Author: stephmt95

While browsing through data collected by the FCC on female and minority media ownership, it came as no surprise to me that radio and television stations are still predominantly owned by white men. In 2014, it was shown that racial minorities own only 3% of the 1386 commercial-broadcast television stations in the United States alone. Here is a breakdown of television and radio media ownership by race:

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These charts are important because they show that the entertainment industry does not accurately represent the amount of women and minority groups in the U.S. and in turn, can hurt the overall success of these television and radio shows alike when the interests of only one group of people are represented. This case study reminded me of a couple of examples of challenging the norms of this field.

Pacific Standard is a production company owned by Reese Witherspoon. Through this company, Witherspoon has produced hit movies such as Gone Girl and Wild, and her goal is to break down the traditional “boys only” barrier and produce films for women, made by women (in front of and behind the camera) with more racially representative casts as well. On top of this, she says the discrimination against women and minorities starts at a very early level in the industry through internships and other smaller job roles. She said it’s particularly difficult for young girls to get internships on sets, as well as young people who are not from a similar socioeconomic background unless you have multiple connections and wants to make applying for these positions more fair. Witherspoon says her company has received incredible responses from audiences about their company and what they are trying to accomplish in the entertainment world.

Another example of more representative and record-setting success is the movie Black Panther. When the idea was first pitched, it seemed risky because the Black Panther wasn’t as popular as other superheroes, such as Captain America or Thor. The success of the film was unprecedented and surpassed the success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, or Deadpool, thanks to the diversity of the cast. Along with being one of the very few more recent films with a black lead character, Black Panther tapped into an audience that has been underserved from as far back as movie history goes.

Today, the diversity gap is being addressed and the entertainment world is taking steps towards equal representation, but I think that seeing case studies, research, and acknowledging the success of allowing minority groups to take on lead roles is really changing the industry itself and challenging those in ownership positions, too. By addressing these biases, media owners are constantly being put in the hot seat about every decision they make and viewers are now able to bring attention to unfairness online.

This week in class, we discussed the case of Verizon cutting it’s mobile data speeds, making the service unusable for California’s fire department at crucial times when they needed to respond to wildfires, and how this sparked a widespread net neutrality debate. I was interested in what the ramifications of this situation were for both parties and decided to look further into the aftermath of this event.

One of the first results I found was a lawsuit that was ordered to restore net neutrality to those working at the federate level at all times. It was found that Verizon had restricted high speed data devices in emergency response vehicles during 3 separate occasions since 2017. First responders rely on high speed data to get track progress, organize efforts, and determine the fastest routes for response vehicles.

It was proven that the ISP’s would work in Verizon’s economic favor because it would be charging more for a higher speed plan, so this was a definitely a case of net neutrality. Since then, Verizon has issued an apology. Original article can be found here.

Another outcome of this was a video ad Verizon put out called “Enabling Heroes” where the service acts as though they have always been a critical helper to first responders, but in reality have just caused more problems for them in the past few recent events. One line in the video said “In times of crisis, their calls go through and they can get the job done.” Viewers were quick to criticize Verizon in the comments section to the point where Verizon had to disable the comments feature. These viewers pointed out that it took first responders 2 full months at the cost of many homes and  lives to put out this fire, which maybe could have been accomplished in less time had there not been communication issues. In a separate blog post, Verizon stated “Our innovation and technology allow first responders to do their jobs. What we do is save lives,” which is just scary to imagine that a cellular service thinks that first responders would be clueless or wouldn’t know what to do in their own jobs without their help. They were essentially taking credit for the aid in these emergencies. You can only imagine the response they got from the public in light of these events. This article contains the original video ad and blog post.

Last week I had a bit of an eye-opening experience in regards to my use of technology. I knew I spent A LOT of time on my phone and computer each day, but I didn’t realize that amount of time was basically the equivalent of a second full-time job for me.

The day I decided to log how much time I spent on each digital device was actually a day I was using each device much less than usual, which was kind of alarming considering I still managed to get about 9 hours of screen time in that single day. On a normal day, I start and end my day on social media. I also check it consistently through the day. I feel like I’ve come to the point where I can’t function or do simple tasks without taking small breaks here and there to check my phone. Even when I am working on my computer, I’ll log onto entertainment sites like Reddit to distract myself for a couple of minutes.

Surprisingly, I don’t think that this amount of tech use has a negative effect on my work. If anything, I think that taking small social media breaks throughout the day helps keep me inspired and clears up my mind when I feel stuck. Technology has also made my job much easier. When it comes to social situations though, I do sometimes find myself checking my phone far too often in the company of friends.

I definitely think we are all hooked on technology. Technology makes our lives much easier and gives us that sense of belonging from social media. I think it’s hard to imagine a world without social media because I like knowing what everyone is up to (in a non-creepy way of course) regardless of whether we talk often or not. It is also a crucial tool to my job. Technology serves many purposes in our lives and for that reason we are always using some form of it or another, whether it be for work, entertainment, information, or connecting with others.

Have you ever found yourself  wondering why you have joined (and keep joining) a number of social networking sites? Social Media is constantly growing and evolving based off of society’s collective interests and the answer as to why social media plays such a big role in our lives is multiplex.

Each network gives us a free platform to be able to do a number of beneficial things for ourselves. First and foremost, our social media pages serve as a way for people to get to know who we are. We post pictures, information about ourselves, and can create sort of our own personal brand this way. Receiving likes, gaining followers, and responding to comments on our page are all characteristics of social media that give us a sense of validation as well. It might make an introvert feel more like an extrovert, or it might make some people feel less lonely at times.

Another big way in which we can use social media for our own benefit is to network and communicate with others. Social media apps such as LinkedIn can help us find jobs, read up on business news topics that interest us, or network with professionals in our field. Using apps like GroupMe or Facebook can allow you to easily keep in touch with friends or family members you may not get the chance to see often.

Last, but not least, social media is used for entertainment. We can use social media to follow our favorite influencers, celebrities, or athletes and see what’s going on in their daily lives, play games within certain apps, use funny face filters, look at memes, read the news, and so much more.

To answer the question asked in the headline, social media is both a necessity and a pastime. The key to social media’s success is keeping users engaged through new innovation and enabling people to use social media as a tool that they can use to their advantage.

Technology has come a long way in just a short amount of years. In fact, technology has improved so much that it’s kind of humorous to think back to when we were using dial up and those ancient Nokia brick phones that you would buy prepaid phone cards for. This past week, we discussed the many functionalities of the internet and what’s in store for it’s future. Here are my 4 predictions for the future of the internet:

1.) Internet Connection: I think that the internet will soon become even faster than it already is and will become easily accessible to everyone in the world. South Korea currently has the fastest internet with an average connection speed of about 25.3 Megabits per second. Maybe one day we will buy smart devices with the internet already connected to them.

2.) Artificial Intelligence: AI’s might take over your job in the future…and I say this because it has already happened to me before. When I was working at a startup company, we would use an AI that would create ads for us within 24 hours so we could save time and not have to worry about creating them ourselves on Illustrator. M.I.T. even has plans to create an Artificial Intelligence program on campus, which you can read more about here.

3.) Augmented Reality: Taking another step forward with digital convergence, we can see that augmented reality is a trend that is on the rise. I believe that future devices will enable us to experience the internet in both traditional ways as well as in virtual/augmented reality.

4.) Privacy Issues: Another big issue with the internet and social media applications is privacy. What data should be kept private and what data should be publicly accessible? This is an ongoing debate with about 50/50 agreeing and disagreeing on the topic of internet privacy. As the internet becomes more complex, the internet privacy debate will also become more complex and heated.