Review Sheet for Midterm 2

• Content, quality, constraints, budgets and funding
• Distribution
• The Internet and independent movies
• Examples of independent film makers

• Todd Gitlin: "TV and American culture: Flat and Happy."
• Gloria Steinem: "Sex, Lies & Advertising."

• Radio (Rise of advertising; sponsor control; program production; ratings)
• The Rise of Television (Fast adoption; Cold War context; Radio’s influence on TV; advertising influence on shows)
• TV content (common formats or genres)
• TV’s golden age: Anthologies and the problems that these faced.
• Quiz Shows -- television as an advertising medium
• Rise of scatter plan for advertising: more emphasis on demographics

• Organization and structure of television
• Who has a television?
• Older broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) and their strategies
• Newer networks (Fox,WB, UPN and Pax) and their strategies
• Trends in network audiences
• Rise of cable
• Narrow casting v. broadcasting
• Satellite
• Local broadcast stations
• Growth in choice
• Sources of TV revenues today -- importance of audience demographics
• Ratings and shares (including factors that influence ratings and problems with ratings)
• Advertiser preference for happy viewers (Least offensive programming; need for likeable characters, etc.)
• Advertisements (revenue; costs; what ads can/can't do; amount of advertising; ad clutter and creative ways to get around this)
• Program length commercials/infomercials
• Merchandizing
• Advertisers and sleaze
• Television costs (production costs; loss of money on first run; reasons for high costs, effects of high costs; importance of reruns; network ownership of shows)

• New York Times: "Stung by Criticism of the New Fall Shows, TV Networks Rush to Add Minority Roles"
• Paul Espinosa, "The Rich Tapestry of Hispanic America Is Virtually Invisible on Commercial Television"

• Programming:
• Demographics and Market Segments

Teen audiences

Young males as favorite audience for advertisers:

Programs aimed at males

Women as a target audience

Older viewers

• Race and television

• Government Censorship (First Amendment; censorship in wartime).
• Libel (definition of libel; difference between public and private figures)
• Privacy
• Obscenity (Miller test; difference between pornography an obscenity; rules for children vs. rules for adults)

From the book, Do the Media Govern? (Iyengar and Reeves)

• Richard Reeves, "The Brave New World of Media Politics" (introduction)
• Richard Reeves, "Overview" (Chapter 1)
• Lou Cannon, "The Socialization of Reporters" (Chapter 2)
• Bill Boyarsky, "Covering the O.J. Trial" (Chapter 4)
• Richard Reeves, "The Question of Media Bias" (Chapter 6)
• Weaver and Wilhoit, "The American Journalist"

From the reading packet:

• "No Justice for Throwaway People"
• "Investigative report will stir your emotions, maybe stir us all to act"
• "KOMO Announces it won't cover 'irresponsible or illegal' acts"
• "Broadcast of Man's Death Rekindles a Debate in Los Angeles"
• "British Paper's Sting Nets an Earl and a Scolding from a Judge"

• Government.
• Advertisers
• Interest Groups (use of public relations; press and video news releases)
• Other media
• Community concerns

• The Mission of Journalism: The representative of the people.
• Media as the "Fourth Estate," a Watchdog on Government
• Principles of Journalism Today -- American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE).
• Recognizing Quality in Journalism: the Pulitzer Prizes
• The Norms of Journalism
• Every-day News Values
• News for whom?

From the book, Do the Media Govern? (Iyengar and Reeves)

• Daniel C. Hallin, "Sound Bite News" (Chapter 9)
• Ken Auletta, "Three Blind Mice" (Chapter 11)
• W. Lance Bennett, "Cracking the News Code" (Chapter 15)
• Susan Nall Bales, "Talking Back, Ernie Pyle Style" (Chapter 44)

From the reading packet:

• Howard Kurtz, "Ho Hum, 'Historic' Event"