Top 10 Revelations: Ben Hoagland

1.) Over the past century, public relations has become interwound in nearly all parts of everyday life. From famous actors, to politicians and giant corporations, public relations, as described by Campbell in chapter 12, is “an immensely powerful media industry and yet remains largely invisible.”(Campbell, p.421) PR appears consistently through the media and everyday life, as businesses and individuals alike heavily rely on the industry to promote themselves. Spin Doctors for instance, handle the PR campaigns of politicians and prospective government officials- working to craft an appealing and easy to swallow depiction of the individual.

• "Propaganda is a communication strategically placed, either as advertising or as publicity, to gain public support for a special issue, program, or policy, such as a nation's war effort." (Campbell, p.429)
• "In contrast to a special event, a pseudo event is any circumstance created for the sole purpose of gaining coverage in the media. Typical pseudo events are press coverages, TV and radio talk show appearances or any other staged activity aimed at drawing public attention and media coverage."(Campbell, p.435)
• https://vimeo.com/80599109

2.) Youth are more susceptible now than ever before to technological addictions. Presently, video games and web are among the most popular means of entertainment for children and young adults. In the PBS documentary Digital Nation, we saw and witnessed a number of young people so addicted to their devices, that their parents sent them to rehabilitation camps. Although these cases are extreme, smaller addictions occur in millions of children- as they are seldom away from their devices, even when in the class room. Presently, web and gaming addictions are more real than ever before.

• In a 2011 study of more than three thousand third through eighth graders from Singapore, one in ten were considered pathological gamers, meaning their gaming addiction was jeopardizing multiple areas of their lives, including school, social and family relations, and psychological well being."(Campbell, p.98)
• "The more the children were addicted, the more prone they were to depression, social phobias, and increased anxiety, which led to poorer grades in school."(Campbell, p.98)
• http://www.thirteen.org/programs/frontline/digital-nation/

3.) Multitaskers aren't all that good at multitasking. In the film Digital Nation, we learn that multitaskers are actually equally if not worse at multitasking than the average person. It is impossible for the brain to process and comprehend two things at once, so it switches back and forth during the process. Therefore, it is impossible to truly multi task. Although some may be better than others at handling multiple things at once, we all go about this process in the same way.

• "The ability to access many different forms of media in one place is also changing the ways we engage with and consume media... Today we are able to do [everything] on a computer, tablet, or smartphone, making it easy- and very tempting- to multitask." (Campbell p.13)
• "A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study found that today's youth- now doing two or more things at once- packed 10 hours and forty-five minutes worth of media content into the seven and a half hours they spent daily consuming media"(Campbell p.13)
• http://www.livescience.com/37420-multitasking-brain-psychology.html

4.) Movies, shows and images can have massive impacts on their viewers, sometime for the better and other times for the worse. The 2012 shooting in Aurora Colorado for instance, is a case in which a young and unstable man, allegedly influenced by the film The Dark Knight Rises, shot and killed 12 people during the premiere of the film. While James Holmes is an extreme example of someone influenced by the violence of modern film, there is steady concern regarding the correlation between violence and imagery.

• "72 children from the Stanford University School were divided into experimental and controlled groups. The 'aggressive condition' experiment group subjects watched an adult in the room sit on, kick and hit the dolls... Afterwards, in a separate room filled with toys, the children in the 'aggressive condition' group were more likely than the other children to imitate the adults model's behavior toward the Bobo doll." (Campbell p.532)
• "Mass effects research attempts to understand, explain, and predict the effects of mass media on individuals and society. The main goal of this type of research is to uncover whether there is a connection between aggressive and violence in the media, particularly in children and teens." (Campbell p.521)
• "..In fact the surgeon general, the National Institute of Mental Health and multiple professional organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association — all consider media violence exposure a risk factor for actual violence." (Does Media Violence Lead to the Real Thing? -NY Times)
• http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/opinion/sunday/does-media-violence-lead-to-the-real-thing.html?_r=0

5.) The dawn of television gives one a glimpse into the highs and lows of American advertising. Programs such as the $64,000 Quiz show (derived from a popular radio quiz show) provided viewers with a glimpse of high intensity, big-money quiz shows. However, these programs relied heavily on sponsorships, thus riggings often occurred throughout the lifespan of the programs. One  notable case occurred when a young Colombian professor went on a winning streak 15 weeks long, winning $129,000, only to face later allegations of a fixed success. This instance not only damaged the NBC's reputation, but also hurt the public's image of Geritol- the company sponsoring the show at the time.

• "Compared with dramas and sitcoms, quiz shows were (and are) cheap to produce, with inexpensive sets and mostly non actors as guests. The problem was that most of these shows  were rigged. To heighten the drama, key contestants were rehearsed and given the answers." (Campbell 200)
• "The impact of quiz-show scandals was enormous. First, the sponsors' pressure on TV executives to rig the programs and the subsequent fraud put an end to any role that major sponsors had in creating TV content. Second, and more important, the fraud undermined Americans' expectation of the democratic promise of television- to bring inexpensive information and entertainment into every household." (Campbell p.201)
• http://www.plosin.com/beatbegins/projects/venanzi.html

6.) Product placement is huge in nearly all aspects of commercialized 21st century entertainment. Ranging from movies, shows, video games and newspapers, companies looking to push their products often jockey for a place in these entertainment mediums. Ads in daily newspapers for instance take up nearly half the the space provided for news and reports. Although product placement is hardly new, it remains ingrained in the differing forms of media.

