University Of California Los Angeles Mass Media and Technology Discussion
Please answer *one* of the following four questions (in roughly 600-900 words):
1. Advertisers for decades have exerted significant control over mass media in the United States — a topic covered at length in the course material. What kind of efforts have been made to push back against or limit the influence of advertisers? Which of those efforts have been most effective in your opinion and how might those efforts apply to today’s networked digital era, where search engine and social media corporations wield enormous power to deliver audiences? Please make explicit reference to course readings in your answer.
2. In the United States, the mass media has tended to amplify the voices of certain kinds of people. What kinds of people? Please provide examples from different chapters of US history that demonstrate whose voices were being amplified. How would you say that kind of amplification has shaped American perceptions of reality? Whose voices weren’t being amplified by the mainstream media and, as a result, what kind of things were mainstream-media audiences not properly learning about? In writing your answer, please draw explicitly on material you read that was included on the course syllabus and/or that you explored in the course discussion forums.
3. What do you think has exerted a greater influence on mass media content over the course of U.S. history: media business models or media technologies? Explain why you chose one over the other and please draw explicitly on course readings to support your answer. (*Note: A “business model” is how a media outlet makes money — through donors, advertisers, sponsors, subscribers, taxpayers, etc.)
4. In this course, you have studied the history of mass-media journalism in the United States. Many observers believe that developments in the digital era have thrown U.S. journalism into crisis. Others, like Barnouw, for instance, might say that the business model embraced by journalism is the main problem and has been the problem for a very long time — that commercial journalism in the United States has always been in crisis. What is the nature of the crisis these people are describing? In what way is it the same crisis now as it was in earlier periods? Use examples from the past eras we have studied to make your case. *Bonus: What do you suggest might be done to finally move U.S. journalism out of this crisis?
