Daily drops three print editions

A move like this at the Daily Inter Lake wouldn't surprise me a bit.

Netflix shift a harbinger of doom for print?

What does this story about Netflix and the company's shift away from its legacy product (renting actual DVDs) to a digital product (downloading movies) have to say about the newspaper industry? Newspaper's have their own legacy product (ink on paper) and digital versions (Web sites). Unlike Netflix, however, newspapers still generate most of their revenue from legacy rather than digital products.

Chapter Three

This week we embark on a fairly important chapter, media economics. While there was a bit of economic discussion in chapter 1, the rubber meets the road in chapter three. Read the chapter and then take a look at the PowerPoint I prepared. Be forewarned, the PowerPoint for this chapter is only loosely linked to the text, and represents the kind of get-on-my-soapbox rant I occasionally unload on my face-to-face classrooms.

I'd apologize, but I actually think this stuff is really important. Good newspapers (or TV or radio or online) that do real journalism are really a key part of maintaining a healthy, thriving nation. But there isn't much good journalism left. Instead we're left with a lot of nonsense such as this:

Media ignores the news to focus on manufactured conflict.

Another sad commentary on the state of American media. The Washington press corps, the elite of the journalistic elite, lobbing 23 questions about a faux controversy about when the president would speak, and only nine about what he intended to speak about. Whether you love the president, or hate him, or if you fall somewhere in between, I think you'd all agree that since he wanted to talk about his proposal to create jobs, while we are in the midst of the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression, that the substance of his speech should matter to these knuckleheads.

I suspect contemporary media economics has something to do with this dumbing down of our discourse (to the degree that we allow it to continue, we share some blame). That's my theory at least. You may agree, or disagree. If you are so moved to share, I'd like to hear about. Do worry about offending me with contrary opinions. I love the debate.

Look for more from me on chapter three tomorrow. I have the day off (thank God I'm not counting on a government to get it right and actually pass something that will boost employment) so I will share some additional readings with you then.

Chapter 2 preview

I made some minor changes to the Chapter 2 PowerPoint this evening, primarily deleting material that is no longer covered in the chapter along with reorganizing a few slides. If you've already reviewed the PowerPoint don't fret, the changes are not too drastic.

We're really taking a look back in Chapter 2 at the technology that allowed Mass Comm to exist and flourish. It's a bit of a history lesson, which isn't such a bad thing.

The quiz will be open from 6 p.m. Wednesday until Midnight Friday.

Now this week's discussion topic. In May Amazon announced that sales of ebooks had outpaced paper books for the first time. With news increasingly moving from print to online, can you know envision a future in which print technology no longer exists, and the written word is entirely a digital medium?

Ironically the link is to the New York Times, a bastion of the print world which is trying to keep its print product alive by charging readers on its Web site. However, you get 20 free stories online a month. If you've already exceeded your total shoot me an email and we'll work something out.

Please post a response by Thursday evening. I will try to interject comments when possible, but I work during the day so I don't always have the opportunity.

Look for Chapter 2 Tuesday evening

If you're looking for a post on Chapter 2, its not ready yet. I will have a review for you Tuesday evening.

Mass Media messages

Here's an example of Mass Communication that I encountered this morning while I was in the FVCC campus - an electronic message board in the Arts and Technology Building. Chapter 1 discusses Mass Media ubiquity, meaning we are surrounded by mass media messages in all aspects of our life. Here's a relatively simple assignment: post a response describing an example of when you encountered a mass media message in the last 24 hours, the more unexpected the better. I'd like everyone to post their response by 6 p.m. Thursday. Thoughtful replies to posts by other students will earn extra credit.

Also, the Chapter 1 quiz will become available today at 6 p.m. and remain available until midnight Friday. In a previous post I mentioned that we will deal with the economic issues addressed in your text book when we discuss chapter 3, but there is one question on the quiz regarding advertising revenue, so make sure you've read those pages before you take the quiz. Good luck.

OT: Can your instructor write?

BTW, OT is an abbreviation for "Off Topic," just as BTW is online shorthand for "By the way" and LMAO is short for, well, you know what it stands for.

Anyway, I have a column in the current edition of the Flathead Beacon, which you can find here.

Maybe this isn't entirely OT after all. We should start compiling a list of all text/online short hand. It might be useful in class. OTOH, doing so would take a lot of time.