COMM 1307: Introduction to Mass Communications

Understanding the media also requires understanding popular culture. Consider the following observation I've made about my own generation, a.k.a. "Generation X". What do you think concerns us? Appeals to us? Drives our buying decisions? Read this piece and tell me. Now think about your own generation. Are you a Baby Boomer? A New Millenial? Generation Y? Ask yourself what drives your generation. How would you gear a particular medium to your own peer group?

We were the class of 1984.

We had high hopes, bright futures and opportunities. The world was ours to own. That's what we were led to believe…or rather, what we led ourselves to believe.

The years between 1980 and 1984 were exciting to us. We gleefully consumed the icons of prosperity, wore designer labels, pursued the lives we saw in the movies of our time. We wanted the happy ending promised us by earning great wads of cash.

Didn't happen.

Into the 1990s, we sulked. We pouted about things that were our right to have and didn't get. We were brats. We whined about everything. We spent money we didn't have. Our entertainment was that which was "retreaded" from generations previous. Scores of "remakes" hit the movie houses, airwaves and Broadway stages. It was the decade of no imagination and contemplating belly button lint. And we almost carried it over into the next ten years.

Into the New Millenium, we are steadfastly refusing to settle into our forties as middle-aged has-beens. We've chosen to extend our youth for one more decade, and possibly two. Not that this is a bad thing, but true to our 80s selves, we're in danger of overdoing it again.

The class of '84 is having a collective mid-life crisis and the women are leading it (see the "urban cougar" phenomenon and this inane garbage on TV, The Age of Love). We're not even embarrassed about it. It is as if we're throwing ourselves over the precipice and screaming, "Hot damn, what a ride!" It's the last-ditch effort to reclaim that which we ignored in our thirties in the name of HOAs, SUVs, mortgages and 2.6 kids.

What are we thinking?

We're still no better at taking responsibility for being screw offs. We're still not "owning our stuff" in terms of realizing that the fault is ours for how we turned out.

On the flipside (and you would have to grow up with vinyl and cassettes to get that reference), we're also doing some things that make sense. We're not afraid to be first time parents at 40. We're taking life a little less seriously than our parents did. We're realizing the errors of tanning beds, too many drugs and too little responsibility. And we're protesting the current war while still lauding our troops for their sacrifices. We have begun to realize that the only opportunities we get are the ones we create for ourselves. We're caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of insanity and seem be to making the trek rather well.

One thing that strikes me as terribly Orwellian is that, true to his novel 1984, we have a kind of Big Brother thing happening in our lives now. We never dreamed that kind of intrusion into our personal lives would actually happen when we were reading the book in senior English. The Internet, an invention of the U.S. military and not Al Gore, has made us a whole lot less "anonymous". Thanks to the Patriot Act, it's easy for the government to look in on us. God knows commercial entities have been doing it a lot longer (cookies anyone?). But I digress…

What I'm ruminating on in this bit of prose inspired by watching Grosse Pointe Blank last night is, what happened to us to make us the way we are now? And where are we going as a generation? Doug Coupland's book Generation X has us labeled as "underemployed, overeducated, intensely private and unpredictable". We've been stereotyped as cynical, hopeless, frustrated and unmotivated slackers who wear grunge clothing, listen to alternative music and still live at home because we cannot get real jobs. Is this who we really are? Or even were?

I don't think so.

But what do you think? Let me know.

Credits Shock Jock With Boosting Subscriber Numbers

By Andrew Hampp

Published: January 09, 2007
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Looks like Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin may have made the right bet when he recruited Howard Stern away from CBS.

One media exec wonders if the bonus paid to Howard Stern could have been better spent on an ad campaign.

Satellite radio's No. 2 player paid Howard Stern an $83 million bonus today for his assistance in delivering enough new subscribers to exceed Sirius's goal of 2 million subscribers.

Adds to $720M contract
It's a hefty sum in addition to the $720 million the talk titan has already pocketed from his five-year deal with Sirius that also includes stock options. But the bonus payout has at least one buyer questioning its value.

