The Video Game Industry

Video games have come a very long way. From humble beginnings as a simple interactive exhibit to an entirely new form of interactive storytelling and ways to experience adventures with friends. The video game industry has been ripe with change, controversary, technological strides, and amazing works of art and commentaries on society.

Key Terms-

DLC- Downloadable content available for a game offered for a small extra price after the full release of the game.

Micro Transactions- Payments made with real money to get in game currency used to buy in game content.

FPS/TPS- First person shooter/ third person shooter.

Cabinet Game- An arcade style video game built into a cabinet like structure.

Console- a gaming device that can be used at home by plugging it into a TV screen.

Sandbox environment- A game environment that allows the player to roam where every and do almost whatever they want.

Triple-A Games- games that are very popular, make great sales on release, and is usually annualized to release a new game every year or two.

 Historical developments-

The first video game was invented in 1958 by Physicist William Higginbotham and it was called Pong. The game was created was by Higginbotham as an interactive exhibit for the Brookhaven National Laboratory Group. The game was displayed on an analog computer and was based off tennis with players using two knobs to control two parallel bars bouncing a ball in between them. This simple concept was eventually ported to an arcade cabinet style and later an at home console game and led to the development of other cabinet style arcade games and at home video game consoles.  

The 1970’s was the decade that arcade style video games became mainstream. Even a year before Pong was ported to a cabinet there was Atari’s 1971 game Computer Space a simple joystick-controlled game where you control a small spaceship and the first Arcade Cabinet game. These successes paved the way for all sorts of companies to start developing some of their own games to be made into arcade cabinets and played for a few cents a play. One of the most famous arcade games is Pac-Man a Japanese game licensed and distributed in the U.S. by Midway games and released in 1980. This is a simple arcade style game in which the player uses a joystick to control a small yellow circle shaped character named Pac-Man. The goal of the game was to earn points by going through a maze eating small dots while Avoiding Blinky, Pinky ,Inky, and Clyde four ghost who chase you through the maze. This simple yet incredibly fun game led to many sequels spinoffs and even a Hanna Barbara cartoon series.

Pac-Man isn’t the only game or character to receive mainstream popularity. The Japanese company Nintendo had a game and a character that would truly become timeless, he was a short Italian plumber, that wore a red hat, overalls and a large mustache and had a very funny accent. His name was Mario and the first game he was featured in was a 1981 arcade game called Donkey Kong. This game had Mario trying to rescue Princess Peach from the giant gorilla Donkey Kong. The player would use a joystick and buttons to guide Mario up platforms and over barrels being thrown by Donkey Kong. Mario would later get another main role in Mario Bros which introduced Mario’s brother Luigi. Mario has since become the face of Nintendo and is their flagship Character and shows no signs of losing any popularity.

  It was popularity such as this that helped gaming companies make the next big leap from the arcades to peoples’ homes. These consoles usually had the same games you could play in an arcade preloaded onto them so you could play them as much you wanted for free at home. The first at home console was created in 1967 and was called simply the Brown Box and offered only six games ping pong, tennis, volleyball, hand ball, a chase game, and a light gun game. The Magnavox Odyssey was another early at home console that was so primitive to modern standards that it didn’t even have audio. These early 2-D arcade consoles eventually led to the rise of another technological breakthrough in the industry, 3-D gaming. These were not 3-D in the sense that the images appeared to be jumping out of the screen but more with the art style and how the games were graphically improved. For example in Super Mario Bros the character models are created from small colored squares called pixels. These pixels are colored and stacked into shaped to create a 2-D shape on the screen such as the image of Mario. Fast forward to the 3-D tech breakthrough and the number of pixels being used to create Mario increased dramatically, this meant the game developers could make much more detail character models that you could view from any angle. These advances in 3-D character modelling led to the development of one of the most famous consoles created, the Nintendo 64 was a huge leap forward for mainstream gaming and introduce help introduce the concept of a handheld controller with smaller buttons and a small joystick instead of a single joystick for controls. 

