Media Ownership: Concentration and Conglomeration

For this assignment I looked online to find some media conglomerates and found a website that had a few different companies listed and all of the other companies they own. I decided to look at what AOL Time Warner owned and found they own many different types of media including Film, Internet, Music, TV, Publishing and Recreation companies. Out of all of these I decided to work with all the different magazines that they owned. I looked up covers of a bunch of the magazines AOL Time Warner owns and from that made a collage over a sign that said the company’s name, “AOL Time Warner”. For my animation, I then had the magazine covers open like curtains on a stage to reveal who owned all of them. Overall I used 15 magazine covers and that was not even all of the magazines AOL Time Warner owns which is amazing. I enjoyed doing this project because it was interesting to see who really owns who in this big world where we think nothing about how many own all of these media products we love.

Website link:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/giants/aoltimewarner.html

Media Parody - Magazine Cover

As can be seen I did a cover of TIME Magazine. What I did was tried to replicate the cover the best I could in photoshop and illustrator. I did use some different images at the top but left the wording all the same as well as all the wording on the side. The only big thing I changed was the letters of the iPhone which originally spelt out “BEST INVENTIONS OF 2007”. Going along with the theme of doing a parody I changed the words or letters to say, “OK HOW DO I USE THIS THING”. I did this because the iPhone is so new and high tech that it is hard to use at first. It has all of these special features on it when in the end it is meant to be a cell phone. I just thought it would be funny to change the message on it to show that not everyone thinks the iPhone is the best new thing.

Ch 2 - MEDIA GLOBALIZATION

Out of the 6 main features written in chapter two, three of them I looked at a little closer and thought about examples of these main features. Below I have the main feature listed with my thoughts and an example with it.

1) The emergence of and continued dominance of the global media industry by a small number of transnational media conglomerates.
This main feature is mainly talking about how big companies own many little ones under it and we do not even realize this unless we truly look back at who owns some of these businesses. The example in the book talked about Time Warner and how it owned many different companies and unless we know what they own we could never tell the difference. A down side to one company owning so many things especially in the media is because it influences us is many ways. All different types of media impact us so the fact that one company controls all that means that they can control how we think about things without us even knowing it. These companies are growing to be so big and are spreading all over the world through media globalization that it seems like they are taking over the media worldwide one way or another.

2) The use by these media conglomerates of new information and communications technologies (ICT's).
This main feature points out that the rapid growth of technologies is changing how we see the world and how the spread of media globalization can grow even faster than before. I see this mainly as how so much can be done on the internet today and then thinking about how many different countries have access to the internet to look at what others are posting, selling, and what new is happening in the world. The fact now that anyone can go to yahoo.com and on the main page click on a video links to watch the latest news story is crazy. The clip online can be on news from anywhere in the world also as soon as a new crew can put something together it can go right up on the internet for all to see simply with the access to a computer with the internet. Even though many in the world do not have the Internet, still many countries do have it even if just in their main cities. I think any news website is a good example of this main feature.

3) The promotion of the ideology of consumerism, which is therefore bound up with the capitalist project.
This last main feature I will be talking about had to do with the media being a form of advertising and how that advertising then is all connected to the capitalist project. In other words the media is used to sell its viewers something. This is not only in one place but all over the world which is why it's a part of media globalization. This media advertising is used all over the world to help sell a consumer product and therefore is all about making money and adding to the growth of capitalism. Examples brands selling to the consumer all over the world are companies like Coca-Cola and Nike. Ads for these companies' products can be seen all over the world and they are selling to countries all over the world to try to grow and make more and more money.

There are some concerns and worries about all of these main features and what they are doing to the media and media globalization. As our book says, "North American mass media industry in the postwar period has now given way to growing worries about the domination of the global media industry by a small number of powerful, transnational, vertically integrated media conglomerates." This does tie back into the first main feature that talks about how big companies are taking over so much of the media and are such a big part of media globalization that bad things may come of it. It is not good that so much power is in the hands of so few corporations. If these corporations are controlling so much of the media then it just shows how everyone all over the world will be influenced by this mass media. It is hard to say what can be done about such things though because we are a world that feeds the media like crazy because all we want is more of it. The more power we give the media, the more the media, will control what happens in the world.

