Television has been around for many years, and has
changed from floor models to tube televisions that you put on a table, to large
screens to flat screens that you hang on the wall. I can remember having television that had a
dial with only the numbers 3 – 12 and you had to get up and turn the dial to
change the station from 5, 9, or 12. I
can also remember when channel 19 came out (that you had to tune to channel 3)
and it was such a big deal. Now most
people have satellite, or
television received through fioptic cable, offering
hundreds of stations…and you don’t have to get up off the couch to change the
station. The funny thing to me is that
there are still times when I cannot find anything worth watching. Television has changed because there are
stations that have a target demographic, usually targeted at an age range,
education level or sometimes even race.
Because of this, companies are able to pay for their commercials to air
on stations and at certain times – or even during specific shows – in order to
reach their intended audience. Pay
attention to what you are watching and what commercials show during that show,
you may be surprised to find that commercials airing during a sporting event
will vary greatly from those aired during your nightly news or those aired on a
kids network, such as, Boomerang. The great
thing about television for marketers is that they can reach anyone with a
television from ages 2 and up.
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| Very early model television. Wickipedia.com |
Radio has been around even longer than television,
and it was originally used on ships in 1891 to improve their safety and
reliability (fcc.gov, n.d.). Although
originally used on ships and to transmit important information, radio soon also
became a source of entertainment. My
grandpa lived
with us when I was an adolescent and he still listened to “shows”
on the radio on the AM frequency. These
were all he had prior to television and the whole family would gather around
and listen and use their imagination to picture what was happening. Much like television, radio has a target
audience. There are stations that play
certain types of music which usually targets a primary demographic based on age
and sometimes race. Hip-Hop, Rhythm
& Blues, hard rock, oldies, classical, pop, soft-rock, religious and even
talk radio are a few of the types of stations offered in my area. Radio is such a big media technology in my
life because my fiancé, dad and an uncle that lived with me growing up, were
all musicians or had an affinity for music that the radio was almost always
playing in my household growing up, and still is today. I have gotten to the point that I find it
difficult to concentrate when there is silence.
Anyway, I digress…what I was getting to is the fact that radio stations,
based on information that is gathered through surveys, can also tell who the
majority of their listening audience is by age, income and race; therefore,
playing news and commercials they believe will interest the audience, based on
that information gathered.
Printed materials were probably the first recorded
form of media technology, because even before the invention of the printing
press, people were employed as scribes to literally hand-write copies of books
and information. This information,
though was held in high regard and available only to the extremely wealthy. According to Steven Kreis (2012), the
invention of printing presses helped bring reliable education and advancements
in science, technology and started an “information revolution” (para. 9). Originally, most print was in the form of
scholarly information, but soon led to entertainment in the form of fiction and
short story books, as well as, newspapers.
Still today, we have print materials, but in addition to local and
national newspapers to inform the public about
current events, we have a wide
variety of magazines that cover topics from parenting, men and women’s health,
special interest such as cars, weight lifting, and cooking, to news and
celebrity gossip. Print media still has
uses of advancing education, technology and science, but it also is used to
advertise much more than it was originally.
A very large portion of newspapers and magazines is actually
advertisements, which is how they can afford to sell for an affordable
price. Just like with radio and television,
marketing professional place ads in magazines that are intended for their
target audience. It is most likely that
you won’t see an advertisement for hunting bows in a cooking magazine, but you
will see advertisements for hunting bows in Field & Stream. Although print media has been around for
centuries, many publishers are having financial difficulty and most people
attribute it to the internet and some even attribute it to social media.
Social media is a product of the invention of the
internet and is great because it allows people to easily share information,
pictures and video with people all over the world. In addition, people are not only to keep in
touch with family and friends all over the world; but they are also able to
meet people they would never have the opportunity to meet without spending
hundreds or thousands of dollars to travel.
Social media websites all have an intended audience, just like the other
previously discussed media technologies.
Companies are able to use social media in order to educate people about
their products and services. You can now
order products online without ever stepping foot outside of your house. Although there are many positive forms of
communication and uses of social
media, the people now have a voice. Previously, businesses had the upper hand
when it came to a voice. With social
media, people have the ability to post information about their positive or
negative experiences, which can result in many lost sales or even
customers. The following link is an
example of a viral video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo. Most people had probably never heard of Sons
of Maxwell, but he turned this experience into a book and is hired for speaking
events. This caused the company some bad
publicity, but they have survived and are still in business. The portrayal of the information is always an
important factor as to how people will respond to social media. The humor used and proof of the incident all
helped this man’s cause. Many young
people today do not think about how they are being portrayed to the world and
how their portrayal of self can affect their future. I personally know individuals that have been
passed over for job opportunities because of the images, videos and posts on their
social media page(s).
With each of the four media technologies that I have
chosen to write about today, I have to say that they have all affected my life
greatly. Although I believe they will
continue to change, I believe their existence will continue for many years to come.
References
Federal
Communications Commission (n.d.) A short history of radio with an inside
focus on mobile radio. Retrieved on April 12, 2015. Retrieved from http://transition.fcc.gov/omd/history/radio/documents/short_history.pdf
Kreis,
S, 2012. The printing press. The History Guide. Retrieved on April
11, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/press.html
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