Chapter 3 Main Points

Technology and the Development of Sound Recording:
The first main area of this chapter discusses the evolution of sound recording, from wax cylinders and flat disks, to audiotapes and CDs, to DVDs and MP3s, and the conversion from analog to digital recording. It goes on to talk about how as radio stations began to play recorded music over its airwaves, there was a hate-then-tolerate relationship between record companies and radio stations in the beginning.

U.S. Popular Music and the Formation of Rock:
This section talks about the rise of pop music, with such legendary musicians as Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra. It goes on to discuss how Rock gained popularity starting in the 1950's, and how race, gender, and geography, among other things, shaped it.

A Changing Industry: Reformations in Popular Music:
This section discusses how popular music changed over the years. It starts out by talking about the British invasion, namely the Beatles. It talks about the evolution of rock from the begining to mainstream, and everything in between including metal, punk, and grunge. It then talks about the evolution of rap and hip hop.

The Business of Sound Recording:
This section talks about the major recording labels and how they gained control of the market. It also discusses distribution and profiting from sound recording. It goes on to talk about the problems today of bootlegging and pirating music.

progress reports

You're doing a good job. Be sure to discuss the knowledge claims so that you all are showing evidence of having read the chapters. :)

Keep up the good work.

Chapter 15 Main Points

Media Effects and Cultural Approaches to Research

1. Early developments in Media Research - There were Four main ways that information was gathered in the 1920's and 1930's. (1) Propaganda Analysis was used after WWI to see if in fact all of the propaganda was true. (2) Public opinion research expanded past propaganda to get the opinions of the citizens by surveys and polls. (3) Social Psychology studies measured individual behavior and cognition to support their research. (4) Marketing Research was primarily private and was developed through efforts of advertisers and product companies.

2. Research on Media Effects - In the 20th century today researchers look at the who, what, when and where questions in our daily experiences. Researchers use a scientific method with seven steps to determine the objectivity, reliability and validity.

3. Cultural Approaches to Media Research - Cultural research focuses on the investigation of daily experiences, especially on issues of race, gender, class and sexuality, and on the unequal arrangements of power and status in today's society.

4. Media Research, Ivory Towers, and Democracy - This topic addresses the term jargon, which on an academic level helps you understand the importance of being well trained in each academic subject. Today many Universities have a broadened sense of subjects that are required to get your desired degree. Like Central for example, you have to take two years of Pre-requisite classes before you can focus on your specialization.

Week Two Briefing Stories:

1.) Poll: McCain could win Washington state
In the race for the presidency, Washington State could well be in play, thanks to a nominee who is more in the mold of Washington state Republicans like Attorney General Rob McKenna and former Secretary of State Ralph Munro, both of whom campaigned for Sen. John McCain. According to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, McCain would beat Sen. Hillary Clinton, in the state and is within spitting distance of Sen. Barack Obama.Washington, which hasn't gone for a Republican presidential candidate since voting for President Ronald Reagan in 1984, is considered a "blue" state in most people's electoral calculus, but McCain's general election viability here is a continued trend.

-James Cole

2.) CNN News
It was reported that it has been 1,528 days since Obama has spoken to the gay press while Clinton converts the gay vote. Obama has agreed with Clinton that the “don’t ask don’t tell” law shall be abolished if he takes office but some are saying he refuses to talk with the gay press.

-Jessica Edmisten

3.) Petraeus Meets His Match by Joe Klein of Time Magazine
Senator Joseph Lieberman has become something of an agent provocateur in the semiannual Petraeus-Crocker hearings staged by the U.S. Senate. This semester he chose to open his remarks by chastising unnamed colleagues for having a "hear no progress ... see no progress ... speak no progress" attitude about the war in Iraq. The debate had finally moved on to more fertile turf: If things were going so well, why were Crocker and Petraeus so reluctant to come home? The Senator who mined this turf most profitably was ... Barack Obama. Obama hit Petraeus and Crocker with an artful series of questions about the two main threats: Sunni terrorists like al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Iran. He noted that al-Qaeda had been rejected by the Iraqi Sunnis and chased to the northern city of Mosul. If U.S. and Iraqi troops succeeded there, what was next? He proposed: "Our goal is not to hunt down and eliminate every single trace of al-Qaeda but rather to create a manageable situation where they're not posing a threat to Iraq." Petraeus said Obama was "exactly right."

-Ashley Trbovich

4.) With oil prices hitting new highs, McCain on Tuesday called for a summer vacation from federal gas taxes. McCain said that temporarily lifting the gas tax of 18 cents a gallon between Memorial Day and Labor Day would give Americans a break at every fill-up during the busy summer driving season.

-Jeff Kieburtz

5.) Young Obama Backers Twist Parents’ Arms
With his largest audience being in the under-30 range, young Barack Obama supporters have been pestering their parents with a barrage of e-mails, videos, quotes, etc. to try and win them over to Obama. So far, their wheedling strategy is working and there hasn’t been a time in recent memory when the opinions of the young have influenced those of the old this heavily.

-Carrie Potter

Chapter 13 Important Points

Okay, here's for Ch. 13:

1. Synergy has a huge impact on the media on an international level. It allows media to be distributed in various ways across a media conglomerate. This way, the conglomerate milks as much money as humanly possible from a single product.

