This topic gives students an overview of media and its vast influence on all aspects of our society and our personal lives. First, students should have a basic understanding of mass media’s evolution by briefly reviewing the histories of different forms of media. Then, class discussions should examine media in the present day. With the advent of the personal computer, the increasingly widespread availability of the internet and more affordable mobile devices, media now can be viewed, experienced and globally consumed like never before. Comparisons should be made between media then and now.
Students should understand the basic differences between mass media and corporate media. Students should also understand how social media has become vitally important to both, while being a unique category unto itself.
Whereas mass media and corporate media provide content, created by producers, to be passively viewed by consumers, social media allows consumers to produce, distribute and interact with the media they themselves create. This interactivity has radically changed the way people not only view media but it has empowered people to instantaneously communicate and exchange information with others around the world. This empowerment has radically influenced traditional media, forcing media companies to change the way media is produced, marketed, and distributed.
Discussions of social media’s impact on other forms of media should happen throughout this course, with closer examination during the week the Social Media Topic is assigned.
//////////MEDIA THEN & NOW: MEDIA IS EVERYWHERE
Key concepts / terms
Mass Media ♦ Corporate Media ♦ Social Media
Resources
- Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” Broadcast
- “Lumiere Brothers’ First Films” (Excerpt, 2:17-7:20) – Collection of Short Films narrated by Bertrand Tavernier
- Maxim Gorky’s 1896 article “Lumiere’s Cinematograph”
- Television History – A brief history of television dates & facts
- History of Print Media – a visual history of Print – YouTube
- A Short History of the Radio – from FCC’s website
- Sociology of Mass Media – by Gordon Marshall, Encyclopedia.com
- The Rise of Business Video in Government – from CISCO Corp. Newsletter
- Disney, Time Warner and Other Media Shares Fall as Investors Worry About TV’s Future by Emily Steel & Brooks Barnes, New York Times
- Corporate Video Concepts – examples of corporate videos
- Idea Rocket Animation – examples of corporate animations
- The Story of Television – RCA documentary chronicles TV history in the U.S. from 1936 – 1956