The N-64 also brought amazing games such as Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, James Bond: Goldeneye, and Mario Tennis. The popularity of the N-64 paved the way for other companies like Sony and Microsoft to hone in on the gaming console market with the release of the Sony PlayStation and the Microsoft X-BOX.

Notable Artists-

           The gaming industry is filled with brilliant artist, studios, writers, programmers, and other types of creators that dedicate their time and effort to creating beautiful and stunning games for us to enjoy.

Shigeru Miyamoto- Creator of the Mario Franchise Japanese game developer Shigeru Miyamoto has one of the most creative and colorful imaginations in gaming. The worlds and characters he creates are colorful, cartoony, fun, and most of all memorable. Miyamoto claims to have been inspired by stories such as Alice In Wonderland in his design of the game world and the characters who inhabit it. Miyamoto has created characters such as Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Bowser, Goombas, Toad, Yoshi, and countless others.

Rockstar Games- Rockstar Games is a company the develops and produces some of the most detailed and expansive Sandbox Environment Games that not only present the player with amazing film quality level story and script writing but also a massive world to experience it all in that feels very close to real life.

Rockstar has published numerous successful game franchises such as the Max Payne, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Bully and many others. Rockstar games are notorious for amazing sales records as well with Grand Theft Auto V  has made over $6 billion dollars in sales since its release in 2013 and Rockstar’s newest release of their Wild West epic Red Dead Redemption II making $725 million three days after the game was put out.

Recent Trends-

           Video Games like any other form of media is subject to trends and the consumers demanding video games that are new, exciting, and interesting. In the 90’s the trend was first person shooters which were popular with computer gamers. First Person shooters consist of putting the player in the first person view of the protagonist, this makes actions like shooting at enemies much easier and more immersive. Games that pioneered this “FPS” (First Person Shooter) genre were games like Wolfenstein, and Doom. The FPS trend evolved in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and was greatly influenced by the 1998 movie Saving Pvt Ryan. After the film’s release there was a huge spike in WWII themed FPS games. A couple of these games almost recreated the Omaha Beach scene from Saving Pvt. Ryan perfectly, allowing player to take part in one of the most famous battles of WWII. Trends in gaming have again evolved with the popularity of the “battle royale”(BR). The BR genre consists of dropping up to 100 players on an island or other large area and having the play area slowly shrink as the players fight for supplies, weapons, shelter, and to be the sole survivor.  Games like Player Unknown’s Battle Grounds and Fortnite popularized the genre and now larger annual game titles such as Battlefield and Call Of Duty have included BR game modes in their newest games.

Exemplary Examples-

An amazing and fairly recent example at how far gaming has come and shows just how amazing gaming can be as a mode of storytelling. Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption II is the sequel to the Highly praised Red Dead Redemption. After an eight year wait Red Dead fans flocked to stores to pick up the high anticipated sequel, and they were not disappointed. Red Dead II raked in not only over $725 million after only three days but also almost universal praise from the media. The game was in the news not only on gaming websites and magazines but also in the mainstream media. The game takes place in America during the year 1899 and has a strong Wild West theme to it. The game offers over sixty hours of gameplay just with the main story but adding in side activities and side missions to that play time can exponentially increase the play time for Red Dead II.

Red Dead II offers fun and in detail activities besides the main story missions, such as hunting. Hunting in Red Dead II consist of travelling to a location on the huge map where the animal your hunting is found for example if you want to hunt Alligators you must go to the swampy southern end of the map, if you want to hunt elk you must go to the snowy mountains in the north of the map. Once in the region of the animal you must rack it by looking for clues, once the animal is tracked you must decide the best weapon to take it down with-out damaging the skin. Animals skins that are intact and in better shape when you hunt them can be sold for more money or crafted into clothing for your character in game. This hunting mechanic is just one example of Red Dead II’s highly immersive world.

 Ownership-

           The video game industry lives on game developing companies that actually create the games. These companies like any other industry vary from small independent companies with a limited number of employees to large corporations and conglomerates that push out Triple-A games on a monthly basis.