"If he was such a champion of industry and thought this was going to be the future, does he need to take this money?" said Rich Russo, director-broadcast, JL Media. "If they spent that $83 million on an advertising campaign it probably would've generated an extra 3, 4 million subscribers. If you did an $83 million buy, that's a good expenditure."

In fact, Mr. Russo said, if you do the math behind the Stern bonus, with an annual subscription averaging out at $144, Sirius could have theoretically given out 576,000 free subscriptions.

Come a long way
Sirius ended 2006 with 6 million subscribers, a good 1 million short of analyst expectations, following XM's 7.6 million base. Still, it's come a long way from the days when it signed Mr. Stern for a $500 million contract in 2004 -- at that point, Sirius had 600,000 subscribers. Mr. Russo said this is a good pace for Sirius, but could be better given Mr. Stern's name recognition and previous domination of the format.

"He is the No. 1 attraction there -- sports and everything, he's the guy," Mr. Russo said. "Unfortunately, he's still not the factor he was when he was on terrestrial. There's not as much buzz about him, not as many advertisers saying 'Hey, I want to get into him.' ... He was getting mainstream advertisers toward the end of the show. He's not getting those ultra blue-chip advertisers [at Sirius] just yet."

Me-too-itis Hobbles Too Many Marketers' Efforts

By Scott Donaton, Advertising Age MediaWorks

Published: January 08, 2007

Most of the online viral campaigns you hear about and see these days have one thing in common: They suck.

Folgers' toleratemornings.com is one example of a bad idea turned into a viral campaign. Georgia-Pacific's Brawny Academy, Nissan's living-in-a-Sentra, and Hewlett-Packard's skunk let loose in a coffeehouse video are others.

On the surface, this isn't surprising. Most of everything sucks, from films to books to TV shows to, of course, ads. Which is why those that don't tend to stand out.

Desperation
But too many of these sponsored viral-video (and fake-blog and social-networking) thingies really, really suck, and there's a reason for that: They are not the end result of an actual idea or strategy but are born of a desperate desire to do something, anything, in the new-media space.

Yes, it's the dreaded "GMOOT" syndrome, short for "Get me one of those," the basic command from CEOs to CMOs or CMOs to their agencies. It sounds oversimplistic, but if you get a few drinks into a marketing exec, he'll admit that at some point he's been directed to do something because his boss read about it in Ad Age or saw that a rival company was doing it or was told by his neighbor during the commute in from Greenwich that he had to get in the game.

'The boys on the 6:12'
I first noticed this circa 1995, when the cry was, "Get me a website!" Why? "I don't know, because everyone's got one." A few years later it was, "We need to do something in branded entertainment!" Great, what's the concept? "How do I know? I just want to be able to tell the boys on the 6:12 that we're on the cutting edge. They're all doing it." You could probably trace this all the way back to Adam, who bit the apple because Eve did. It was a bad idea then, and still is today.

For a prime example, pull up your browser right now (I'll wait) and type in toleratemornings.com. This is Folgers' attempt to appear cool and ironic by offering slow risers such appealing goodies as a wake-up call on their mobile phone from "Lucy," billed as a "sexy way to rise and shine (for the fellas)," or a "boss tracker," in case you want to catch a few z's at your desk. The fact that it's meant to be tongue-in-cheek makes it somehow sadder, like a dad trying to act cool in front of his teenage daughter's friends (aside to my daughter, Molly: Sorry).

You can imagine the pitch meeting: "So people will come to the site and get a good laugh and realize that we understand them and how much they hate mornings, and the next time they're in a grocery store, they'll buy Folgers brand coffee because they'll see it as another tool to help them tolerate mornings." What you can't imagine is someone signing off on it.

Bad ideas gone viral
It's somewhat unfair to single out P&G's Folgers, though, because there are plenty of other bad examples, including Georgia-Pacific's Brawny Academy, Nissan's guy who lived in his car for a week and Hewlett-Packard's viral video for its "Over the Hedge" tie-in showing a skunk let loose in a coffeehouse.

Of course there have been some hits as well. Chevy's willingness to allow negative user-generated ads for its Tahoe stands out, as do Axe's brilliant Gamekillers and the hilarious Shave Everywhere site for Norelco's Body Groomer.

