Response #4 - Ch. 25

Ellyn Gary                                                                              Reading Response 4 – Ch. 25

            Chapter 25 was titled “The Contemporary Media” and covered topics such as the news business and mergers, more recent events and how they were covered, and conflicts between the media and the government.

            The part that I found most interesting was the business portion of the chapter.  My generation has grown up always having television around, and being a pretty big part of our lives – whether for news or entertainment purposes.  I liked finding out all of the parent companies (such as Disney, Turner, Time Warner, etc.) and which networks they owned, and how some of these came about.  Most of them have happened within the last 20 years or so, which only proves the point of how my generation has always had these giant networks around and really can’t imagine a television with the variety of choices we have had growing up, and still have today. 

            The 24-hour news coverage of the 2000 presidential election was something that the nation had never seen before.  This was due in part by both the fact that this was the first time our nation had had an issue like this, and the first election where we had a few 24-hour news networks.  I was in elementary school at the time, and remember the constant coverage of the election, until it was finally decided that Bush was the winner.  I thought it was completely normal that the stations cover it, which it is, but I did not realize that this was one of the first big events that had the opportunity to be covered by multiple 24-hour news networks, each with a different viewpoint.  This chapter helped me to realize, once again, how people my age have always had television as a main media source, and how most of us cannot imagine a world without it.  It really made me think about the huge impact television has had on the world over the past 50 years or so. 

            I may be a bit biased about this, since I’m from New Orleans and went through Hurricane Katrina, but I feel like Sloan could have touched on the work of the local television networks too.  Most of the local television networks did what they could to keep most of their broadcasts or at the very least news coverage going.  I remember watching WWL’s broadcasts from LSU (actually the Manship School) while my family and I were still evacuated.  I liked that Sloan gave the much-earned credit to the Times Picayune, and mentioned them in this section, but I feel like he could have touched on the broadcast side of it too.  Though maybe I understand him only sticking to the work about Katrina done by newspapers, since it was an easier and more widespread way for New Orleanians and other people interested in the hurricane coverage to get hard news about the situation. 

            In the last section of the chapter, about the media and a complicated future, I liked the points that Sloan brought up about the current state the American media is in.  The point about what defines a “journalist” and how that is linked to where Americans will look for their news was very interesting.  I am interested to see the future of the media, especially because of all of the recent developments that we have seen in just the past ten years.  It leaves me wondering, “What’s next?”

Response #3 - Ch. 24

Ellyn Gary                                                                                          Reading Response 3 – Ch. 24

            Chapter 24 was titled “The News Media” and mainly focused on television’s effects on everything from the public, to the government, to the media industry.  It briefly talked a bit about newspapers effects too.

            There was a paragraph under the “Media-Government Relations” heading that I found very interesting and made a lot of sense to me.  It pointed to a reason why the media is labeled as having a liberal bias, and when this change occurred.  Sloan brought up the point that the media took on more of a neutral or antagonistic attitude toward the government after the Vietnam War.  Thinking about all of the time periods we have covered this semester the media’s relationship with the government has changed tremendously.  In the early days of the newspaper most newspapers were owned by government officials, or had some connection to a government entity.  Therefore, objectivity was a rarity and almost unheard of.  Most newspapers reported biased opinions and news stories that supported the official tied to the paper.  Then we slowly saw a shift toward objectivity as the years progressed.  The media also went through its Muckraking period, which eventually died out because people grew tired of the constant skepticism that the media reported on.  Any distrust in the government that was presented by the media quickly disappeared with the U.S. involvement in WWI and WWII.  During both wars the media fully backed the U.S. government, because the country was extremely cooperative and patriotic during those times.  Propaganda created and promoted by the media was a large tool in gaining and maintaining the public’s support of the wars.  Anything that went against the wishes and motives of the government, or questioned it, during this time was thought to be unpatriotic and certainly unsuccessful.  After WWII the media’s supportive role and opinion of the government was still there, just not a heavy as it was during wartime.  In the 1960s and 1970s the country was involved in the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal took place.  As mentioned in the last chapter, and in my last reading response, the Vietnam War was the first televised war.  This meant that the harsh and depressing realities of war were brought into American homes through television.  Because of what they were seeing on the TV through the news, many Americans were not so quick to support U.S. involvement like they had been during previous wars.  The reality presented by the news media is probably responsible for some of the anti-war attitudes that Americans had toward this war.  The uncovering of the Watergate scandal by the journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Burnstein exposed the wrongdoings of President Nixon, which eventually lead to his resignation.  These controversial topics covered by the media lead to the thought that the media had taken on more of a “watchdog” role toward to government.  This continues to today.  Sure you can pick CNN, MSNBC or Fox News, depending on your political views, but all media comes with a watchdog attitude at times these days.  I’m not sure why I didn’t quite realize this turning point and the reasoning behind it sooner, but as soon as I read that paragraph it all made sense as to how and when the shift of a more liberal media came about.