An Example of a smaller independent developer is Tripwire Interactive. Tripwire specializes in FPS games especially “hyper-realistic” type FPS games like Red Orchestra and Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. The Red Orchestra games were a welcome change to the type of gameplay offered from most WWII themed FPS games at the time. While other games feature fast gameplay with things like regenerating health and a Heads up Display (HUD) that displayed a mini map, health bar, and ammo count, Red Orchestra cut all that out. Tripwire focused on making a more realistic experience. This included mechanics such as realistic bullet ballistics with shots staring to arch over a certain distance, excluding a HUD feature altogether, and having the player venerable enough to be killed by a single bullet to add to the realism. These mechanics later carried on into other Tripwire games such as the Pacific Theatre WWII game Rising Storm and the Vietnam War game Rising Storm II.

An example of a larger and more corporate game developer that makes games similar to Tripwire. Dice Studios is a very well-known studio most famous for the production of the Battlefield franchise and more recently the Star Wars: Battlefront franchise. Dice is owned by Electronic Arts or EA a huge gaming development conglomeration that has many smaller game developers working for them. Dice has been making battlefield games since 2002 with the first title being a WWII FPS called Battlefield 1942. The game saw great success and EA recognized this and now has Dice pumping out Battlefield games almost every two years.

 Demographics-

           The demographics of gamers are actually a lot more diverse than one might believe. The usually stereotype is that gamers are either boys between the ages of 7-17 or young men in their twenties that live in their parents basement. There’s also a major stereotype that females do not like video games.

64% of the US general public play video games, The average age of the male gamer according to a Nielsen survey is 33 years old, according to the Entertainment Software Association the average age of female gamers is 37 years old. The countries that make the most from gaming revenue are The US bringing in an average of $25,426 million, Japan with $14,048 million, and China with a whopping $32,538 million.

 Controversaries-

           The gaming industry and its companies are not immune to controversary and culture movements.

The Grand Theft Auto Controversaries- Rockstar Game’s Grand Theft Auto (GTA) franchise is their most successful and most controversial franchise. The games are usually themed around crime and the main storylines have very graphic violence, drug use, and sexual content. The sandbox nature of the game also allows the player the opportunity to commit violence against non-enemy NPCs (non-playable characters) or go on shooting sprees until the cops kill you. GTA V came under harsh criticism for a playable scene In the story mode in which the player is forced to torture an FBI prisoner for information with anything from shock with a car battery, pulling teeth with plyers, or waterboarding. This scene especially got lots of media attention with many people asking the question if GTA games are to violent especially in today’s culture. Rockstar however uses this publicity and actually counts on it with each GTA release because it ultimately drives up their sales.

The Doom Controversary- On April 20 1999 two high school students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered their high school armed with guns and homemade bombs. They killed twelve people that day and themselves, and in the subsequent investigation it was found that the boys were fans of one the first popular FPS games Doom. Doom is centered on very simple gameplay with an interesting story with the main character traveling to Mars and to Hell to fight demons. It was the demonic themes and violent gameplay that led some to believe that Doom was actually sending Satanic subliminal messages to players trying to corrupt them to violence.

          Sources

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200810/physicshistory.cfm

http://pacman.com/en/pac-man-history

https://www.howtogeek.com/trivia/in-which-game-did-mario-make-his-first-appearance/

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/06/19/415456813/the-legendary-mr-miyamoto-father-of-mario-and-donkey-kong

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2018/10/30/red-dead-redemption-2-sales-revealed-725-million-in-three-days/#79f7000455d7

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-red-dead-redemption-2-2018-9

https://www.tripwireinteractive.com/#/company/#top

https://www.wepc.com/news/video-game-statistics/#video-gaming-industry-overview

BLOG POST #4 : Financing the Media; Controls on Media Content - THE MAKEUP INDUSTRY

