In this week of class, we focused on the Uses and Gratification Theory and Fandom. The U&G Theory is an approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. This theory is an audience-centered approach to understanding mass communication. It assumes that audience members are not passive consumers of media. Rather, the audience has power over their media consumption and assumes an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. Unlike other theoretical perspectives, the Uses and Gratification Theory assumes that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their desires and needs to achieve gratification. This theory would then imply that the media compete against other information sources for viewers’ gratification. There are five distinct categories of needs fulfilled by media: cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative, and tension-free needs.

When talking about cognitive needs, people use media sources both analog and digital to learn about news and to stay updated with current issues. They also watch media to educate themselves about specific topics. For example, my parents may watch the news on TV to stay updated, but I may check out Twitter to read the most recent trending articles to do the same.

The affective category the aspect of watching media that aids us in connecting emotionally with content and helps us form an emotional response from the media. Our affective needs can also simply be for entertainment. For example, soap operas and series television like Game Of Thrones really draw in their viewers emotionally and become a source of entertainment for people.

Personal Integrative states that consuming media assists humans in creating and solidifying identity traits believe it or not. We view characters with traits that appeal to us as role models and our behaviors start to mimic theirs. For example, if someone loves Superman and watching him do good deeds, then that person will want to do the same.

Social Integrative is really different since the advent of digital media. When media was entirely analog on TV, there wasn’t a way to connect with other people who were also watching TV at the same time. Digital media has changed this in that our generation is constantly connected all the time with other people via our devices and various social medias. Our human need to feel socially connected pushes us to want to use media more and more.

Tension-free can also be called escapism, and means that humans need to escape from the tensions of everyday life sometimes, and turning to media to assist them is a good way to do so. When we consume these types of media, we feel as though we’ve escaped into a new place and this helps us recharge before going back to our normal lives.

For the remainder of the week, we watched a film called Galaxy Quest. This film focuses on the alumni cast of a space opera television series whom have to play their roles as the real thing when an alien race needs their help. However, they also have to defend both Earth and the alien race from a reptilian warlord. This film was very popular to the people, which led to it becoming a well recognized film. This is due to the power that the fans had because they cared a lot about this show and were connected to it. This film allowed the fans to really feel like they were in the center of the action when watching this film. Personally, I really enjoyed the film and took away some of the feelings that all of these fans felt from this film.

-Tyler Tanevski

The main focus for this week had to do with the media’s effects on information and more importantly, the news. This was an interesting topic for me this week because this really ties into our generation and how we are connected to the news. We focused this week on watching two episodes of The Newsroom. This show allows us to see the struggles within the newsroom as well as the obstacles a newsroom faces when trying to report on true news as opposed to the news that is out there for pure entertainment.

We began by watching episode one, which was called “We Just Decided To.” The series with star anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) onstage at a university event with a couple of political experts and a moderator. The liberal and conservative pundits are yelling at each other over him as the moderator and students ask questions. When a young, blonde woman steps to the microphone to ask each person why America is the greatest country in the world, the liberal and conservative experts give there responses. The moderator then turns to Will and pushes him for a real answer. When he looks into the audience, he sees a woman that looks very familiar holding a notepad saying “It’s not, but it could be.” Will then goes off on a rant about how America isn’t the greatest country in the world unless you want to look at ways it’s number one like number of incarcerated prisoners or people who believe in angels. He calls conservatives crazy and liberals losers. After the talk is over, everyone thinks Will is crazy and this whole moment soon goes viral. Will tries to cover this up by blaming it on his vertigo medicine instead of the fact that he was finally just speaking his mind.

Since this fallout, no one wanted to work with Will at the ACN newsroom. Because of this, McKenzie McHale was brought in to help. McKenzie has been producing the news in war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq for the last few years. It turns out that Will and McKenzie had a romantic past and he goes ballistic when he hears that she is going to be his EP (executive producer). While is bursting allowed in anger, McKenzie and her senior producer Jim Harper show up at the ACN newsroom. Jim was an associate of McKenzie’s through her previous part of her career.

Meanwhile out in the newsroom the first word of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill in the Gulf begins to trickle out. After receiving phone calls from highly placed sources, the newsroom scrambles into gear to get this story on the air. The team ends up broadcasting the story while other newsrooms broadcast other top stories. It turns out that this oil spill story became the most popular story at that time, which proved to be a successful broadcast.

