Week 20 - Media Ecology Notes

Grace Watson

4 August 2021

Media Studies 

Week 20 - Media Ecology Notes

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Media Ecology

• refers to the relationship between the media and its audiences.
• how media environments shape today’s society. 
• states that the actual content doesn’t have as much of an influence on audiences as what the medium of the content does.
• McLuhan was the theorist who suggested that the focus should be “media and not the content it communicates”. 
• Theorists suggest that “media....is a technological context” - the environment which “consists of communication systems within which we live, and which shape our culture.” Essentially, this ‘environment’ affects our decisions, beliefs etc.
• Media ecology is so vitally important and timely because “we experience and perceive everyday life through the lens of various media, such as film, internet etc”.
• Today more than ever, this media environment is a digital one - a digital media environment - where we all consume most media from the internet, instead of via journalists, television or advertising companies.
• We can all create and consume content from the click of a finger (on social media, for example).

McLuhan’s Theory

• “The medium is the message”.
• The form rather than the content.
• “The technology that transfers the message changes us, and changes society”.
• For example, he believed television to be a means of bringing audiences together - uniting audiences. And back when stories were written - the main sense organ targeted was visual, further back in time when stories were read aloud, audio. Essentially he believes the medium has a grand effect, whether it be uniting audiences, encouraging imagination etc.

PIRACY

When people pirate films and download them illegally, they don’t have to pay. This effects the overall financial success of the films, ultimately having an impact on the SVOD services as well.

One of the main reasons behind piracy is the fact that it enables people to avoid the subscription fees associated with the SVOD services. According to an online source, these piracy sites thrive “because there’s a demand for them” – with pirated videos receiving over 230 billion views every year as of 2021!

MEDIA’S EFFECT ON THE WAY WE THINK

·         Alison Holman was quoted describing how “people really strongly, deeply underestimate the impact the news can have.”

·         This was following the 2013 bombing that took place at the Boston Marathon where “those who had not seen the explosion in person” were acutely affected and traumatized by it, just by seeing snippets of it on the Internet.

·         Holman believes this event to prove that media, more specifically news coverage, can “shape our views of foreign countries” and even “influence the health of entire economies”.

·         Why does media have such an immense impact? Because we spend so much of our time engrossed in it, through podcasts, social media, music, radio etc. – in 2018, the “average American spent around eleven hours every day looking at screens”.

·         “The news is accidentally warping our perception of reality – and not necessarily for the better”.

·         We’re so affected by this media because most people naturally believe the future is worse. They often believe the worst, and many believe “the news might be partly responsible”.

·         Example: people won’t go on holiday in areas where there’s war/political instability/strife – often the news is the source of hearing this info.

·         The news is “influencing us through subconscious biases and flaws in thinking” – encouraging fear.

·         After both the Ebola crises in 2014 and 9/11 attacks, “the more news coverage a person was exposed to, the more likely they were to develop symptoms such as…anxiety and PTSD”.

 

THE CHANGE IN AUDIENCES RELATIONSHIP WITH NEWS MEDIA

·         “The American news media has evolved over many decades, from an institution governed by a strict “just the facts” ethos to one characterised by a mix of values and objectives.”

·         The news has become “a fourth branch of government”.

·         “In the 1970s and 80s, news magazine, talk show, and morning show formats emerged, which mixed news with opinions and speculation, and blurred the lines between news and entertainment. Because these formats presented news in a more entertaining way, ratings for traditional evening news and documentary formats declined” (the only 2 formats that existed before).

·         In a Forbes study it was discovered that 50% of internet users hear about news through social media before it’s broadcast on news.

·         Decrease in newspaper circulations and the digitalisation of publications such as The New York Times and Washington Post.

·         CNN introduced “in the 1980s” “the first 24/7 news station” – providing audiences with 24/7 news coverage.

·         Increase in social media being a major news source as well – with 4.48 billion social media users globally, and 84% of the US population using social media.

 

SOCIAL MEDIA AS THE MAIN NEWS SOURCE

     “It’s the age of fake news”.

·         “We now have all the information we need at the touch of an app”.

·         64.5% of all internet users worldwide hear of breaking news via Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook – social media platforms.

·         A survey discovered “57% increase in traffic to news sites referred from social media” – essentially audiences clicking on sites whilst of to hear more - and a simultaneous decrease in how “much of an article people read” – audiences read for an average of 15 seconds and watch a video for 10.

·         Problem here is the social media platforms are having “control over what news and information we see”. The more content is liked and re-shared, only then will it show up on feeds.

·         Lots of “fake news” which “is actually more likely to spread than truth” = so “authentic content is hard to come by”.

·         Every social media user is “fed increasing amounts of what they have already indicated they like” which means they are “force fed news that confirms their biases”.

·         This causes a majorly “polarized society, with extreme viewpoints becoming the new norm.”

JENKINS AND THE FANDOM THEORY

- Fans enjoy media so much so that they develop communities around and create content based on it - has increased with the Internet’s development.

-        -  Fans essentially create their own culture based on the content.