In 2017, Tarte released a foundation inspired by their top selling concealer on the market, which is considered to be the best full coverage concealer you can buy. Although, unlike their concealer that introduced a numerous amount of shades, their foundation lacked in diversity with only two shades for darker women or men of color. This goes to show that even in 2018 we are far ahead of being inclusive to all shades of skin tones. If Fenty beauty can launch a range of 50 shades on the immediate debut into the makeup industry, you can too Tarte! Additionally, even though this created a huge controversy it didn’t stop their amount of sales the company received. Tarte later announced that they would launch even more shades, which went from 2 shades to 5 shades. This created what “Media Today” edition 5 calls client conflict, due to the fact that beauty influencers on instagram and youtube (Besides Nikkitutorials who didn’t point out the selective shade range due to losing her PR packages from tarte) Nevertheless, individuals such as Jeffree star, Jackie Aina, and Nyma tang called out Nikki and tarte for not pointing out the brands flaw in creating this foundation, which they indeed lost their PR connection with the brand after this.

Brands such as Fenty and Makeup revolution shoot for all around inclusion amongst all skin tones, which M.R. actually released 25 shades and 8 shades for darker women and men of color. Makeup revolution strives for all skin tones to use their products and makes sure they are inclusive all around. Not like tarte who creates a mean girl status and basically states “you can’t sit with us” after one review. Tarte as an established company in the makeup industry you should really get your act together. Now Makeup revolution has a concealer better than tarte and sales have currently dropped from tarte since 2017, because nobody wants to buy from a brand that only caters to different shades of beige.

Blog Post 10

Today in the music industry and the distribution tactics they use through a variety of strategies such as advertising on many different types of music platforms such as YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Music, and the internet in general and social media platforms as well. While the distribution process many male artists are dojng very stereotypical things such as rapping about drugs, sex, and money. However, while promoting music I think of YouTube and how in music videos they use sex to get viewers by having women with them dressed in very limited amount of clothing because thats what sells the best in a lot of music these days for the american audience. This also goes very female hip hop artists they use their bodies as a way to sell in their videos by dancing and looking good for the viewers. The music industry nowadays has certain norms and a stigma is in place by the audience always thinking that in order for music to be good and sell you have to curse and talk about drugs, sex, and money which makes the stereotypes for artists. When I think of individual artists what they do to become popular is advertise their music on social media and use a popular music platform which SoundCloud is very popular for upcoming artists because they control what they can do to advertise and it’s easy for people to have access to unlike buying a music app such as spotify and apple music. Using these platforms and distribution tactics is what makes the music industry so popular and competitive because their are millions of artists using these trying to sign a record label with a company. While using distribution methods you have to stand out when you’re an individual artist you have to get people to view your music through advertising or else people will still be listening to the same core group off artists like we are now.