Response #2 - Ch. 23

Ellyn Gary                                                                             Reading Response 2 – Ch. 23

            Chapter 23 was titled “The Media in Transition” 1945-1974.  It covered the changes that occurred during this time in newspaper, magazines, and especially television.  Television had a tremendous effect on the U.S. from the way Americans obtained their news, to politics, wars, civil rights, and other newsworthy events.

            This chapter was very informative, but it did have a few weaknesses.  I feel that it could have been broken up into two separate chapters.  The first could have been about television’s effects on the other mediums, like newspapers, magazines and radio.  The other chapter could have focused on television’s tremendous effect on events during this time period.  By doing this, it would have been able to give a few more details on some of the topics that it just touched on.

            The chapter briefly discussed how presidents and presidential hopefuls tried and sometimes succeeded in using television to their advantage during their campaigns and time in office.  The Kennedy-Nixon debates are some of the most memorable and most talked about in history.  The biggest reason for this is probably because they were the first to be televised.  Past debates were only broadcast on radio.  The televised debates showed how important the visual element was to the American public.  It has been said many times how put together and calm Kennedy looked throughout the debate, which obviously worked to his advantage.  The book also mentioned how he had the ability to speak to the audience in a non-condescending was.  It has been said on many occasions how Nixon was the complete opposite in the televised debates.  He looked very nervous and uncollected, especially compared to Kennedy.  Nixon was also sweating, which compared to Kennedy’s good looks, did not help him.  The book pointed out that the people who watched the debates clearly thought that Kennedy had won, while on the other hand the people who had listened to it on the radio thought that Nixon had won.  This came as a surprise to me.  Given the fact that the book had just mentioned how Kennedy’s speaking style of not being condescending, but being informative and getting his point across was one of his strengths, I was surprised to hear this.  Since this came as a shock to me, I wish that Sloan (the author) had spent some time explaining why the people who had heard it on the radio thought that Nixon had won, given the background and what has generally been said about the 1960 presidential debate.

            Another area that I wish Sloan had expanded on was a part of the Vietnam War that he talked about.  He mentioned the monk that had set himself on fire and the naked six-year-old Vietnamese girl who was photographed as she ran from American bombs.  He touched on how significant these photos were in the conflict on supporting the Vietnam War among the American people.  Personally, I wouldn’t have understood this as much, if we hadn’t already discussed these photos in my visual communication class, last semester.  I feel that Sloan could have been a little more clear on the effects of these photos, and not just left it to one sentence.  

Response #1 - Ch. 19

Ellyn Gary                                                                  Reading Response 1 – Ch. 19

            Chapter 19 was about the rise of many new forms of entertainment media, such as comic book, music and the recording industry, movies, radio, television, video games, and the Internet.  The chapter covered each of these topics and looked at their development over time.

            Halfway through the first page of the reading I found something contradictory to what has been happening in currently.  The author stated that television, newspapers and books are expected to loose time consumers spend looking at these mediums, but that no one is “predicting the demise” of these media.  I found this to be contradictory to books and especially the newspaper industry.  Although the book was published in 2011, Solan did not include anything about eBooks or eReaders (such as the Kindle or Nook).  I’m sure this is because at the time he wrote the book and had it published, these new forms of media had not reached the popularity and success they have presently in the second half of the year.  This considered, we still have seen a drop in books sold because of the popularity of these new technologies, and even large bookstores such as Borders close their doors for good because they cannot keep up.  My biggest question came from the mentioning of newspapers in that statement.  I believe that the newspaper has taken a significant hit from the emergence and success of the Internet.  I do not believe any of the larger city and national newspapers are going anywhere, we have seen the demise of many small newspapers.  These smaller papers have shut down because more and more people are getting their news online, instead of from the actual newspaper, and they simply cannot keep up or bring in as much revenue as they used to.  For these two reasons I was puzzled by the author’s statement about the effects of new technologies and media on newspapers and books.  While I believe that they will never completely go away, I do believe that he downplayed the severe hits that both mediums have suffered because of new technologies.

            In this chapter and in previous chapters, such as the one on radio, people in the time period when new mediums were coming about considered them to be fads at first, and eventually expected them to fade away and not last.  This was what was first thought of radio shortly after it was developed.  Yes radio is not as popular as it used to be, but considering that it has been around for almost 100 years, I certainly wouldn’t call it a fad.  One of this chapter’s subheadings was called “The Fad Turns Mainstream.”  The topic of this section was about the emergence of the recording industry.  At first the phonograph was considered to be a fad, but after improvements sales grew, and in turn so did the recording industry.  Recording industry is still around today and continues to provide entertainment for millions.  I wouldn’t classify recordings as a fad either.  This made me realize that possibly some of the things we think of as fads today, may not end up as fads after all. The best example I can think of is Apple.  About ten to seven years ago when the iPod and other Apple products were growing in popularity, many thought that it was just a fad.  As far as I can see, that’s not happening anytime soon, because the company has done nothing but grow year after year since then.  This example and the topics covered in the text lead me to believe that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about new technologies and just write some of them off as fads.