The Magical World of Media

October 16, 1923 a bit of magic was brought to the world with the creation of The Walt Disney Company also known as just plain Disney. Yes Disney brought fun, magical characters and movies to our lives like Mickey Mouse and Toy Story. Founded by Walt Disney and Roy Disney (Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio) turned into what we know as Disney in 1929. Disney is one of the largest media and entertainment conglomerates in the world. Freepress.com listed the big six media corporations of 2008 and Disney was second with their 2008 revenues at 37.8 billion dollars.

             

Disney owns ABC television network, a range of cable networks like ESPN, the Disney Channel, SOAPnet, A&E and Lifetime. Under the Disney umbrella there’s also 277 radio stations, music and book publishing companies, production companies like Touchstone, Miramax, Walt Disney pictures and Pixar Animation Studios. Can’t forget the cellular service Disney Mobile and Disney has many theme parks around the world. 

           

How can one company have their fingers in so many types of media and with holdings in so many companies within those types of media? Disney even has a couple of international channels. Its amazing finding out how much media Disney controls within the United States but it’s even more amazing to learn Disney has most of the world watching their media.

             

Little kids don’t need an introduction about Disney. Disney with their adorable cartoons and the classic saying everyone says “I’m going to Disney Land” what kid wouldn’t love that.

            

 Since Disney needs no introduction and everyone can recognize a Disney character with no hesitation, Disney gets the best kind of advertisement word of mouth. Everyone is talking about Disney and even other TV shows are adding Disney characters or making fun of The Disney Company. South Park had Mickey Mouse manipulating The Jonas Brothers performances to sell sex to little girls. That episode had no facts behind it of course and was met for entrainment only, but what if Disney was sending little signals out. Disney has a big enough control of the media to lead the general public to lean to something Disney prefers more.

             

It would be interesting to see what Walt Disney would think of his magical company now. Would he think this conglomerate controls too much or would he be happy with his success? I thought Disney controlled too much and that was before I looked at what Disney owns. Music, magazines, radios, programming, networks and much more; it really makes you think how much media you deal with in a signal day that is linked to Disney. I don’t see this company down sizing any time soon but at least Disney is doing it with cute, cuddly characters that don’t hurt your eyes when seeing your media being taken over. 

Hide and Seek Facebook

CMJ 236 Assignment 2.1

To critique a news article using story components discussed in ‘News Reporting and Writing’ by Melvin Mencher can be a good start to fully understanding an article and what the journalist is trying to report on. Doing this for every article you read can get tedious but it’s a great start to learning how to write a well balanced article.

Sarah Perez wrote ‘The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now’, seen in the New York Times, is an article that most young Americans will want to read. Facebook is an online social networking website that has over 350 million active users all over the globe. Millions of people sharing information with each other, but how much personal information are they really sharing? The article talks about a few daring and controversial changes in December of 2009 relating to Facebook user’s privacy settings.

After reading the article anyone using Facebook since December can agree that the article is pretty accurate because when we logged on in December we remember a text book that explained the new changes and wanted us as users to confirm our privacy settings. Perez writes step by step on how to check your Facebook settings proving that she has had first had experience with Facebook and the general public can even go through the steps to check her knowledge of the subject.

The only thing I would give thumbs down to this article is that I feel some part of the story is incomplete. Why did Facebook prompt every one of its users new privacy settings? Perez just writes that Facebook “wants to compete with more open social networks like the microblogging media darling Twitter”. Maybe if you use Facebook and Twitter religiously you can make an abstract link as to why Facebook made this change, otherwise this article leaves you in the dark. Answering the why, would really bring more balance to this article.

The article is very knowledge based with easy steps that even a first time Facebook user can follow. Perez does a good job at keeping her opinions out and wrote a nice focused article about Facebook privacy settings. As a reader I found it very interesting and to be well informed about the workings of Facebook.

Getting the facts you need to protect your privacy is very important especially on the internet. There are people out there that could care less about your privacy and it’s your job to protect yourself because you never know who’s out there looking at your information.

Link to Article on New York Times Website:

http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2010/01/20/20readwriteweb-the-3-facebook-settings-every-user-should-c-29287.html?em

Are you the gatekeeper?

In journalism there are many legal and moral issues that society has to try to deal with. One issue that I’ve recently learned about is gatekeepers that really affect journalism and the way society receives their daily news. Gatekeepers are increasing in numbers and it’s harder and harder not to deal with a gatekeeper of some form. A gatekeeper first started out as someone that helps editors and journalists do responsible reporting by checking stories facts. Slowly gatekeepers started being seen as a harmful tool towards journalism. A gatekeeper control what stories becomes news whether on the radio, television, internet or any other form of media. Journalists are also considered gatekeepers, for example how I choose to write this blog on gatekeepers rather than a different moral issue to share with the public.

Editors are journalists’ gatekeepers; editors have to choose what journalists write about and which stories get transferred into news through newspapers and magazines. Corporations that own types of media, like newspapers, can even be gatekeepers by being biased and deciding which stories enhance their image better to the public.

Gatekeepers really determine what messages will be delivered to society in the form of media. Journalists write an abundant amount of stories which get sent to their editor being a gatekeeper. Then the editor chooses which stories to publish. How does one choose which stories are good enough to make it through and be printed in ink? The tragedy with the earthquake in Haiti every journalist writing about this story has a gatekeeper saying what stories to write or what images to show the public.

This concept of gatekeeper is an important issue to journalist because journalists rarely win against gatekeepers. If a journalist wanted to write about the financial holes in a fat cat corporation but the journalist’s company does business with the big corporation the journalist will not be able to write their story. A gatekeeper would make sure not to let that story onto the front page even if the story is very compelling and the public would be very interested in reading it.

Journalist need to remember why they write and be passionate about the stories they write. Hopefully gatekeepers will start to decrease and the general public will be more informed. But until then journalist need to write the stories they want in their own voice and not let gatekeepers turn them into writers that only write in the voice of the corporation.

Citations

Kovach, Bill, and Tom Rosenstiel. "Gatekeeping." he Century Foundation Press (1999): n. pag. Web. 15 Jan 2010. .

Rodman, George. Mass Media In A Changing World. 3rd Ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2009. 7-8. Print.