-        -  “audiences are active and creative participants” – “participatory culture” – creating communities and collaborating “to solve problems” = this generates ‘collective intelligence’.

-        - Jenkins uses the term ‘spreadable media’ instead of ‘viral’ because it emphasises the “active, participatory element of the ‘new’ media”.

H   - Hardcore ‘Stranger Things’ fans established a fandom - fansites “built around creative but unlicensed reuse of copyrighted material” where fans share “videos, stills and gifs based on footage from the show”, fueling each other’s excitement.

      - Their fandoms became so intense that authorities began to draw up Article 13 which essentially aims to protect producers of media against copyright. As of 2021, the article 13 would basically “require YouTube and other sites that allow user-generated content to build tools that proactively block anything that appears to infringe on copyright,” and for whatever does slip through the net, “they would face fines”. This article is a major threat to content creators and truly concerns fans.


- “A creative film and special effects individual that went by the name “Shamook” was hired by Lucasfilm after he created his own take on a scene from The Mandalorian.”
Shamook saw what the editors of the episode had aimed to do, and “took it upon himself to digitally edit the scene to make it just a BIT better.”
His edit was so successful that it “caught the eye of someone at Industrial Light and Magic.” Shamook was hired by ICM and now works as the “Senior Facial Capture Artist”.

   

RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

    - iPhone was first introduced in 2007.

- Disney is a large conglomerate which owns Pixar, ESPN and Marvel Studios (they're it's subsidiaries).

- The Bachelor is an example of a reality TV show which audiences LOVE! Because they love seeing themselves on TV. The Bachelor as 1.3 million followers on its official Instagram page.

- America's Got Talent (which averages 7.01 million viewers) and X-factor = examples of shows where audiences get to get involved and vote.

- Not only are companies beginning to lean toward SVOD services, many are also evolving their distribution models and opting for more simultaneous releases where they release their films to theatre and SVOD services at the same time. An example of this is Black Widow, a Marvel blockbuster recently released simultaneously to cinema and Disney +. Scarlett Johannsson has actually opened a court case against Disney + for simultaneously releasing the film as her salary is based on Box Office numbers, and the film may not do as well in Box Office if audiences can watch the film on Disney +.

- The previously clear line between linear television/series’ and movies has begun to blur as production companies that typically produce and release large blockbuster films, such as Jurassic World for example, are now beginning to release series’ on Netflix and other SVOD platforms based on their movie characters for various reasons - to increase and build up hype and buzz for their products, to maintain the interest and excitement of their current fans and attract more fans, and also to advertise their films and their overall brand further. An example of this are the television series' The Mandalorian (which is based on Star Wars), Loci (which is based on the Marvel Comics) and WandaVision (also based on the Marcel Comics). In all three examples these series’ attract the attention and support of fans of the movies and further advertise the brand image.

- WandaVision, Loci and Mandelorian are three examples of how film and series have blurred.

Another theory: NARRATIVE THEORY by Fisher in 1984

- This theory is based on the concept that people are essentially storytellers. Storytelling is one of the most universal forms of communication and so, according to this theory,  people approach their social world in a narrative mode and in doing so then make decisions and act within this narrative framework. 

MEDIA REGULATION

- Regulation = rules and control

- There a specific rules that media producers must follow, and there are organisations in all countries which issue movie certificates and have the power to ban certain films/productions if they don't adhere to those rules.

A MEDIA REGULATION THEORY: LIVINGSTONE & LUNT'S REGULATION THEORY

- This theory basically states that media regulation is hard. That the regulation of any form of media (not just film) is hard.

It's hard for several reasons:

= hard to decide what rules there should and shouldn't be. Regulation essentially aims to protect people (mainly children) yet some adults feel that once they have turned 18, they should be able and allowed to choose for themselves what they do and don't feel comfortable watching. "Regulators have to try and balance protecting people with offering them choice."

= "Technology has made regulation much harder". Here's two ways how:

1. Back in the day it was hard for young people "to get ahold of products that were deemed unsuitable for them" because they'd either have to ask their parents to buy it for them, or go to the store on their own and hope they weren't ID checked - which they probably would've been.

Now, streaming, piracy, downloading and platforms such as YouTube have enabled people to "bypass controls like age certificates". They can pirate these films illegally, access it on their phone and watch products online without being ID'd.

"Almost ten years worth of footage gets uploaded (to YouTube) every single day" so it's very difficult for even these regulatory bodies to regulate the media exposed to people - they'd have to approach YouTube if they had a problem with something published there. "The vast nature of the internet (e.g. billions of users) makes it impossible to control."

2. Tech has made sharing things online so much easier - even illegal content can be shared millions of times before any regulatory bodies or individuals even notice it.

= "Powerful companies can avoid regulations". 

Large, wealthy conglomerates companies are sometimes able to get away with more

Newsport, a conglomerate that trickles down to the Times Newspaper has broken laws of "the newspaper industry" and managed to get away with some of these violations. People are asking whether they got away with this because of their power and their wealth.

"If you have money, sometimes that gives you more power".