As with ads in any medium, those that work are those that start with an insight, show an understanding of their target audience, and have an authentic, relevant connection to the brand. Those that don't smack of having been produced because someone wanted to do a viral video to please himself, his boss or his board. They're the commercial equivalent of YouTube videos of kids falling off skateboards.

I've loudly encouraged experimentation with new media forms, and believe marketers are better off taking risks than they are sitting around waiting for industrywide standards and measurement metrics to catch up. Permission to fail is essential. But none of these forms will earn respect as a legitimate marketing tool until it's approached with respect and discipline. Doing something just to do something still leads to nothing.

THE MID TERM EXAM IS TODAY. ARE YOU READY?

MPA President Defends Magazine Shutdowns as 'Productive' and Inevitable

By Nat Ives
Published: October 23, 2006

PHOENIX (AdAge.com) -- The magazine business has come a long way in the last year, Jack Kliger told the American Magazine conference this morning.

In a rousingly upbeat speech, MPA chairman Jack Kliger told the conference 'we should be willing to eliminate unproductive products without fearing that thinning the herd means we are signaling our industry's demise.

"We are no longer threatened by digital media," said Mr. Kliger, president-CEO of Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. and chairman of the Magazine Publishers of America. "We are figuring out how to use it to our advantage.

No death knell
"We are no longer fighting circulation transparency, we are addressing the right approach to it. We are no longer debating whether to market our medium, we are discussing the most effective way to do so. We are no longer reluctant to be a part of the advertising results debate, we are demanding to be a full participant in the advertising effectiveness discussion."

Mr. Kliger also said that shutting down magazines, as he did earlier this year with the print edition of Elle Girl, should be seen as productive, not a death knell for a company or the industry.

The opposite of death
"As we develop new brands and platforms, we should at the same time be willing to eliminate unproductive products without fearing that thinning the herd means we are signaling our industry's demise," he told attendees.

"Because closing a magazine is no more a sign of the death of the industry than the cancellation of a TV series means the shutdown of a network -- or a haircut is a sign that you're going bald. Most of the time, it's quite the opposite," he said.

Change agent
On a slightly more personal note, Mr. Kliger said he wanted and expected the magazine industry to outlast his tenure by a mile.

"I've been in the magazine business for most of my adult life," he said. "And I'm not ready to end up my career watching our industry get marginalized and fade away. I'd rather be an agent of change than efficiently manage our decline. And I'd rather pave the way so the next generation of editors and publishers can have long and rewarding careers, where magazines are a renewable resource firmly ensconced in a seat at the big table."

NBC Digital Czar: Big Media Must Deal With the 'Small Media' Known as Consumers

By Claire Atkinson
Published: October 12, 2006

NEW YORK (Adage.com) -- NBC Universal digital czar Beth Comstock on surviving and thriving in the new media revolution: "Content is still king, but the monarchy has been overthrown. YouTube, MySpace, iTunes -- it's the invasion of the pronouns in a world all about me." But big media has a new place in the universe.

Ms. Comstock's comments, delivered at Mipcom, an international programming tradeshow in Cannes, France, echoed those made last week at the Association of National Advertisers by Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley and Burger King Chief Marketing Officer Russ Klein, who spoke about the need for marketers to cede control to consumers.

'Consumer-led republic'
"The consumer-led republic is replacing the monarchy of major media. Consumers are in more control than ever," said Ms. Comstock, NBC Universal's president-digital media and market development. "What's changing is the very definition of the consumer. Increasingly, consumers might be called small media -- just about anyone can now create and deliver content."

Ms. Comstock described NBC Universal's five principles for handling the coup in the media landscape. She said NBC Universal needed to "create the best, most innovative content, get used to sharing control, tap the power of the community, develop a keen understanding of constantly changing consumer behavior and, finally get used to the idea that the media marketplace from now on is going to be full of contradictions and tensions."

One of those principles is a topic high on every media executives' agenda these days: consumer behavior. "When I took this job a year ago, I assumed that few people would go home at night, and curl up on the sofa with a portable video device to watch a 22-minute program. But then iTunes video entered the market. And we started doing research. We discovered that 68% of iPod video owners were using the device inside their home, not on the road."