Internet Industry

Some key term to know before trying to understand the Internet Industry , the most basic one. As theThe fifth edition of Media Today: Mass Communication in a Converging World defines “the internet- a global system of interconnected private, pubic, academic, business, and government compute networks that use standard set of commands to link billions of users worldwide”. Many think or have heard the theory that the Internet was made for military purposes; supposedly designed to survive nuclear attack. But scientist claim that it was actually made for science purposes. It was made for all scientist with one of these networks available to them. The could send each other their findings and question, and have more brains working together or find someone that finds what one scientist found complicated, completely easy for him. The internet was “made” for many reasons people believe. For research, for storage, to be more organized, to meet others. A system that helps you communicate with people all over the world in no time. To begin, the internet isn’t singularly owned. It is owned by lots and lots of people actually. Spaces are bought on the internet usually. Trends that are traveling around the internet are shopping, blogging, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and many other sites that make so many thins so simple to access. Id say the most popular is to go online and buy some stuff in a matter of seconds. Also reading anything you want in a matter of seconds. Having all types of informations and resources at your fingertips. But just as the internet is good, its also dangerous.The internet is the main source for controversy, racism, gender inequality and class issues. It is now evolved into something that cant be controlled, we have large masses of people that surf the web everyday. People searching for funny videos on the daily, gamers and worst of all we have the Netflix and Hulu bingers. We have snapchat which has news daily and new gossip on famous people. People with more class. That other people aspire to follow, but don’t understand the reality, that some of the things these people try to reach are just crazy and not really necessary. But it is what rums our world, the need to day dream something better. To try to fit in and be in the “upper class”. Truth is there should be these labels for upper class, middles class, lower class, black and white in the end we are all the same. Very recently the plus size model trend started and thats the type of thin that should be out there. Not just the image that society has created for the perfect girl/boy. We should all embrace the different shapes and colors. Be understanding and not judgmental, caring and patient. Cyber bullying is something that occurs very often. Labels are a very big thing in the Internet Industry, you have to remember that there is a lot of people viewing and commenting on certain things posted. There is a “better” figure, recipe and just simply always something that corrects you on the way you are doing or thinking something. It is a outlet that guides many of the mindsets in the world. It controls such a big part of our culture and way of life also. Now a day you always get a picture and upload it with a cute caption. And always let everyone now whats happening. There is no sense of privacy since the internet was invented. As Chris Smith says in his article “ 11 people who made the internet possible” , “Leonard Kleinrock developed the mathematical theory of packet switching networks while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) between 1960 and 1962. This technology involves the sending of small pieces of information from an origin to a destination, which came to be a foundation for the internet as we know it. Kleinrock’s research and future work also played an influential role in the development of the ARPANET. While Berners Lee is known as the father of the World Wide Web, Lawrence Roberts is one of those folks acknowledged for siring the internet as a whole. Building on Kleinrock’s packet switching technology, Roberts designed the ARPANET, an advanced research project on behalf of the US Department of Defense. The idea behind the project was to interconnect computers around the nation, and in November 1969 the first successful communications were sent from a computer at the University of California in Los Angeles to one at the Stanford Research Institute – 350 miles away.” These two men began what we have today. From a program that sends small pieces of information from one point to another to , and connecting devices together and one of the most used resources these days created by Ray Tomlinson the “email”. Which is used in the day to day by so may now a days. These simple things that are in our daily routine have rotes that go so far back. And have stories that most don’t even look into. When you think “internet”, I bet most people simply think of all the popular trending social medias and wifi. They don’t think more into it. Like how was it created, why was it created. Who made it even. Or who owns it. These questions all have answers. It was created by lots of people who kept trying to figure out things that at times seemed impossible. Even though most don’t like admitting it, the world works as a team. Because if we all didn’t share our findings and try to solve them or look for better solutions and let different points of view try to solve them, then we go no where. The evolution of technology is just begging and it has so much more to go. I don’t really consider myself a big technology person other than my compute, phone and tv. So I really am amazed with all the improvement that its has gone through, the internet is the future.

An Analysis of VICE News

VICE news is an independent news organization that is syndicated through HBO and also has its own TV station and magazine. VICE focuses on anything from politics, foreign affairs, entertainment, to food and travel. VICE is a more left leaning organization that targets a younger audience but also excels in producing quality documentaries and in depth investigative reporting.

Part 1: Front page

A.) Title-  The VICE title on the front page of the website is a medium size and takes up less than 20% of the header, not being incredibly large and not being to small. Located in the top left of the page the font is what grabs the readers’ attention. The word “VICE” is written in whiten graffiti style font while the word “News” is written in plain bold black. This font i think represent the kind of reader that might be interested in VICE News, someone who is younger and not necessarily traditional by older generation standards, but someone who also stills wants access to honest news. 

B.) Headline-The headline when i started this project was from the policing section of the site and the headline article was titled “Seattle Police think they found a way to fight “swatters” as soon as they call 911″ VICE has a policing section of their paper because to young people being carrying of how the police conduct themselves is a very important thing.  VICE is often very critical of police when they are in the headlines making it a more left leaning publication.  I believe however that this particular story was on the top of the page was because it was the day after the Kavanaugh hearing and i believe VICE was trying to break up some of the over saturation of stories surrounding the hearing. 

