth.

While my blog entry here very much sounds like an ode to media accessibility, I assure you it is not. My intention is to say that my media choices entirely reflect on my social, cultural, political and economic views because I have chosen to participate in and/or follow those media outlets that cater to my views. And if they didn’t pertain to my interests? Well then I’d have every right to change the channel (or what have you for other outlets) and find something that did.

1F25 Post 2: The Media We Want.

Do we get the media we want or the media we get?

     The media reflect different views and values depending on which market they are aiming to please but I generally believe that, with the exception of perhaps some geographic locations (i.e. communist countries like China and Laos), we get the media we want. The media focuses on getting a message across from one person or one group or one part of the world to another person, group, or part of the world.

     Whether we are reading about the crisis in Syria via a magazine, an online journal, or watching the news coverage of it on our televisions, we “are not seeing reality; we are seeing representations.” (p. 58). Somewhere between what is happening in Syria, the reporters out on the field getting a live-action idea of what’s happening there, and the viewer watching at home, there is someone whose job it is to determine whether or not the representations of these occurrences are newsworthy and whether or not to pursue them any further.

     What is newsworthiness and why does it matter? In the textbook O’Shaughnessy and Stadler defined newsworthiness as “a set of values and priorities that have come to be accepted by journalists as common sense in what is regarded as important to be reported.” (p.28) The media make their money and are able to continue thriving when the people, the viewers, are watching and partaking. Television shows like “The Simpson’s” are still on the air, in the case of “The Simpson’s” even after 25 years, because people like the shows and watch them, that gives the networks the ratings they need to see in order to keep a show on the air. This allows me to argue that the viewers “determine which media products succeed.” (p. 38). This goes for the news, too. If the 9 o’clock news reports stuff I don’t care about, stuff that most people don’t care about, their ratings will drop and they will no longer be receiving the money they require to continue reporting on these issues.

     Some forms of media do market research in order to figure out what their targeted demographic are interested in. Why? Because they want their audiences to eat up every little bit of it in order to make it profitable for them. The example of The Viral Factory was used in the textbook. The Viral Factory, an Advertising Agency in the United Kingdom, does market research in order to determine what is new and cool among youth. They do this research with the intent to “harness the aura of cool and create an association between it and a particular brand.” (p.13)

     I believe that it all boils down to consumerism and giving the consumer what they want. We are the consumers of mass media.  There is a quote from the textbook that perfectly encapsulates my whole point: “the audiences influence, if not control, media output through their choices of what media products to consume.” (p. 38).

O'Shaughnessy, M., & Stadler, J. (2012).Media and Society (Fifth Edition ed.). Australia: Oxford University Press.