Ladies and Gentlemen, Carlo Vittorini!

This past week in class Carlo Vittorini came and spoke to us about his time in his career in the business of print media. He was offered his first advertising job in 1955 and did not stop until his retirement in 2000 at age 70. That’s dedication. He spoke to us for a long time (longer than he actually wanted to) about his career and there were a few things that stuck out in his talk.

           1. You may start out wanting to do one thing, and end up doing something else. Mr. Vittorini started out wanting to be a writer. He majored in English in college. But his skills led him in the advertising direction.
          
           2. Trade magazines are genre magazines targeting a certain career demographic.
           3. Some publishing companies can control a number of different publications in a given area. Whether it be major magazines or small town newspapers or even newsmagazines, these publishing companies become oligopolies.
          
           4. There has been a huge progression of different kinds of printing presses through Mr. Vittorini’s career. The publishing companies went from hard, metal presses to electronic digital presses.

           5. Making early decisions can be a very bad idea. Everything is changing too often to make a decision early, and this can affect ratings if things are not current or up to standard because of a poor decision.

           6. Some companies don’t function well because they run on a top-heavy system. When a company is top-heavy, it affects their profit margin in a negative way.

           7. Mr. Vittorini was able to help build up some of the newspapers he worked for because he had skills in marketing and production.

           8. No matter how many new multimedia technologies are made, print media will never die out completely. There will always be a hard copy to back it up.

           9. Relating to the last point, printed word will never disappear. It‘s our main outlet of communication. Whether it be through texting, through a blog or an email, we use language to communicate, which is expressed through printed word.

          10. Finally, Mr. Vittorini kept repeating one main point over and over again. If you don’t like what you’re doing, chances are you won’t do well. But if you do like it, you can climb higher in your career.

Mr. Vittorini’s talk was very informative and very interesting. He was sure that he was going to bore us, but I don’t think he did. It was cool to listen to someone who has a lot of real experience.

Print media disappearing

Technology is changing the way that print media is being produced. We are way passed the days of the original printing press. These days, it is more common to see people reading what was once a popular print media on an e-reader. It has become cheaper to produce print media digitally. Once a book is online, it is easier to keep track of the copyrights and can be distributed in a number of ways. The most popular methods of distributing books are through Google, who has digitalized thousands of books, through e-readers such as the Kindle from Amazon or the Nook from Barnes and Noble, and printing books instantly. This has become very appealing to the masses because it has made it easier to gain access to pretty much every book ever written. Unfortunately, it has also contributed to the decline of print media, like books and magazines. So it’s hard to say whether or not this shift is really a good thing.

It hurts me to say that books are becoming less prominent in the world today. While I don’t want to say they are becoming obsolete, they are certainly headed in that direction. E-readers such as the Kindle and the Nook allow readers access to a number of different books in a number of different genres. Once they have the e-reader, the reader can download a book instantly to the device without having to physically go to the book store. They also don’t have to wait for a book to be shipped to their house through online shopping. E-readers are also ideal for readers who travel a lot. The Kindle and the Nook can hold thousands of books at one time. That means you don’t have to waste space in your carry-on bag with books. Finally, the e-reader is more appealing than a physical book because it doesn’t kill any trees, and people these days are becoming more aware of their carbon foot print. It’s these reasons that are causing books to become obsolete. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I know I still like books and don’t want them to disappear.

The Museum of the Moving Image

The Museum of the Moving Image is clearly one of the greatest museums I have ever been too. There were so many cool things in that museum that could not be seen in another museum. One of my favorite things in the museum was the stop-motion display. It was really cool to learn about how stop-motion films are made. We even got to make our own stop motion videos on the computer. What was amazing to me was how much time it actually takes to make a stop-motion animation. It is unbelievably time consuming. You can take twenty five pictures, changing something slightly to make a flipbook, and you’ll have five seconds of an animation. But it makes some really cool animations.

Another thing I liked about the museum was that it had some really old stuff in it. I know this is common in museums, but it was really cool to see some of the first cameras. Although they did not have the original Lumiere camera, they had some pretty old ones. I learned a lot about how cameras were changing throughout the years. While I knew that some of the old cameras were operated by a crank, I learned that the cranks were actually controlling the shutter speed as well as the amount of light that was exposed to the film in the camera. It was very informative and stuck out in my mind.

Finally, one of the exhibits that I thought was great was the exhibit that had the stand in dummy of Yoda and other props like a giant version of Freddy Kruger’s sweater. I didn’t know that they actually made larger or smaller props for certain shots in movies. But looking back, it actually makes more sense, because it probably wouldn’t be possible any way else. The giant sweater, for example, was used in a scene where the souls were pulling themselves out of Freddy’s body. I also liked that they had a replica of the Yoda puppet. This was one of the coolest museums ever, and I would love to go back someday.

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.