2. The social issues involved in media economics range from Antitrust Laws to Cultural Imperialism. It is important to note how the economics of media effect us as the consumer and to realize that even media products that originated in America have spread to the rest of the world.

3. The merged corporations that make up the media as a whole will continue to control more and more aspects of production and distribution (this line is almost exactly out of the book because I couldn't think of a better way to word it...) Sometimes for the average media consumer, it is easy to overlook the fact that there are very few major players when it comes to the distribution of media, but there may come a time when the industry is completely monopolized by merged companies.

Agenda again...

Jeff - Online
Jessica - Newspaper
Ashley - Radio
James - Tv
Me - Books and Mags

Top Five Stories for Week 1

Carrying Primary Scars into the General Election

This article discusses historical examples of bitter primary battles like the one this year between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, that have eventually led to that party losing the general election. Thie biggest example was President Carter vs. Edward Kennedy, in which they had a prolonged and bitter battle that ultimately ended up in a loss in November. Many Democrats are worried that the same thing will happen this November if the primary battle is not resolved soon.

(James Cole)

TIME magazine
McCain, Obama and Clinton will have a chance to ask Army Gen. David Petraues questions about the Iraq war on Tuesday during his assessment of the Iraq war. McCain and Clinton are on the Armed Services Committee, while Obama is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

(Jessica Edmisten)

Obama Trims Clinton's Lead in Pa. By Devlin Barrett and Beth Fouhy, Seattle Times
Barack Obama was endorsed Wednesday by a labor union and two Democratic superdelegates, as a poll showed he has cut Hillary Clinton's lead in Pennsylvania almost in half since mid-February as he strives to deny her a victory in the state's presidential primary.

(Ashley Trbovich)

NPR Radio

March 27th
Although Senator John McCain supports staying in the war with Iraq, he does not agree with many of President Bush's current policies. He very much wants to regain the collaborative efforts of our foreign allies. He resents the fact that we did not take our foreign friends' ideas into account before going to war without them. He believes that the U.S. cannot lead by power alone.

(Carrie Potter)

In Annapolis Maryland, John Mccain had a speech at the naval academy that he graduated from 50 years ago. He spilled the beans that he had a list of names of about 20 running mates he is considering. James Dobson, a prominent conservative criticized Mccain of not unifying the Republican Party and not drawing conservatives into his fold.

(Jeff Kieburtz)

Agenda

Okay, so here's the new and improved agenda...

For briefing sheets this week:

Jeff - Newspaper
Jessica - Radio
Ashley - TV
James - books/magazines
Me - Online

Post these on your own blog, as usual. Please post them in time so that we can all start reading each other's by Wednesday after class. We need to get a more regular schedule going if we want to catch up and stay caught up. If you have briefing sheets that you still haven't posted, please post them as soon as humanly possible. We can't really find our five most important stories if people aren't participating when they're supposed to.

Reading assignments for the rest of the quarter:

Jessica: Ch 15, 5, 7
Ashley: Ch 16, 11, 6
Jeff: Ch 12 and 8
James: Ch 3 and 9
Me: Ch 13, 4, 10

Check the syllabus for when each of your chapters are due. I think if we read and post these over the weekend that it shouldn't effect getting our briefing sheets done too much. If we can comment efficiently enough from Wednesday to Friday on each other's briefing sheets, we should be able to have each week's five stories up before class on Monday for the following week.

We've all fallen a little behind, including myself, on commenting as well as reading, so let's do our best to get caught up by Wednesday at the latest so we don't have this hanging over our heads for too much longer.

Like I said in class, if this commenting stuff becomes too big of a problem after we've all made a sincere effort, we'll have to see what we can get accomplished together in the library.

If I've forgotten anything, practice your new comment writing skills and add it as a comment. :p

Thanks,

~Carrie

Notice!

Okay, just so everyone's on the same page for Wednesday...

**For this week's briefing sheets (on your own blog):

Jeff: Radio
Jessica: TV
Ashley: Books/Magazines
James: Online
Me: Newspaper

**Also, our five most important stories from last week are due Wednesday, so everyone start commenting and making proposals for which ones are the best.

**I've posted three points about Chapter 1, please someone else do Chapter 2, 13 and 14 just so we're caught up. If there's any disagreement or discussion about the points, don't be afraid to comment about them. Also, just to make things easier, please sign your posts with your name so we know who's talking.

**Last but not least, please everyone try to check the blog at least once a day. I know that sounds stupid and time consuming, but since class is only on Mondays and Wednesdays, it's important that we try to communicate as best and as fast as we possibly can. Hopefully we'll be commenting on each others crap all the time pretty soon and that means that we're all going to have to check the blog and our e-mails on a fairly regular basis.

Hope that wasn't too preachy and I hope we have everyone on here who needs to be very soon.

Thanks! :)

~Carrie

Couple of points about Chapter 1 to get the ball rolling

So as I looked through the reading, it seems to me that three of the biggest points made in Chapter 1 was that:

1.) Culture inspires the media and the media in turn effects the culture that created it.

2.) Communication is one of the most important aspects of human existence.

3.) Since the broadening of mass media, our cultural values have changed significantly.

Alright, so tell me what you think of those, especially if you disagree (don't be afraid, I won't bite you) and then someone else propose a couple new points either about this chapter or Chapter 2.

Thanks!

~Carrie