How the media pros know their audience?

This is a very tricky subject. Knowing one's audience can be simple or difficult depending on the medium of the text. For instance, if you publish a print-only news journal, the only way to understand your audience is through direct research, surveys or other wise. However, with the dawn of web-based media, it's become much easier to track an audience. Website hits, podcast downloads, e-mail, all enable producers to track their stats and viewer feedback. Other methods of success have seen great boom in user-generated content. Websites like youtube (user videos) or digg (user-submitted news) or StumbleUpon (user recommendations) allow both control of the media while allowing creative influence on behalf of the audience.

We with the expansive growth of the web, we are seeing less of a need for personal analysis are some are working towards a "web 3.0" in which all the content is personally tailored and catered to you based on your browsing history and other preferences. This has the potential to seriously violate certain privacies we enjoy. Although that's still conceptual and a long ways off from fruition.

Bitmap Vs. Vector Quiz

Insert. Grade. Here.

Money as Debt

So last class in media literacy we watched a short film titled "Money as Debt." It was a very depressing take on the sad state of affairs in which our economy operates. We're shown the evolution of our current crisis and how it began. I certainly can't comprehend how we can maintain any stability on an economy that allows banks to conjure legal tender into thin air on one of the most unreliable systems, the borrower's promise.

But now that we've already built our society of so many years on this flawed system, we have no other choice but to ride it out until it collapses entirely. There's no certain way we can fix this immediate problem until we suffer a complete economic collapse and we're left with no other option but to build a new system.

The whole film was a cautionary talel; one that doesn't bode well for the future of America, or the world for that matter. I just hope we can solve the economic puzzle before it's too late.

Did you know...?

Little do many people know that ESPN is owned by Mickey Mouse. Also, the production company Miramax, is owned under the Walt Disney Company for film that are deemed "too graphic to bear the Disney name."



Now you know something new!

The Dark Times

Batman + Illustrator = Epic Win

Blog Quiz

(1)The media remains dominated by global media conglomerates which becomes increasingly easier (2) due to the deregulated environment in which they operate. (3) Thus it become nigh impossible to escape the consumerist ideology that floods everything we see.

In the modern media, we are given the illusion of choice. We are presented with many seemingly different "news outlets" whose true differences lie in the manner in which they present the same news in different ways. Ultimately everything we see is controlled. Television programming though very heterogeneous, is ultimately controlled by the same organization. Though we are given a vast choice of channels for all different kinds of programming, our personal choice of programming simply stratifies us as the target demographic for that specific program.

It is in this way that advertising subjects us to the consumerist ideology. During children's programming, the commercials tell us all the things children are "supposed" to want, while advertisement during sports programming tell sports fans what clothing to wear (e.g. Nike, Adidas etc.) or food to eat, or beer to drink, etc.

This causes our primary concern with media globalization. What it is doing is hardly good for diversity. In fact, successful advertising promotes the flattening of character and stereotypical behavior for all its target demographics. The most frightening thing about this is the fact that it reaches through all forms of media. However, this fear is not as legitimate as it seems because advertisement is not as influential as some think. While people may pick up different consumer habits from what they see on T.V. it is more likely that they reject the majority advertising because they don't agree with it or it doesn't pertain to them. This makes the "dangerous" globalization caused through advertisment a FAR less likely reality. That is unless subliminal advertising becomes a reality.

Proof

As testament to my pseudo-prowess with photoshop...here's the poster I've recently developed for my school's anime society. Let me know what you think.

I think it's fairly well done.