Chapter 11 Review:

The internet made it possible for new opportunities and benefits that would transfigure the advertising and commercial culture. Advertisers and agencies have utilized the internet making it one of the greatest, if not best, personal mediums that the modern day world uses today. There are many alternatives to advertising besides the internet such as daily newspapers, consumer magazines, trade books, textbooks, billboards, so on and so forth. Though advertising was not necessarily needed during the early 1800s, particularly before the Industrial Revolution, it has most certainly expanded over the years taking up more than half the space in newspapers by over 60 percent. Advertising would move from newspapers and magazines to radio and television but each medium of advertising helped manufacturers in a number of ways. Advertising would allow sellers to market quality products and desirable brand names, promote technological advances of new machinery that could improve daily life, and encourage economic growth by increasing sales. Without ads many mass media would have no choice but to reinvent themselves.

Chapter 12 Review:

Unlike advertising, public relations promote a company or client by securing a favorable media publicity which can be more difficult to control. Public relations are often conducted by a person, government, or an organization in an attempt to change the point of view of others. In addition, it may often take more time than advertising due to the complex messages that are trying to be communicated generally by news media. During the twentieth century Americans would switch from farm life to factories in search for work within the cities, advertising and public relations were some of the available professions at the time. Though over the years public relations have subdivided itself into specialized areas including “institutional relations, corporate communications, and news and information services” in order to describe what it does. Although public relations have had an adversarial relationship towards journalists, particularly due to PR’s “distortion of facts and so-called pseudo-profession,” it has impacted democracy during national election campaigns by enhancing political media images.

Chapter 13 Review:

Over the past decades both modern day economy and market have been reformed by “media takeovers, multiple mergers, and corporate consolidations.” While our generation is not that of earlier predecessors, the media industries are structured by the following types of businesses: “monopoly, oligopoly, and limited competition.” A monopoly arises when one firm controls both production and distribution of a particular industry. An oligopoly arises when only several firms dominate an industry. Limited competition, also known as monopolistic competition, is a market with numerous sellers and producers but only a few products within an individual category. In order to understand media companies, economists pay close attention to various elements whether it is how the media makes money to how they set prices for the general public. Moreover economists examine the commercial process together with program or product costs, regulatory practices, and marketing strategies. Initially within the first half of the twentieth century, U.S.-based businesses emphasized mass production along with manufacturing plants however these productions later on shifted to more dedicated niche markets. Media consolidation began to grow into global media mergers by the 1960s which have since continued onto the 1980s.