This document discusses several trends in mass media, including media piracy, convergence, and changes in the mass media business model. It notes that while traditional media consumption is down, people are consuming more media than ever through non-traditional channels. It has become easier for people to access commercial media without paying due to technologies that enable piracy. The document also discusses how convergence has changed audience behavior, with audiences now platform-agnostic and engaging with multiple screens simultaneously. There has been increasing concentration of media ownership among just a few large companies.

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Chapter 2:
Convergence and the
Reshaping of Mass
Communication

2. Media Piracy
•While traditional media consumption is down
(and, along with it, traditional media profits)
consumption via non-traditional channels is up;
in fact, Americans are watching more videos,
listening to more music, reading more often,
playing more video games, consuming more
news, and accessing the Internet more than
ever before – we are consuming more media
than ever but we’re simply doing it in new
ways…and also not paying for it like we used
to…

3. • Due to Media Convergence and the Digital Revolution
and through a variety of technologies, it has gotten
much easier and almost routine for people to get
commercial mass media without paying for it. With that
in mind, answer the following:
• Part A.) What do you think about people “sharing” digital
media? Have you ever illegally downloaded a song,
movie, or some other form of digital media? If so, how
do you justify that decision?
• Part B.) If you were selling commercial mass media,
how would you combat the problem of digital piracy?
IN-CLASS STUDY FOCUS
QUESTIONS

4. Good News for Media Industries
• The “Rules” of media consumption have changed
because of MEDIA CONVERGENCE; the erosion
of traditional distinctions among types of media –
consumers are now getting their media through the
same channel/device instead of distinct ones
•This “new” audience is described as being
“platform-agnostic”
• PLATFORM = MEDIA CHANNEL
• AGNOSTIC = UNCOMMITTED TO ONE (often
applied to religion)

5. Good News for Media Industries
•Globally, media consumers average nearly 44
hours a week with mass media – a figure that grew
by six hours a week between 2012 and 2014 alone
•The average American child (between 8 and 18)
spends more than seven hours a day engaged
simultaneously with many different screens
•They are adept at media multitasking;
simultaneous consumption of many different kinds
of media

6. Changes in Mass Media Business
•Concentration of ownership:
• Today six companies own about 90% of ALL corporate media
content consumed by Americans
•Conglomeration:
• The ownership of media outlets by larger, NONMEDIA
companies who are typically not interested at all in the process
of communication, only the profits
•Oligopoly:
• A concentration of media interests in an even smaller number of
companies
• This runs the risk of the continuation of changing the goal from
possible “shared meaning” to one of financial gain; being
responsible to shareholders rather than an “audience” pushes
communication into simply being a product instead of a process

7. Changes in Mass Media Business
•Why do we have this Mass
Media Corporation
domination?
•The Telecommunications Act
of 1996
•FREE SPEECH FOR SALE

8. Mass Communication Trend:
CONCENTRATION (SYNERGY)
•SYNERGY = SYNCHED + ENERGY
•CONCENTRATION (SYNERGY) =
Synergy can be when a
conglomerate’s subsidiaries promote
a product owned by the company
themselves.

9. Mass Communication Trend:
CONCENTRATION (SYNERGY)
• DISNEY ASSETS
• Use their TV and Radio networks to promote their
movies, toys and theme parks by incorporating
coverage into the programming itself. For example:
• GOOD MORNING AMERICA had a “Star Wars” day
• ESPN featured the trailer
• The Radio Disney Music Awards had Star Wars as part
of the program…

11. •STAR WARS @ THE WHITE
HOUSE
•“DISNEY OWNS EVERYTHING”
Mass Communication Trend:
CONCENTRATION (SYNERGY)

12. Audience Fragmentation & Technology
•Narrowcasting:
• The opposite of “Broadcasting” = going
for smaller audiences such as
specialized cable TV channels, “radio”
stations & podcasts, magazines, etc.;
also know as NICHE MARKETING
or TARGETING
•Zonecasting:
• Technology delivering different
commercials to specific neighborhoods

13. Hypercommercialism
•Recouping the costs involved in acquiring numerous or
large media outlets (e.g., through the selling of more
advertising on existing and new media and identifying
additional ways to combine content and commercials)
leads to hypercommercialism.
•Product placement:
• Using products within the content as “background”
•Brand entertainment:
• When brands are “characters” in the programming and
name-checked specifically
•A typical show contains more than 4 minutes of
product placement and nearly 15 minutes of
commercials per hour

14. •“COST OF ENTRY” = what it financially
costs to make mass media
•In the newly evolving mass communication,
content providers are just as likely to be
individuals who believe in something or have
something to say as they are big media
companies in search of audiences and profits =
“the people formerly known as the audience”
Mass Communication Trend:
PROCESS EVOLUTION

15. • Content providers can now be lone
individuals aided by low cost of entry
• As a result, messages can now be quite
varied, idiosyncratic, and freed of the
producers' time demands
• Feedback can now be instantaneous and
direct, and, as a result, audiences, very
small or very large, can be quite well known
to content producers and distributors
Mass Communication Trend:
PROCESS EVOLUTION

16. • Do you trust the “Mass Media”? No matter
your answer, who do you trust to help form
your “reality”?
IN-CLASS STUDY FOCUS
QUESTIONS