Final Blog

For this last blog I am working with Mike to see if Potter's theory on niche audience and how advertisers target them through specific TV programs works. I've decided to watch most daring on truetv on Sunday from 2 -3. This show is about people who do insane stunt or criminals who do crazy things. Most people in this show end up getting injured in some way or cause a lot of destruction.

The audience for this show would be mostly males, with a wide age range of 20 - 45. It's on cable so I don't imagine there is a region specific demographic. Because it's on cable, most adds will be targeted towards middle class workers. There will most likely be commercials for razors, deodorant,cars trucks. I imagine most people who watch this show don't have a family or much else to do on a Sunday so there will be commercials for TV dinners. There will also be fast food, insurance, and a few appliance commercials.

Well I finished viewing the show and I was way off. To make a quick list the categories for commercials were: arthritis vitamins, toothpaste, pet food, slim fast, aspirin, credit cards, online dating, net flicks, fast food, cereal, cell phones, home cleaners, soup, tax preparations. The majority of these commercials were geared towards women. very surprising. The show, at least to me, didn't have much of an appeal towards women. Some of the commercials had a family feeling so I would think maybe the show is watched as a family.

I'm not saying 100% that Potter is wrong because its true that many advertisers target people through TV shows that appeal to their niche audience but this proves that it isnt always true. I would give Potter 9:1 that he is right because this is one of the only stations that I've watched that disproves his theory. I could also say that maybe the advertisers didn't do their research or that I was completely off on the demographics and tha this show is primarily watched by house moms.

15 years in the future

In 15 years I see myself working in the advertising industry. my locus would be to always try and make fresh creative commercials and well designed billboard. Although my drive is strong I would still be consuming a lot of media to see what is popular in the world. I will also always try to learn new things like instruments, languages, and graphic design programs.

Media will still somewhat be the same. There will still be, books, broadcast TV, cable TV, the internet, magazines. I imagine the internet will be the most dominant since all those media can be contained on the internet. Everything will be accessible through the internet and I imagine cable TV will find a way to live on the internet just like all the other forms. However each one will still exist as its own entity as well. The content of the media will be the same unfortunately. They'll still be on American Idol season 20, The Simpson's will still be on, many magazine titles will still exist, etc. We as consumers will have similar habits and the creators will just feed us the same stuff. The only drastic change will be that the music industry will stop producing CDs and music will be sold online.

15 years from now I'll still be listening to death metal and if Christian Bale and Milla Jovoivch are still making movies, I'll be watching them. With movies I may be a bit open minded to watch films I may not have considered earlier. With TV I'll be just as ignorant as I am now. I won't watch the news cause its way over sensationalized. I'll still be watching adult swim (which will probably be here in 15 years). The only big difference with my consumption is that I will probably watch the internet version of cable TV. When it comes to radio I'll still only listen to internet radio since the regular form of radio will only play one hit wonders 40 times a day.

Living Online

The first thing I wanted to talk about with the movie is about how people get in trouble for things they put on their myspace or facebook. This happened in my high school as well as most high schools in America, people put incriminating pictures on their profile and got caught. Despite popular belief in my school, people were caught because they were looking at eachothers profiles durring class and teachers saw these pictures (the dean didn't just go through every student profile every day). Part of this problem is because many people think that if that put a picture online its somewhat private (verry much the opposite). People can get in trouble if they're on sports teams because many high school teams make you sign a contract saying you won't engage in that activity outside of school. You can probably get in trouble for underage drinking if they can prove you had alcolohol in the picture or drug use if they see you using drugs. People also put videos of themselves doing drugs on youtube as well (so it's not limited to online profiles).

The second part I want to talk about was online predators. Statistically you have a higher chance of dying in a car accident than being solisited for sex online. I think people amplify this problem with shows like "How to Catch a Predator" in which they get some guy to try to meet up with an under aged girl. I make the analogy to the news in which crime isn't as high as well all think it is, they just shove in our faces far more than they used to. I do think we should still educate our children about this problem, but I would be more conserned about other evils.

Myspace and Facebook

A. I think the users of Myspace and Facebook are a slightly different. Myspace is used by all ages and demographics. It's even used by businesses to advertise. Adults use Mysapce, bands use myspace to get their music out there. Even some senior citizens use Myspace (although not many). Facebook is a bit different. Facebook is more for college and high school students. I'm not sure why, but facebook is mostly younger people and I have'nt seen any artists or businesses on it.