In the second half of the week, we watched another episode called “The Blackout Part I: Tragedy Porn.” Since the first episode, ratings have dropped significantly because ACN was not reporting on the Casey Anthony trial. Many viewers began watching the trial on other news networks. After promoting the story ACN gets its numbers back, with a large share of the new audience being female. 

After this incident, another news story appears. The new headlines are talking about Anthony Weiner’s “accidental” picture of his groin. In the wake of Weiner accidentally tweeting a groin picture to his 40K followers, ACN feels obliged to give the story a bit of coverage as a ratings boost, and to get a pre-tape interview with Sandy, who will let the world know “what kind of a man Weiner really is.” As the interview is prepped, a 98 degree heatwave hits, which knocks out the entire power of the news room turning it into a blackout.

Personally, I was always on and off with watching the news. It really wasn’t until I got a little older that I got my news through social networking. According to the textbook, “young adults have a reputation for being connected to one another and disconnected from the news, but a survey found that mobile devices and social networking are keeping them more engaged with the broader world than previously thought.” Since I only use Instagram, I get some news from there as well as other news applications. The textbook also says “the survey of Americans ages 18-34 found that two-thirds of respondents said they consume news online regularly, often on a social networking site.” Instagram isn’t just the only place to get online news. There are other news apps available as well as social media apps like Twitter where many people get their news daily.

-Tyler Tanevski

In the first half of the week, we talked about media’s effects and the theories that go along with this. We began by watching a film called Why Be Good. This film depicted the tensions that could be felt between film makers and censorship makers. Censorship makers were deeming what was appropriate or not to be shown on film. This soon led to the question of what is appropriate? In the early 1900’s, women really did not have much of a say in the film industry. However, that would soon change as actress Mary Pickford would soon become the most powerful woman in Hollywood. Pickford started her career as a well known actress. She soon began producing her own films and helped create the United Artists Studio, which gave her more control in the industry.

As this was going on, the United States had entered into World War I. With all of the men at war, women were given more responsibilities including some that men had. This soon began the rise to more rights for women, which included the right to vote. During the 20’s, women began to “test” authority. This gave rise to the “flapper,” which were women that wore skirts, bobbed their hair, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior.

Because of this shift, it was later okay for women to appear in art. It was considered “tasteful” and “beautiful.” This also gave rise to the first male and female sex symbols of this time. The first male sex symbol was Rudolph Valentino. Valentino was an Italian-born actor who starred in several well known silent films at that time. The first female sex symbol was Clara Bow. Bow was an American actress who also starred in several well known silent films, as well as “talky” films. These were simply films with sound.

We then shifted our discussions to major theories in media. The first theory mentioned was the Cultivation Theory, which was founded by George Gerbner. This theory suggests that exposure to media, over time, subtly “cultivates” viewers perceptions of reality. As Gerbner puts it, “television is a medium of the socialization of most people into standardized roles and behaviors. Its function is in a word, enculturation.” This brings up the idea of the “mean world syndrome.” Heavy users of television would view the world as more “dangerous, mean, and violent” rather than light users of television.

The second theory mentioned was the Agenda Setting Theory, which was introduced by Dr. Maxwell McCombs. This theory describes the “ability” of the news and media to influence the importance placed on the topics of the public agenda. There are multiple phases involved in this theory. Some of the major phases include the public sphere (where society discusses issues that affect everyone), public agenda, and public policy.

For the next half of the week, we discussed human behavior to authority and the bystander effect. We began by watching a film called The Big Picture. This film was about human behavior experiments that were done by Stanley Milgram. Milgram used a shock generator that increased in voltage from left to right. The machine was hooked up to a person where the current would be sent to a person. This was controlled by the “test subject” using the shock generator. The idea was to see how far the person using the shock generator would proceed before they turned to the moderator to stop. When this happened, the moderator simply told that person to keep going. Because of this obedience to authority, 60-65% of these people went all the way to the end.

Another example of this obedience to authority could be seen with the strip searches at a McDonald’s in Kentucky. A man posing to be a fake police officer called a McDonald’s supposedly investigating a theft, which then turned into a drug complaint. The man ordered the people over phone to do whatever they were told. The employees were ordered to strip as well as perform sexual behaviors. Even though the people knew what they were doing was wrong, they still did it because they felt pressured to obey authority.