• "In 2012, nearly 16 minutes and 20 seconds of each hour of prime-time network television carried commercials, program promos, and PSAs- an increase from 13 minutes an hour in 1992." (Campbell p.383)
• "Revenue is earned from merchandise licensing and product placements in movies. In the early days of television and film, characters generally used generic products, or product labels weren't highlighted in shots... But with soaring film production costs, product placements are adding extra revenues while lending an element of authenticity to the staging." (Campbell p.263)
• http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/03/25-hilariously-obvious-product-placements-in-movies/

7.) Privacy is generally the biggest right sacrificed when gaining new information. Unlike television, radio or papers, one must frequently give out personal information online in order to gain access to information. Thus by doing so, users are more susceptible to fraud, government surveillance and unethical data gathering methods. Since 9/11, The US PATRIOT Act for instance has granted powers to law enforcement agencies, giving them the right to access and collect mass quantities of data and personal information.

• "Searches, of the internet permit law-enforcement agencies to gather huge amounts of data, including the communications of people who are not the targets of an investigation."(Campbell p.68)
• "Computer hackers have the ability to infiltrate internet databases to obtain personal information and to steal credit card numbers from online retailers... About $3.4 billion in the United States is lost to online fraud artists every year." (Campbell p.69)
• http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/interspire/news/2013/05/04/(ips)-cispa-fails-in-us-senate-but-online-privacy-concerns-live-on.html

8.) The increase in free information through the web has drastically changed a once flourishing media industry. With the introduction of the digital age has come a dramatic shift in the ways in which we access and view information. No longer do papers and magazines make up the bulk of our sources of information.  Now one can easily read stories, reports and find information for free, rather than purchasing the information. Although this new digital trend has undoubtedly damaged the information and news industry, there is still a demand for accurate, clear, paid- for news.

• "The decline in daily newspaper readership actually began during the Great Depression, with the rise of radio. Between 1931 and 1939, six hundred newspapers ceased operation. Another circulation crisis occurred from the late 1960s through the 1970s with the rise in network television viewing and greater competition from suburban weeklies." (Campbell p.301)
• "Remarkably, while the United States continues to experience declines in newspaper readership and advertising dollars, many other nations- where internet news is still emerging- have experienced increases. For example, the World Association of Newspapers reported that between 2003 and 2009, there was an 8.8 percent growth in newspaper readership worldwide, mostly in regions where the internet had not become ubiquitous." (Campbell p.301)
• http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/newspapers-stabilizing-but-still-threatened/

9.) Advertising is now easier than ever thanks to the digital revolution. Companies looking to sell goods to targeted consumers now rely on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter to find their audience. Social networking sites like these, along with numerous others requiring personal information, sell the information given by the user to companies and ad agencies to make their profits. In order to do this, agencies rely heavily on "cookies"- collections of information about each user. When signing up or even accessing a website, bits of information are collected and then sold to the agencies, so the ads one sees online can be more relevant and intriguing.

• "Marketers can develop consumer profiles that direct targeted ads to specific Web site visitors. For example, when an ESPN.com contest requires you to fill out a survey to be eligible to win sports tickets... marketers use that information to build a profile about you." (Campbell p.397)
• "The legitimate purpose of a cookie is to verify that a user has been cleared for access to a particular Web site, such as a library database that is open only to university faculty and students. However, cookies can also be used to create marketing profiles of Web users to target them for advertising Many web sites require the user accept cookies in order to gain access into the site." (Campbell p.67)
• http://live.wsj.com/video/how-advertisers-use-internet-cookies-to-track-you/92E525EB-9E4A-4399-817D-8C4E6EF68F93.html#!92E525EB-9E4A-4399-817D-8C4E6EF68F93

10.) Apart from being extremely convenient and easy to use, new technologies like smart phones and tablets can be socially damaging. The social detachment created by mobil entertainment media is one one the most notable drawbacks of the digital age. Technology has the unprecedented ability to detach one from their surroundings and cast them out of "the moment".  Depending on how one uses their device can mean the difference between social isolation and social connection. A small tangent on this topic is the idea that due to such heavy dosage form entertainment media, the youth have an inability to appreciate great art. Some claim that the flood of cheap entertainment distracts children from deep, and intellectually rewarding content, (e.g. fine art and philosophy). For me, this couldn't be more true. After living with television for nearly my entire youth then cutting cold turkey, I have come to find the entertainment media to be repulsive and substance draining.

• "Some critics and educators feel that media multitasking means that we are more distracted, that we engage less with each type of media we consume, and that we often pay closer attention to the media we are using than to people immediately in our presence." (Campbell p.13)
• "Some critics claim that popular culture, in the form of contemporary movies, television, and music, distracts students from serous literature and philosophy, thus stunting their imagination and undermining their ability to recognize great art." (Campbell p.17)
• http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/poemsessays/brainwashedjerseymike.html