Juan Monroy — Class 2: Mass Culture, Inc.

Media Industries
- society and culture
- technology
- economics
Pre-Modern Culture
- Segmented Feudal Society
  - Royalty
  - Nobility
  - Peasantry
- High Culture
  - written tradition
  - scarcity
  - “classical”
    - Theater
    - Epic Poetry
    - Scripture
    - Philosophy
    - Classics
- Folk Culture
  - oral rradition
  - passed down one-to-one
    - songs
    - myths
    - proverbs
    - example of the [stone cutter and the
      sun](http://mythologystories.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/indi
      a–6/)
- Artisanal Production
  - handmade production
  - local markets
  - small scale
Enlightenment
- Spread of Knowledge
  - printing press
  - rise of vernacular languages
  - science and rationality
- Rise of Sovereignty
  - Protestant reformation
  - French/American Revolutions
Industrial Production
- contrasts with artisanal production
- assembly line
- technology
  - steam engine
  - printing press
- economies of scale
  - unit cost declines as production quantities increase
    - first copy
      - production costs
      - staff salaries
      - taxes
      - investor dividends
      - loan repayments
    - marginal / incremental costs
      - marketing
      - duplication costs
      - increased staffing
      - more facilities
    - production costs spread across mass audiences
  - large operations
    - greater investment
    - greater revenue
    - greater profits
  - supply and demand
    - economies of scale create cost savings
    - consumers will buy more
    - increase economies of scale
    - improved efficiency
Mass Society
- abstraction
- millions, billions
- rise of the nation-state
Mass Culture
- mass-produced culture
- mass media
- national culture
- rise of (culture) media industries
Mass Media
- analog reproductions
  - printed texts
  - recorded sounds
  - electromagnetic transmissions
- media were mass media
  - radio
  - television
  - newspapers
  - magazines
  - film
- one-to-many
  - media produced by media companies
  - gatekeepers
  - homogenized taste
  - “industrialization of culture” (Adorno and Horkheimer)
  - “read-only” media
New Media
- digital code
  - transduction
  - compressed
  - packets
- convergence
  - media adopting digital technology
    - telephone
    - print media
    - film
    - video games
    - recordings
    - cable satellite
    - broadcasting
- peer-to-peer
  - interactive
    - not “read-only”
    - but “read-write”
  - social
    - creating media ourselves
    - strip away the middle layers
    - Facebook
    - YouTube
    - blogs
  - asynchronous
    - time-shifting technologies
  - narrowcasted and personalized
    - demographics
    - individualized media, via algorithms
  - multimedia
    - breakdown distinctions between media
    - digital convergence
- market segmentation
  - information technologies have lowered production costs
    - easier to profit from smaller audiences
  - advertisers value small but targeted audiences
    - higher price for specific audiences
  - research techniques and consumer information databases
    aggregate a large audience across narrowcast media
    - more efficient than using mass media and reaching everyone
  - traditional mass media have lost audiences to narrowcasters
    - respond with narrowly targeted programs of their own
Media Economics
- Competition
  - size
    - local
    - national
    - global
  - scale
    - monopoly
      - one company dominates
      - sets pricing
      - local monopolies are common
    - duopoly
      - two independent companies dominate
      - newspapers, radio/TV station owners
    - oligopoly
      - few companies dominate
      - most common in media
  - barriers to entry
    - obstacles to entering a market
    - high costs
  - less access to capital
- Mass Media Revenue
  - direct sales
    - purchases by consumers
  - rentals
    - payment to borrow the product
  - subscriptions
    - payment for a continuing service
  - usage fees
    - admission fees
    - pay-to-play
  - advertising
    - indirect payment
    - payment for exposure to audience
  - syndication
    - payment to rent content between media companies
  - license fees and royalties
    - compensation for content creation
  - subsidies
    - government payments
    - socially valuable
    - not commercially sustainable
  - voluntary donations
    - corporations, foundations, individuals
    - pay-as-you-wish
    - compensate for valuable content
- New Media Revenue
  - advertising (Google advertising)
  - pay subscription (newspaper pay wall)
  - commissions (eBay)
  - social media gathers free content (Facebook)