Radio, Radio

1. What kinds of radio networks exist now?

There are different kinds of radio networks that are starting to form these days. One of the major stations is the National Public Radio, which was significant in the news and public affairs as well as linking many radio stations together. There are other kinds of radio other than music radio too. Talk radio is a kind of station that specializes in talking about the news, sports or anything local. These stations will tend to be more AM stations rather than FM.

2. How are radio formats related to music genres?

Radio formats play off of what music genres people want to here. Because of this, radio formats can change frequently. For example, in the 1990’s many radio stations switched over to alternative rock because that’s what was popular at the time. Other stations will play Top 40 hits, or songs that are very popular. Today, many stations are playing a variety of music from different decades, called “Jack.” This is how radio stations try to get ratings.

3. What are the target audiences for some of the main radio formats?

Radio formats base their choice of target audiences on certain demographics. For example, a Top 40 station might be aimed towards a younger demographic. Talk radio is usually aimed for adult listeners. The radio stations can base what music they should play on certain demographics.

4. Why does the concentration of radio ownership cause concern?

Concentration of ownership is becoming a problem in radio. More times than not, a couple of large companies can own as many as half the radio stations in a given city. This poses as a problem because it reduces the chances of local ownership of radio stations. This also reduces the amount of diversity on the radio, even if the owners say it will increase diversity.
5. What copyright challenges are raised by Internet radio and pod casting?

Music that is released is almost always copyrighted. According to copyright law, if you want to play a song, you have to pay in order to do so. Internet radio and pod casting have many issues when it comes to playing copyrighted music on their stations. Internet radio stations have to pay the song writers and performers at a higher rate than satellite or terrestrial radio stations just to play the songs on the internet.

Monopolies and Mass Media

There are lots of gadgets out in the world these days. Many of them are made by Apple, Inc., which was owned by Steve Jobs up until his death. The question that is always asked about whether or not Steve Jobs had a monopoly on the media business. It can be pretty easy to say that this could be true in this case. For years now Apple has been producing a number of different products to appeal to the masses such as iMacs and laptops. While they are still in competition in the computer department, in other areas they are dominating. For example, most people who like to listen to music are listening from their iPod. To the best of my knowledge I know only one person who has ever owned a Zune, which was the Microsoft equivalent of an iPod, which was phased out years ago. Because of this, there isn’t much of a variety in the mp3 player market. This results in the Apple products being more expensive because there is not much competition against them. For this reason it can be said the Steve Jobs was a monopolist.

Mass media is a business in itself. Basic theories and economics shows that mass media should be making profits. One of the main ways that mass media makes a profit is through the law of supply and demand. This law states that cost savings caused by economics of scale can be passed down to the customers. This results in more of the product being made, which makes more people by the product, causing a spiral effect of profits and supply and demand.
There are other ways that mass media can make profits. For example, in many commercials these days use songs that were written and copyright by a certain music artist. The artist receives a copyright royalty fee in exchange for them to use their song. This is only one of many different ways to make money, including advertising and syndication. It is important for the mass media to make profits because it helps keep the mass media running.

Changing media and changing laws

It’s an understatement to say that New media is always finding new ways to change. This is because there is a trend of convergence in the media. This means that many forms of mass media, computers or telecommunications are starting to merge together to dominate new media. This kind of merging introduces us to new kinds of communication. Being born in 1992, I was exposed to analog communication as well as digital communication, and as I got older it was easier to see the convergence happening around me. Slowly but surely the original ways of communicating were being phased out by newer ways. As child I had CD’s, a boom box and used a land line, and now I have upgraded to an iPod and my own cell phone. Being born when I was allowed me to see the digital divide between those who can afford it and those who can’t. My life has become mediated through different channels of media. I keep in touch with old friends in different colleges through social media like Facebook or I read their blog to stay in the loop about their lives. Convergence has caused new media to be much more interactive, which is probably why merging everything seems more appealing.

Back in the days of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed before congress. In this piece of legislation, Congress stripped away the regulations that protected publishing, broadcasting, cable and satellite television and other media companies so that they wouldn’t have to compete with each other. The hope of passing this legislation was to reduce prices of communications, improve the services of these companies and spark some competition between them. In hindsight, this did not sound like such a bad idea. What would be better than having cheaper communications services? Unfortunately, things did not go in this direction. More companies either merged together, were bought out or declared bankruptcy, and this outpaced the consumer benefits. It just goes to show that reducing the regulations does not work in this field, particularly since the field of new media is highly based around competition.

A Post About Art

In the OSilas Gallery, there is always a number of different works of art that all revolve around a certain theme. This time, the exhibit is called "Drawing the Mind: Neural Networks and the Emergence of Complexity." What this means is the work that is being displayed has to do with your brain, which makes for a cool exhibit.

