Media Planning
“Whoever controls the media controls the culture.”
– ALLEN GINSBERG, POET
“Information is the oxygen of the modern age.”
– RONALD REAGAN, US PRESIDENT
Media Today
“Your TV is ringing.” Maybe you saw the Verizon ad that shows a cellphone with a TV attached to it—pointing out that you can talk on the phone and watch TV at the same time, on one piece of equipment. If you saw it, you might have said, “cool,” or “I want that,” or “what a ridiculous thing to do.” But Verizon could have gone further. The ad could have pointed out that some of the company’s cellphones also let you watch movies, play video games, download and listen to music, and read a newspaper or magazine. It’s an exciting time to study mass communication. None of the activities described above could have been attempted on a cellphone (call it a mobile device) just a few years ago. They raise questions about the impact that these and other technologies will have on us, our society, and the content of TV, movies, video games, music, newspapers, magazines, and movie companies. In fact, the transformations are so great that you have the opportunity to know more than conventional experts, to challenge traditional thinking, and to encourage fresh public discussions about media and society. Consider the mass media menu that Americans have today. Instead of three or four TV channels, most Americans receive more than fifty and a substantial number receive one hundred and fifty and more. Radio in urban areas delivers dozens of stations; satellite radio brings in hundreds more, and music streaming on the Web—sometimes called Internet radio—is carried out by countless broadcast and non-broadcast entities. The advent of home computers, VCRs, CD players, DVDs, and DBS has brought far more channels of sights and sounds into people’s lives than ever before. So has the Internet and the World Wide Web, the computer network that Americans use to interact with information, news and entertainment from all over the
– ALLEN GINSBERG, POET
“Information is the oxygen of the modern age.”
– RONALD REAGAN, US PRESIDENT
Media Today
“Your TV is ringing.” Maybe you saw the Verizon ad that shows a cellphone with a TV attached to it—pointing out that you can talk on the phone and watch TV at the same time, on one piece of equipment. If you saw it, you might have said, “cool,” or “I want that,” or “what a ridiculous thing to do.” But Verizon could have gone further. The ad could have pointed out that some of the company’s cellphones also let you watch movies, play video games, download and listen to music, and read a newspaper or magazine. It’s an exciting time to study mass communication. None of the activities described above could have been attempted on a cellphone (call it a mobile device) just a few years ago. They raise questions about the impact that these and other technologies will have on us, our society, and the content of TV, movies, video games, music, newspapers, magazines, and movie companies. In fact, the transformations are so great that you have the opportunity to know more than conventional experts, to challenge traditional thinking, and to encourage fresh public discussions about media and society. Consider the mass media menu that Americans have today. Instead of three or four TV channels, most Americans receive more than fifty and a substantial number receive one hundred and fifty and more. Radio in urban areas delivers dozens of stations; satellite radio brings in hundreds more, and music streaming on the Web—sometimes called Internet radio—is carried out by countless broadcast and non-broadcast entities. The advent of home computers, VCRs, CD players, DVDs, and DBS has brought far more channels of sights and sounds into people’s lives than ever before. So has the Internet and the World Wide Web, the computer network that Americans use to interact with information, news and entertainment from all over the