Along with behavior to authority, there is another concept of the bystander effect. This is a psychological claim that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present; the greater number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help. An example of this can be seen with the death of Matthew Carrington. Carrington was a shy person who wanted to open up a little, so he wanted to join a fraternity at his college. In order to become a part of the fraternity, Matthew had to perform very physical tasks, which included intense exercise. The fraternity brothers then made him drink as much water as possible, which soon poisoned him. He later died right in front of four fraternity brothers. Because there were multiple people there, someone was waiting for the other person to act first and do something.

Another example of this bystander effect was seen with the stabbing of 28 year old Kitty Genovese in an apartment building. There were about 38 witnesses who saw the incident or heard it, but did nothing to stop it. By the time someone acted by calling the police it was already to late because she had died.

The last thing discussed was the Stanford Prison Experiment, which was created by Dr. Zimbardo. This was a social psychology experiment that attempted to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power, focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison officers. A group of 24 students were divided into two groups of twelve. One group would be the officers and the other would be the prisoners. The officers were given a uniform, whistle, sunglasses, and billy club. These items represent authority and power. The prisoners were given a number in place of their name and were chained at the ankle. This represented the loss of their freedom and degradation. The prisoners tested the guards several times. In response the guards used their authority and power to stop this by harassing the prisoners and degrading them. Days after the start, there were legit emotional breakdowns by some of the prisoners, which resulted in them having to be removed from the experiment. The experiment would last only 6 days before Dr. Zimbardo had enough.

-Tyler Tanevski

The evolution of the studio system in classical Hollywood played a key part in the rise of motion picture films. The beginning of studio systems can be traced back to the 1920’s, which was referred to as the “Classical Era.” What this means is that these studio systems relied on factory-based production as well as vertical integration of production, distribution, and exhibition. Vertical integration simply means that the production company has ownership over these three stages in the film process, which means they receive all of the profit. This led to the development of the “Big Five” studios and the “Little Three” studios. The “Big Five,” which were vertically integrated, consisted of MGM, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Paramount, and RKO. These studios not only produced and distributed films, but operated their own theater chains as well.

The “Little Three” consisted of Universal, Columbia, and United Artists (UA). These studios produced and distributed top feature films, but did not own their own theaters.

During the Great Depression and World War II, the studio system was at an all time high. Since these two crises were going on, this basically forced the government to tolerate the studios’ monopolistic control over the film industry. This allowed studio systems to maintain their factory operations as well as the “employees.” People that worked under these studios ranged from top stars to stagehands.

The 1940’s proved to be a unique era for the film industry. In 1946, the studios’ had their best year in terms of revenues and profits, but by 1947-1948 the industry was on the verge of collapse. There were two major reasons for this. The first being the Supreme Court’s 1948 Paramount decree. This was an antitrust ruling that resulted from persistent legal challenges by independent exhibitors, which forced the “Big Five” studios to sell their theater chains and prohibited the collusive trade practices that were crucial to the studios’ control of the motion-picture marketplace. The second reason for this decline was due to the rapid growth of television, which was propelled by sustained economic prosperity and wholesale changes in postwar American lifestyles. Watching television soon began to replace going to the movies because you had a television right in front of you. There was no need for people to go somewhere else to watch entertainment other than their living room. Luckily, the studios survived due to adapting to the new environment. Studios simply changed the way they made movies and did business. The studios concentrated on financing and distribution rather than production. This meant that studios had to now rely on independent producers to supply “packaged” projects that the studios would “green light” for production. This then gave more power to the independent producers. This led to the evolution of new American Cinema. Big name directors like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg began to dominate the industry.

This led to the development of one of the most famous films called Jaws. Jaws was the breakthrough “summer blockbuster,” and the first film to gross over $200 million at the box office and to return over $100 million in rental receipts to its distributor. Because of this, multiple sequels were released.

Jaws brought a spark back to the film industry, which paved the way for many more famous films. Some of these include Star Wars and Superman. The industry recovery accelerated in early 1980’s, which soon led to the emergence home-video and cable industries.