C.) Stories- There are about four main articles on the front page of the site. One about policing, one about drugs, and two stories about Kavanaugh with one having about five sub articles on the same subject linked to it. I would say their ratio of good to bad stories is about 25% good, 50% bad, and 25% just neutral. The policing story was more positive about how the policing are become more effective in fighting false calls, but the Kavanaugh stories were all negative and about how poorly Kavanaugh conducted himself at the hearing or how poorly president trump reacted.

D.) Photos/Graphics- The background colors of the site are very plain being most white and sometimes black. There are however large very well taken photographs for most of the articles or entertaining gif images.

E.) Sources- The articles on VICE all come from VICE writers. Being an indecent need organization VICE acts as their own source is not reliant on other networks to pass news along and can report their stories however they see fit not having to answer to a larger media company as a subsidiary. 

F.) Sections- VICE has a topics list on their site that changes depending on whats being covered on that days article or on the VICE tv show. The topics at the time of my research included Donald Trump, Immigration, Drugs, and Features. Today Donald Trump was at the top of the list because VICE is usually very critical of Trump and Trump gave them lots of ammo after his responses to the Kavanaugh hearings.

G.) Ads- The laptop version of the VICE website actually had no ads but when i opened the site on my phone i did see a few. Most of the ads were for local law firms for personal injury or for human rights, and one ad was for an online clothing outlet. Most of the VICE readers are involved in social justice so for a human rights law firm to advertise in VICE makes sense. 

H.) Ownership- Besides being partially owned by disney VICE is indecently owned being started by parent company VICE Media, founded by Shane Smith who start VICE originally as a magazine and eventually evolved it into a Tv network and news station.

I.) Fact article- “The Accused: The 84 cases that defined #metoo”. this article is an in-depth factual list on some of the most high profile sexual assualt cases of thew #metoo movement.

Opinion Article- “Experts can’t agree on whether Bert and Ernie have sex with each other or not”. This is an opinion article on whether or not the characters on the kids show Sesame Street are actually gay. This is opinion because well Bert and Ernie are not real people and don't have a sexual preference, so labeling them gay or straight is a matter of opinion.

J.) VICE tries to be bipartisan but for the most part is more a more left leaning publication. It was very much critical of Kavanaugh and the GOP senator that supported him. For example heres a quote form the article “Lindsey Graham’s plan if Kavanaugh fails? Just Nominate him again” 

“ “I belive Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed to the supreme court very soon” Graham said in a news release. “However if his nomination were to fall short, I would encourage President Trump to re-nominate Judge Kavanaugh to the supreme court. It would in effect be appealing the senate’s verdict directly to the American People.”” 

K & L.) Thesis & Eliciting Emotion-  in the article “The Accused: the 84 Cases that defined the first year of #metoo the thesis is driven home by facts that elicit an emotional response. 

Thesis - “Kavanaugh is just the latest powerful man forced to defend his conduct. In the year since Harvey Weinstein’s downfall, more the 200 people holding prominent positions in business, tech, media, and Hollywood- including VICE Media itself- have been accused of sexual misconduct.” The thesis is further supported by a list of 84 of the cases from the past year that also serves to evoke an emotional response from the reader. I also commend VICE for calling itself out by acknowledging member of its organization were involved in these accusations. 

Conclusion- Though VICE news is not fully bipartisan and leans left i do believe the indecent nature of VICE Media allows VICE News to operate in a way that brings more truth to the viewer. The independent nature does allow for some silly option pieces like Whether or not Bert and Ernie bang each other but for the most part VICE offers excellent and very honest and in depth reporting that is not handicapped by parent companies or advertisements. 

