Two interrelated trends we will follow in Introduction to Mass Communications are media convergence and the concentration of ownership of media outlets. To see how some of this plays out in the real world, go to the MSNBC.com website and take a look around. In another window, read the online Wikipedia encyclopedia's article "Concentration of Media Ownership". Then answer these questions. (Or try to. Some of them may now have good answers.) Post your answers to the Message Board. Here are some questions:
1. How does our textbook define "convergence?" Do you see examples of this on the website? Or does the website make you want to revise the definition a little?
2. How many different media or types of media -- e.g. newspapers, TV, magazines, etc. -- do you see represented on the website?
3. What is MSNBC's relationship to Microsoft Corp.?
4. Who owns MSNBC?
5. How many different editorial voices do you see represented? What do we mean by "editorial voice?"
6. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? For the different media? For the stockholders? For us as consumers?
We're not going to settle any of these issues today. In fact, I don't think we could even if we wanted to. Some of them we're going to keep coming back to all semester. I just wanted to pose them early, as we go over the introductory chapter in the text.
A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Blog Archive
About Me
- Pete
- Springfield (Ill.), United States
- I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.
No comments:
Post a Comment