Chapter 3 - The Media Business

Assignments

Reading: Chapter 4 (books) for Thursday Oct. 9

Blog 2: Books (due Sunday Oct. 12 midnight)

Discuss three books you have read that had the most influence on you and/or are controversial for some reason. In 2-3 sentences, describe why each one was influential and/or controversial. Write in more detail than saying, “It was good” or “it made me laugh.” Say why it was good or made you laugh, how it stayed with you after you read it and/or your opinion about the controversy. Add friendly links to the books on Amazon.com or another online bookseller, or authors’ Websites.  

We discussed in class: 

Chapter 3 - The Media Business. Mass media producers in the U.S. are mostly businesses. We discussed media ownership -- because of consolidation, only a few large companies own most media sources, which limits diversity of opinion and creative outlets. FreePress.net is an organization that keeps track of media ownership, and advocates against consolidation and for issues such as net neutrality. It keeps an up-to-date media ownership chart.

Large media companies use synergy and vertical integration to their benefit, just like companies in other lines of business.

We talked about the "Long Tail" theory and how it affects Internet retailing of media such as music and video, and content production, e.g. crowdfunding as opposed to trying to get a big media company to produce your movie. Here's a basic "Long Tail" chart.