The Walt Disney Company

History-

The media Empire now known as Disney was started in 1926 by brother Walt and Roy O. Disney with their company  Disney Brothers Cartoon studio.  The company would undergo many name changes until 1986 when the company names was set with The Walt Disney Company. Disney broke ground in the early late 1920’s with the Iconic character Mickey Mouse. The success of Disney’s animation and Mickey Mouse set the stage for Walt’s Company to become bigger than he would have ever imagined. Over the next decades Disney continued to make strides in the animation world with releases such as Snow White and The Seven Dwarves which at the time was not only the first full length animated film but also the first animated film to be shown in color which was groundbreaking at the time in the 1940’s. As years and Years went on and the company became even more successful Walt started to set the seeds to grow The Disney Company into the entertainment/media juggernaut it is today. Walt saw many opportunities to use his brand to branch out to different areas of entertainment so he decided to use the Name of his Company to inspire a new theme park for children and families. Disneyland was opened to the public in July of 1955 and was a revolution in the theme park industry. The Mouse had spared no expense at making Disneyland “The happiest Place on Earth”. The Parks were also able to utilize Disney owned characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and The princesses as walk around attractions to get pictures with guests. This park was so successful three more Disney owned themed parks were opened after Disneyland. Disneyworld was opened not even twenty years later in 1971 in Orlando Florida, Disney’s Epcot Center (a world bazaar) opened in 1998 in Orlando Florida along with Disney’s Animal Kingdom (a theme park/zoo) which opened in 1998 in Orlando. Disney later purchased a cruise line and had its own TV channel in which it produced its own TV shows. Disney even had a radio station that played family friendly music and songs from Disney movies and shows. Walt Disney died in 1966 so he didn’t get to see his empire come to fruition like it has today but the way that Disney has seeped into every aspect of American entertainment, and the amount of money the company is worth I’m sure would have Walt grinning.

   hhttps://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biography.com%2F.image%2Ft_share%2FMTI2MDUwMjQ3NzMzNDYzMDUw%2Fwalt-disney-united-artistis-photofest-croppedjpg.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biography.com%2Fpeople%2Fwalt-disney-9275533&docid=L9VcffgIpAguqM&tbnid=aY9GnpHC6iFV8M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwicsOyqlL7eAhXSooMKHaapBXsQMwhwKAEwAQ..i&w=908&h=1200&client=safari&bih=711&biw=1280&q=walt%20disney&ved=0ahUKEwicsOyqlL7eAhXSooMKHaapBXsQMwhwKAEwAQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

  Ownership-

The Walt Disney Company has no corporate owners and is the world’s largest independently owned media conglomeration. When thinking about ownership in regards to Disney it is really Disney that is turning into the owner. They do not have to answer to any corporate higher ups or owners because the company is private and they own themselves along with any other smaller media company they decide to buy and absorb.

 Holdings-

Disney in the last ten years has been on a buying spree and what are they buying? They are buying other media companies and franchises, and not just small studios or franchise names. They are acquire well established franchises and companies that have been around for decades. Disney just finished its acquisition of the Fox Entertainment which gives The Mouse ownership over all Fox properties including Movies released by Fox studios, and TV shows syndicated on Fox owned networks. Disney has also learned the Value of purchasing Franchise rights after its acquiring of the Marvel name and subsequent success of the superhero genre and annualization of Marvel films. Shortly after Marvel bought Disney set its sights on one of America’s and the world’s most well-known film franchise, The Star Wars series. Disney’s purchase of Star Wars was huge news that upset and worried some fans of the franchise and made others quite excited. Those who were worried were afraid Disney style of annualization of franchises and watering down stories to make them more graspable to a general audience would hurt the franchise’s legacy. Others believed it was a chance at a fresh start and after the mostly negative receptions of George Lucas’ three prequel Star Wars films some fans were excited to see what the Mouses’ deep pockets could do with Star Wars.

 Controversary has surfaced with the new Star Wars Disney Films however. Disney has released two Star Wars main episode films with Episode VII: The Force Awakens, and Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, and two spin off/prequel films in Rouge One and Solo. The controversary is mainly that these new films especially episode VII are great disservices to the Star Wars fan base and almost seems to be making fun of them. Many fans criticize the writing and acting of the new films. There is also controversy from certain groups about the new episodes prominently featuring minorities or women but those arguments are usually void of any rational thought and are generally ignored. Many fans have also expressed disappointment with character development and plot holes left in the film.