-Tyler Tanevski

After the emergence of the television industry in the 1970’s, a new road was being paved for this industry in the 1980’s. Women were starting to get more involved with acting roles on television. People like Betty White, Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, and Joan Rivers were known as women pioneers in the television industry. Betty White was and still is a long time comedian in the industry. She happened to be one of the first women to produce a national TV show during that time. Carol Burnett was another one of the funny ladies who became a “household name” in a week after she sang a song about the “boring” United States Secretary of State at the time. Mary Tyler Moore had a slow start to here career by slowly gaining experience through multiple small acting jobs. She then had a breakthrough in here career when she played a big part on the Dick Van Dyke Show. Through this show, she became known as “America’s Sweetheart.” Another person to mention is Joan Rivers. She was another comedian during this time who started out doing comedy in Chicago. She then progressed in here career by getting the chance to perform in Los Angeles. Her career progressed slow due to the taboo-like topics she talked about. For example, Rivers had jokes about pregnancy that she would talk about even when she was pregnant. Her career took off when Johnny Carson gave her a chance on the Tonight Show later on in her career.

During this pioneer era, big shows began to take air. It all started with the prime-time show Dallas. Millions of people watched this show because there was a sort of emotional connection that could be felt with the characters in the show. It led to the famous saying “who shot J.R.?” That saying came from an episode where J.R. was mysteriously shot, and no one knew who had done it.

From there, the cable era soon began. People now had more choices on what they wanted to watch. Because of this, there were no longer any sitcoms that sat in the top ten list of shows to watch. A new show had risen after this. That show was Cheers. It happened to be an American sitcom. This show became one of the most popular shows of its time because like Dallas, the show Cheers developed a community that people could identify with and connect with.

Another popular show had made a name for itself in the 1980’s. That show was Hillstreet Blues. This show put a different twist on things because it changed the television industry based on the mood of the show. Hillstreet Blues presented the personal lives of cops during the time, and how that impacted their behaviors. This then paved the way for another show, which was called St. Elsewhere. The purpose of the show was to show the day to day realities of working at a big hospital, which “stretched the medium” of television. These shows set up the foundation for a very popular show called ER, which made its debut in 1994. It was one of the most popular shows of its time with a total of 331 episodes, which spanned over 15 seasons. This show focused on the personal and professional crises of the doctors in the emergency room at County General Hospital in Chicago.

-Tyler Tanevski

To this day, television has been one of the largest industries in the United States. Television has been used as a delivery device to consumers, and as a medium for connecting people to things going on around the world. This has allowed companies to show their products as advertisements through television, which became known as commercials.

One of the biggest influences during the beginning of the television era was Rod Serling. Rod was an undersized paratrooper in World War II. Throughout the war, he experienced many traumas that went on to haunt him long after the war. To cope with this, Serling got into writing. Writing for Rod was a form of therapy where he could right out all of his problems out onto paper. Rod soon developed a great talent for writing, which later opened many doors for him in the film industry.

Rod found that he had multiple opportunities in the film industry. He wrote scripts for many films. Some of the include successful films like Patterns and Requiem for a Heavyweight. With all this success, Rod wanted more than just that. He wanted to be able to write about things that he had interests in like controversial matters at the time. However, the networks he worked for prohibited that, so he could only write what was pleasing to these networks. To resolve this, Serling decided to get into science fiction in order to write about these controversial topics. This soon led to the creation of The Twilight Zone in 1959 on CBS.

The Twilight Zone series was a great way for Serling to write about the controversial topics that interested him without necessarily saying what that topic was. This show was a very popular show, but ended shortly after five years in 1964. Shortly after the cancellation, Serling continued to write in a way that provided him the therapy he needed from the war. However, the network sponsors did not want this type of idea that Serling was trying to convey. Rod soon started to lose interest in writing because he felt as if he had put everything that he possibly could from his mind onto paper. Tragically around ten years later after the cancellation of The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling suffered a heart attack. He later died on June 28th, 1975.

Even after his death, Rod Serling’s work laid down the foundation for the television industry. This can be seen in the 1970’s when television really began to “take off.” Famous shows like Happy Days, and All In The Family displayed the “real” lives of families in the 1970’s. Other shows like M*A*S*H were created to use humor to escape from the horror and depression of the situation, which happened to be war. Many other popular shows came as a result of these shows, some being similar to the shows listed above. With the television industry exploding, the United States Government wanted to manage when these shows aired. The government came up with the idea of “family hours,” where certain shows were on certain time slots throughout the day. Many Saturdays were spent by families gathering around the television to watch these shows, one after the other. This soon led to trouble between the networks and the government. The networks claimed that these “family hours” were a violation of the networks’ first amendment rights. This case later went to court where it was ruled that this was, in fact, a violation of the first amendment rights of the networks.

-Tyler Tanevski