While the whole exhibit in itself was very cool, there was one piece that really stood out to me. It was called "Wall Drawing" and it was made by Margaret Neill. This piece is exactly what the title says it is. It is actually a series of curved lines drawn on the wall of the gallery. It took Neill 4 days to complete this work, and the lines she drew were based on the sounds she was hearing in the gallery. If there was little noise, the waves in the lines were softer, but if it was loud that day the lines got thicker and harder. This piece really stood out to me because I feel like my brain works like the way she drew this piece. I've noticed that when I draw in my notebook during class, if the lecture is giving me a headache the lines become darker and more intense. Overall it was a really cool piece.

photoshop images

So in this class called Intro to New Media, we have been editing pictures in photoshop to enhance them or just to make them look cooler. My portfolio has 31 images in it, but the ones that I am posting are just a few of my favorites.

Are we ready for change?

Let's face it, technology and the media is going to be changing around us. But do we really understand how much the media is changing?

Take for example Google.com. Just recently they have changed their privacy agreement. How many of us actually took the time to see what that was all about? According to Jasmin Melvin of huffingtonpost.com, Google is changing it's policy in order to make using Google more user friendly. However, this changes how data is distributed and shared with the world. It will also be collecting information on us through our Google accounts to make it better for us.

Consider also the new layout on Facebook called the Timeline. In this new layout, according to mashable.com, your whole life is put on display for the whole world to see, from birth until you last logged on. So all those posts that you thought were lost in the Facebook vortex are now going to be available for viewing once again. Are you ready to see that again?

Personally, I can see why people will see these changes as a problem. It's scary to think that websites like Google can now take what you like to search for and make it easier for you to find them without your consent. But I'll be honest when I say that I absolutely hate the new Facebook Timeline. It's not a fun layout, plus I just got used to the last one since the last update. So I'm going to hold off on the timeline for as long as I can. If you have nothing to hide, these changes aren't a problem. If not, start cleaning up your profile.

Facebook is also in the news recently for their IPO. According to Matt Silverman of mashable.com, the money that Facebook is putting into their IPO will be able to make Facebook worth $100 billion. Facebook is becoming one of the richest websites on the internet, and now it's going to profit off of the daily users of Facebook. With all this money that's coming in, where is it all going to go? Not to the users, that would just be ridiculous. I feel like we, the users of Facebook, should get some kind of benefit from all of this. Is that going to happen? Probably not, unless it's in some really small way, shape or form. 

Sources:
Google Privacy
Facebook IPO
Facebook Timeline

Apple Textbooks

We all know that Apple Inc. is one of the leading companies in new technology. Now they are trying to have even more influence in our education systems. They want to make it so we can have our textbooks be available on the iPad. So what is the reason behind this?

In the New York Times blog called Bits, there is an article about this matter called "Apple Introduces Tools to (Someday) Supplant Print Textbooks" . They talk about how Apple has created 3 programs: iBooks 2, which offers textbooks to be available to buy for your iPad, iBooks Author, which allows you to create textbooks, and iTunes U, which allows instructors to create digital curriculums and share them with the students. These programs allow digital textbooks to play audio, video and show interactive diagrams. With textbooks being so expensive, it is ideal to pay $15 for it online reather than spending $100 to print a book that could be outdated in 5 or 6 years. However, the hard part is finding money for schools to supply iPads for allow of their students, which sell in stores for around $500. Apple's only competition seems to be Amazon, who sells the Kindle e-reader, but Amazon hasn't had much luck in the education market.

Another article about this is on huffingtonpost.com called "Apple Introduces iBooks 2, iBooks Author, iTunes U App in Pish to Transform Textbooks, Education". In this article, it explains how the iPad is hoped to take the place of textbooks in the classroom. Like in the first article, it explains how each program that Apple released will enhance the learning experience. The textbook is not durable, portable, interactive, is too heavy and expensive. By having the iPad, the textbooks can be all of those things, while being lightweight.

I think the idea of having textbooks on iPads wouldn't be such a bad idea. I remember having to carry around many textbooks throughout middle school and high school it was always a pain. However, the schools might not be willing to drop a lot of money on very expensive iPads. Most schools are cutting departments because they can't afford to have it (so they claim), so why would they go out and buy iPads for every student?

We could use these tools to create the ideal interactive learning environment. The iBooks 2 app would have to be able to explain what we are learning so if we are studying at home and don't understand something, it should be able to explain it. This would be ideal because we do not live with our teachers. The rest of the apps would have to make it easier for teachers to communicate assignments with their students. For the part mentioned earlier about interactive diagrams, they would have to be engaging. Probably using bright colors or cool graphics would be best. As for the audio, it would have to keep our attention. Perhaps the voices could have accents. That would keep my attention.

Sources: Apple Introduces Tools to (Someday) Supplant Print Textbooks (nytimes.com)
     Apple Introduces iBooks 2, iBooks Author, iTunes U App In Push To Transform Textbooks, Education
   (huffingtonpost.com)