NBC kept hearing about the guy who took his iPod to bed to watch his show while his wife watched the TV, or about the guy who watched basketball on the couch while his wife watched video clips on her cellphone.

Embracing tensions
Ms. Comstock said that NBC Universal had "embraced the tensions" by offering a three-copy download-to-own version of "King Kong" that could be played on either a PC, a portable media player or a DVD. She described that deal as a global first that NBC viewed as creating a new segment and new users.

IVillage, which NBC Universal acquired in May, will have a great role to play in shaping the face of the NBC network, and the community it brings together is something else that big media needs to understand. "There's a connection between control and community, the more you're willing to give up the first, the easier it is to develop the second."

She cited other ways NBC is tapping into communities, describing a "Biggest Loser" club that has 40,000 members who pay for dieting tips. The company also recently acquired Rotoworld.com, a fantasy sports site that works in conjunction with NBCSports.com. NBC Universal's Bravo cable channel also launched a website for the gay community called OutzoneTV.com and another for comedy enthusiasts called Dotcomedy.com.

Copyright © 1992-2006

Bonnie Fuller, Floyd Abrams and Others Discuss How to Cover the Famous

By Nat Ives
Published: October 13, 2006

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Bonnie Fuller, whose Star magazine reports this week that "Vince Cheated," said during a panel on privacy yesterday that celebrities are the ones to blame when the media covers intimate details of their lives.

"It's not really about the press," said Ms. Fuller, exec VP-editorial director at American Media, whose titles include Star, The National Enquirer and National Examiner. "Celebrities are deciding to use their own private lives for whatever gain they can get."

Not that the gossip doyenne could say there's anything wrong with that. But if you use positive coverage of your relationships and family to get ahead, then you have to expect stories like this week's on whether actor Vince Vaughn cheated on his girlfriend, actress Jennifer Aniston.

'Newsmakers' panel
Ms. Fuller was speaking at a Reuters "Newsmakers" panel, assembled to debate how far the media should delve into private figures' lives. Other panelists included Floyd Abrams, the first amendment lawyer who is himself famous in certain circles; Jacob Weisberg, editor in chief, Slate; Gary Morgan, CEO, Splash News and Picture Agency; and Hilary B. Rosen, the business and political consultant who led the Recording Industry Association of America for 17 years.

Mr. Abrams asked Ms. Fuller about those invaded stars who don't, for example, sell their baby photos to national magazines. Ms. Fuller's retort: Everyone knows that fame has an upside and a downside. And she isn't bothered when gossip columns write about her life, she said, because she's "kind of" a public figure herself.

The whole question may be beside the point, Mr. Weisberg said. The world in which a few media titans could decide whether the country found out about FDR's polio or JFK's women, after all, has been obliterated by blogs and other new-media outlets that operate by their own standards. "The elite press no longer plays a gatekeeper function."

Proud paparazzo
Mr. Morgan, the former Fleet Street reporter turned proud paparazzo, agreed. "We're merging now between celebrity and politicians and public figures," he said. American reporters may have refrained from reporting on affairs or sickness for a while, but that reflected a lack of competition in local newspaper markets, while England's papers are all national and always at each other's throats.

"I don't think any of us are capable of stopping where we're going," Mr. Morgan added, without evident regret.

Copyright © 1992-2006

This is the film I mentioned when we discussed Chapter 9: Motion Pictures (Amanda's chapter). This is Spinal Tap

It also relates to our chapter on Sound Recording, particularly the music industry. If you have EVER worked with a band in any capacity, you can completely relate to this movie. It is a "mockumentary," but it (forgive the pun) truly strikes a chord.

And my favorite movie line is:

"I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem *may* have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being *crushed* by a *dwarf*. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object." --David Saint Hubbins

(Saint Hubbins is the patron saint of quality footwear.)

The sequel, some 20 years later, is Break Like the Wind.

James Lileks is a writer for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. When he's not writing, he maintains this gem of a website.

The Institute of Official Cheer.

Interesting. I found this on YouTube. AskaNinja.com explains podcasting.

Silly...but he has some good points.