The radio industry

I am going to be completely honest, I haven't listened to the radio in a long time. Sometimes I wonder whether people nowadays listen to the radio only if they have to. People listen to the radio in their cars on their way to work, but if they wished to, they would not have to. Radio has been steadily displaced over the years. Newer, more effective and much more customizable technologies have surfaced that make desired content more readily available than in the radio.

At first, radio grew from the telegraph technology used for imperative communication. It became a staple in American households, providing entertainment and information to families nationwide. Soap operas originated in the radio, as did many other programs. However, the radio suffered a downfall with the availability of technologies such as iPods and Satellite radio. iPods now allow people to listen only to what they want, skipping commercials and advertisements. These commercials and advertisements are the sustainment of radio stations, so losing audience makes them lose profit. Satellite radio provides a huge array of radio stations that appeal to every genre and niche. Users can filter down their radio experience to only what they think is necessary.

This new possibility of personalization has changed the radio industry in many ways. Ever since listeners know that they have more power, they have been reshaping and redefining what radio does. For example, Pandora is now the leader in web radio for a good reason. Using new technology, it matches listeners to what they are most likely to like. This way, the listener can discover new music that will probably fall into the niche that he or she already enjoys. On typical radio, there are many songs and extra content that the listener probably is not interested in. This shift of power and control over the radio and its content, as well as the growing availability of personalized content,  has changed the way the radio works.

"It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept."

We can't all interpret media in the same way. Everyone is different and therefore, everybody interprets media differently. Media can be edited, framed and manipulated in a way that controls what the audience receives, gatekeepers can even try to give it a specific meaning. However, it is very unlikely that people will all interpret the meaning that the gatekeepers intended due to selective processes.

Selective process is a limited media theory that relies on the assumption that people see what they wanna see in the media. Many people are exposed to a lot of different media, and sometimes, unwillingly. We have little control over billboards across highways and advertisements on the radio. However, a selective process is that in which the audience chooses what parts of the media to interpret, for the most part, in a way that is most beneficial. A democrat may watch a TV add bashing the latest presidential candidate, and instead of changing his or her mind about his political alignment, the ad would most likely validate his idea that the democratic party is better than the republican one since the republican one is doing the bashing. This way, we can be selective about how we use the content the media offers.

Once again I have to quote Perez Hilton as an example that helps me understand this concept. Perez is always publishing posts where he says that she uses drugs such as cocaine and marijuana, and that she is heavily addicted to medications such as ambien, adderall and vicodin. The image of a train wreck has-been star is one that the media has created completely. While Lindsay Lohan has done many things to allow the public to interpret her negatively, media such as Perez Hliton's blog choose to selectively process the information and make conclusions.

Other aspects of selective processes are selective exposure and retention. Selective exposure is when audiences are selective about the media they are exposed to. For example, I might choose not to read Perez Hilton's blog because he constantly insults and denigrates celebrities. Selective retention works in a semi-subconscious way, where we choose what to remember from what we are exposed to; I may choose to read Perez Hilton's blog, but not pay attention to or readily forget the insulting comments. This is how people interpret media differently and shape media in the way that better benefits them, their ideals, ideas or beliefs.

Media vs. Society

I just received an email from Jeremiah with the prompt for tonight's post. So, tonight I will explain what I consider is the importance of media in society's perception, escalating from the different aspects of media that allow it to influence society, to the changes i has caused.

Since media is ubiquitous and multifaceted, there are many factors and levels to these factors that affect how media shapes society. Newspaper, magazines, computers, internet, and many other mediums are how media transmit messages to society. It is very hard to get away from these messages because they are literally everywhere. Media has the power of controlling information to reach people the way 'gatekeepers' want it to; for example, editors for newspaper can cut out information, or make reporters rewrite articles to make them seem a certain way. The same way that the information can be edited and even omitted by editors, it can be used to determine important political and social issues. When gatekeepers decide what goes out into society through their mediums, they release the ideas that can become issues. If the gatekeepers decide to continue providing coverage, or not cover an issue at all, they can set an agenda of political or social issues as they are happening. Since most people rely on media for news, they depend on the information they are fed to develop ideas about current events and issues. Going back to the editorial power of gatekeepers, they can shape the way an opinion is developed by framing it in a certain manner. This framing can rely in the way images, words, characterizations and more are presented to the public. Newspapers' editors can use diction to make a certain issue look positive or negative, for instance.

The way I understand all this, is through the concept of hegemony. Hegemony is how certain ideas are ingrained in a society and an individual, composing the conventions of that particular society or individual. Gatekeepers, agenda-setting and framing are the tools that media uses to create and maintain hegemony. For example, during the 9/11 terrorist attack, media coverage swarmed with images of middle eastern men that were responsible for the attacks. Naturally, the nation went into a patriotic and nationalistic frenzy against middle eastern men. Ever since, security in airports and border cities has increased greatly, but a social convention that changed is the way that middle eastern people are perceived by America. Middle eastern countries have been demonized as being all terrorists that only want to see the U.S. flag burn. This is an inaccurate generalization of a minority population aggravated by the extensive negative coverage given to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

This article from the New York Times relates the difficulties that middle easterners have suffered after the coverage of 9/11. 

This political cartoon demonstrates the generalization as well.