Saturday, December 19, 2009

Chapters 3-7

 Chapters 3-7 Where about how radio, T.V and movies and how they affect and are affected by our society. the authors focused on how these mediums are controlled by certain corporations and how this effects the medium as well as the viewers

While reading these chapters I found it alarming that all our news is coming from only a few sources. when radio started out it was not the way it is now, originally it had many different types of stations with strong restrictions to prevent monopolies and promoted contrast and freedom. Now with staions like Fox News telling us they are giving both sides of the story when in reality they are giving the news a conservative republican slant on everything they report on. one disturbing statistic about television and cable the authors brought up was the one involving the 70% control of broadcasting between 12 different major players in the late 90's to where it is now down to 5 due to loss of regulation laws etc. in the industry.This basically leads to there being less difference of opinions and more bias in T.V and radio. which could lead to less varieties of opinions within society as well.

The other mediums, Film and the recording industries, although largely owned by the same corporate companies as T.V and radio, do at least have more freedom, because of the success of independent films become more popular. as well as in the recording industry it has become easier to put out their music, case in point, radiohead who didn't want to sign with their old label or new one when their contract came up they decided to let their fans pay for their newest album how ever much they wanted. this might not have worked for them if they had not already been super stars but it is a good thing to see in our overly controlled media world we live in.


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