B. I use myspace mostly to check on bands I really like. They all post their tour schedule and I check usually once a week to see if they'll be comming to Chicago anytime soon. There's nothing wrong with using these sites in moderation (which is something a little different for everyone and is hard to put a time on). I think if you logon just to update your status and emoticon, you are using it too much. Some peoples' lives just revolve around updating their myspace and messaging their friends and trying to make as many friends as possible. I'm sure they're are some people (crazy ones) that take other peoples' myspace too personal ("how could you add him to your firends?!" or "You like that band?!?!"). Some people feel they have to comment on every little addition to their friends page. Sometimes these comments get so out of hand, it's like they're having a conversation.

C. I think myspace and facebook have a lot of pros; like you can find out about local bands, meet people in your school with similiar interests, you can find out about cool events in your area, etc. The biggest problem with myspace and facebook, is that using it too much takes away from real life. All your friends become ones you only know online. It dimishes face to face conversation and with only knowing someone online you don't really know what they are like in real life (because anyone can say anything on myspace). What I find to also be interesting is that some people have 200 or more friends on myspace, when I can't even think of 50 people that I am friends with. There was a survey done a little while ago that said that poeple have about 3 or 4 friends. They re did the survey recently and that number went down a little to 2 - 3. So I think people are adding others to their friends list and almost never meeting these people, or it'll be a person they met once and never saw again.

Media Journal 3

Movies:
None

Music:
Various Russian Songs

TV:
The PJ's
Family Guy
King of the Hill
Myth Busters
Reno 911 (A Lot)



This blog should probably be called black exploitation in the media, but that's not too catchy. Somehow I manged to get a good taste of the two most exploiting things post 1979. I recently saw a commercial for the new Tyler Perry movie. I'm going to preface this by saying I fully support the right to freedom of speech and I am against all forms of censorship, but this topic makes me want to vomit. I don't know anything about Tyler Perry personally and this has nothing to do with how he is in real life. So far most of his movies were bad but they never quite crossed the line. Just take a minute to click on the you tube preview below so maybe it'll help illustrate the point I'm going to make (try to focus on Medea) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTSXPmsYH5A To me, her character epitomizes the stereotypes of crazy black women. Jerry Springer and day time tv don't help either. Every time I hear about how some crazy black girl destroyed her ex's car because he cheated on her, it kills a little bit of the love I have for my people.

Another show I started watching (or I say watch again) is the PJs. This show came on originally when I was 11 and I used to watch it every week. However, now I am old enough to understand I think it fits properly in this blog. Here's a video of the first 10 minutes of an episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDIS0mr7zdc&feature=related
I don't really need to say more about this show.

Now I know the first question to come up is "Why would many shows portray black people like that if it wasn't true?" I look at it like how the news portrays crime. The news has so many stories on crime it makes it seem like its gone up a million percent, however crime has actually gone down but the coverage has gone up (because for some reason more crime means more viewers). So many shows portrays this stereotype even though the majority of black people are not like that.

Media Blog

Music:

None

Movies:

Notorious B.I.G.
Reno 911 Miami (It's somewhat a movie)

TV:
King of the Hill
Futurama
Family Guy
Simpsons
Reno 911
Cops

Video Games:
Left for Dead

This week was media fulled but it didn't really bring that much out of me. The only new things were Notorious B.I.G. and Reno 911 (which isn't that new, I'm just watching it more). My media consumption may be a bit different than people who rely on TV. I, like many other people, have my media revolve around my schedule because I'm busy with school and working. However, I watch all my media on my computer so I still get to watch all the shows I want to watch. I don't know of that is better or worse, but I do feel like I miss out on a few things like commercials for new products and others shows I may like. I miss out on some shows that I like that I find by just flipping through channels. I also miss the occasional news flash and without TV I'm less motivated to watch the news. Although I am better off because I don't have those times when I want to watch TV and I end up watching something I don't like just to watch it.

American Idol Audience

In my opinion, the average American Idol viewer is between the ages of 11 - 16 and 35 - 45. It is mostly a family oriented show because there is no racy content. It appeals to the lower and middle class. American Idol has no particular geographical segmentation. It also appeals mostly to Caucasians, African Americans, and Hispanics. The show appeals to both men and women but the majority is women (60%).

Demographics:

1) American Idol appeals to families because it is on in the middle of prime time so families are watching it either during or after dinner.
2) It appeals to the middle class because the commercials advertise middle class products, you don't see many Lexus or Rolex commercials during American Idol
3) It appeals to Caucasians, African Americans, and Hispanics because most of the finalists are of those ethnicities and the audience can relate more to them
4) It appeals to ages 11 - 16 and 35 - 45 because the majority of young adults and college students have other shows they like to watch at the same time or other interests
5) American Idol also appeals to families because there is no questionable content on the show, even the song choice has to be apporved