Media Globalization Remix

I chose to do my media globalization remix on Harry Potter because I feel the story is represented well in more than one type of media. I put together images from both the Harry Potter films and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book series. I also found some other images of Harry Potter toys like Lego’s and the game of Clue to show how popular this media really is. I also found the cover of the first Harry Potter Book in a different language and then layered the same cover over it in English (top left corner). This I thought was an interesting way to see how the books are loved all over the world. Another image I found and added is the cover of TIME magazine which had written on the cover, “Why Harry Potter Rules”, this shows how children love the books and movies and go crazy over them. I also made sure I added J. K. Rowling herself and not only was it any picture of her but she is sitting on what looks like a throne reading one of her books. One last thing I will point out is that I added the “WB” Warner Brothers logo because they are the film company making the films which has added so much to the media globalization of Harry Potter.

Media Globalization

The Harry Potter series is a great example for media globalization, given to us in not one popular form of media but two. Not only has the world become completely obsessed with J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series – always counting down the days till the next book’s release – but everyone has also fallen in love with the films made from the books. It is interesting to ask how people feel about Harry Potter because so many may see the story differently depending upon whether they are fans of the books or the movies. I know many fans who, like myself, have read the books and seen the movies, loving both. Others though have only read the books or seen the movies, which shows how different types of media are more popular to some than others. There will always be the classic arguments that reading the books will always be better vs. the view of I will just wait until the book is made into a movie. On top of all of the hype about the books and the films, the world has also gone crazy for Harry Potter products, showing how the media affects what people buy. Every kind of Harry Potter toy imaginable can be found, from board games to Legos. Clothing with the characters’ images can be found from both the books and the films. Even as a fantasy, the experiences of the characters are not that different from our own. Only magic divides their world from ours, which is why the series is so popular worldwide. No matter where someone is from, they can always enjoy the story of an amazing adventure. Harry Potter is a name known all over the world; it is almost like he is a celebrity even though he is not a real person. Because of his character, children all over the world have started up their own "fantasy worlds". Many people have made up their own stories using the Harry Potter universe as the setting. A problem that has come from some people writing their own fantasy is that they have used the Harry Potter characters in their stories and then tried to illegally publish them in their country with the characters being of their culture, not British. This shows the impact that the Harry Potter series has had on the global media.

The Media and Music - Celine Dion

After again reading the section on U2 in our text, Understanding the Media by Eoin Devereux, I started brain storming about a female (or female group) that is like U2 in the she effects the media a great amount. After looking through my iTunes list I came across someone who I believe is a great musical artist as well as someone many admire. The artist I am speaking of is Celine Dion. I chose Celine because she is not only an amazing singer but has also done many other amazing things in her life. Born and raised in Canada, Celine was the youngest of a large family who always supported her singing. Celine, now after years of being in the music industry, has released many albums in English and French, her native language. She has preformed all over the world and has become a music icon for many, reaching the top 10 list with numerous songs. Now what does all of Celine’s success have to do with the media? On top of the fact that her art is a part of the media, meaning music, Celine has been on many TV specials and shows talking about not only her career but her life as a wife and a mother to her son. People get joy out of hearing her music of hope, love, and messages of still being “alive” after going through her husband’s cancer fight and the struggle of having a child. Another great thing about Celine is that she is not only an idle to one genre although most of her fan base would seem to be women. Nonetheless young and old love her music and can never seem to get enough of her with her shows in Las Vegas (which she did for a few years) were almost always sold out. Another interesting thing about Celine’s career is that her music, depending on the album, has been more popular in different parts of the world. Not just any person can become one of the best selling artist all over the world and it is because of the media that has helped Celine’s success become what it is. We can truly call Celine Dion a media sensation and I am sure she will be for many years to come.

Understanding the Media Ch1 - Part 2

In the later half of the chapter on understanding the media I found some key points that really helped me understand more of how we can look at the media to try to follow it better. First, I never really thought much about what sort of questions we should be asking when looking at the media. The eight that are listed in the book are very useful to helping me look deeper at what I know and what I want to learn from observing the media. A second point the readings touched on, which I thought was funny, is talking about social context with blogging. The fact that we are blogging about blogging seems just crazy but then again so are many things in the media. It is like how TV covers other TV stories, such as the news covering the Emmys, informing us about how a story was covered and not the story itself. Now going back to the beginning of the chapter is where my favorite parts of the chapter are and that is using a camera to help us understand what the importance of theory is. I like how Devereux describes this by saying, “One useful way to think about the use of theory in this context is to imagine that your overall subject area, discipline or approach is a camera. As a student of the media, you have a range of lenses that you may place on the camera. These will allow you look at something in a variety of ways and perhaps result in your coming to a multiplicity of conclusions, depending upon your chosen lens or lenses. Theories work like a camera lens in this regard: they help to illuminate different aspects of the same phenomena.” This helped me understand the importance of theory so much better probably because I also love taking photographs so using that example really touched on something I understand and like doing.