                    How Disney Milks Star Wars-

Much like how Disney has a plan of phases for the release of Marvel movies it does the same for its Star Wars films. The scheduled release dates are very carefully thought out with the bigger Episodic movies like episode VII or VIII being released around Christmas time to maximize ticket sales. The smaller Disney Star Wars spin offs like Rouge One or Solo were released in summer months to still capitalize on the busy film season. Not only does the pumping out of films generate ticket or DVD sales but it also opens up the market to constant merchandising opportunities, and Star Wars a franchise that started in the 1970’s consistently sells massive amounts of toys, games, clothing, or anything you can slap a Star Wars logo on, and Disney being masters of merchandise themselves are well aware of the merchandising value of Star Wars.

The Walking Dead- Why it should've always been TV MA

I remember when the walking dead premiered back in 2010, i was a sophomore in high school and i was excited to see what a television show that wasn't on the SCI-FI network would do with a larger budget zombie show. To say the least i was very impressed and watched the show with friends and family probably until about the fifth or sixth season when i just started to get a little burnt out. one thing that i noticed was that the series got progressively more violent. Not that the show wasn't already violent, the first season had plenty of violent and gory moments. The later seasons however take it to a whole new level, for example in season 7 the first episode of the season has one of the main characters Glenn get his head bashed in with a bat which the camera shows us the aftermath of. I find it funny that throughout this show which was rated TV-14  until season 7 would show gratuitous violence, people being ripped apart, throats bitten out, guts eaten, people murdering each other, spousal abuse, sexual abuse, all of this really violent stuff but the can't say the word “fuck” because 14 year olds are watching. I find it disturbing how the FCC believes that hearing the word “fuck” will have more of a negative effect on a young mind rather than seeing a mother have to watch a man shoot her zombified child, or seeing a man shoot his friend in the leg and leave him for dead so he can escape a horde of zombie, or watch another man commit a mass shooting against his own people when they refuse an order. Its for these reasons that i not only think the walking dead should've been rated TV-MA and why i also think if TV-MA wants to allow as much violence on basic cable tv as they want they should be able to say “fuck” too. 

Is the Age of Streaming and Mass media bringing us together or pulling us apart?

“Did you watch the new season of shameless?”

“what did you think about the new episodes of American Horror story?”

These are some questions that might be examples of questions you might  overhear in an average American’s conversation nowadays. we live in an age where we comsume TV shows completely different from the generations before. Instead of talking about a new episode of Friends at work you discuss an entire season of Stranger Things. We can now discuss entire seasons of shows because we have the ability to stream entire seasons unlike past generations who had to wait around the TV and actually plan out when they wanted to watch a certain show or episode of that show. This is both a good and bad thing in my opinion. This “binge” style streaming formula does allow for more entertainment value and some shows can go into great character development but in some ways the “Netflix binge” just like any other binge can be all consuming. You ever hang out with a friend that does too many drugs or drinks too much and thats all they talk about and their whole personality revolves around drugs or drinking? Well binge watching TV shows can be the same (be it with less health risks). People often become addicted to streaming their favorite shows just because of the accessibility and with the large amount of other people binging the same shows it doesn't really feel like a problem when you just binge watched five hours of Stranger Things just so you can catch up with your friends and know what they are talking about. I feel that like the reading stated that binge watching popular shows is way of acquiring “social currency” or something topical to talk about with people to make yourself feel interesting or part of the group.  There is nothing detrimentally wrong with this but it does pose some issues. In the past years i feel as if it has been harder and harder to having meaningful conversations or experiences that don't revolve around media. In short i feel your friends are more likely to ask what you thought of an episode of The Office other than ask how your family, job, or personal life is going.

The music industry

The music industry is highly competitive media space not only for the artists but for the record companies representing them. Record companies represent artist in for a percentage of profit from album and concert ticket sales, in exchange the company will promote the artist with elaborate and expensive advertising campaigns and also help sponsor concert tours making the artist more famous. The issue with these large record companies and the problem they pose to independent artist is that they usually take good bands and “pop” them up or water down more radical aspects to make them more palatable to the average consumer. Bands also relinquish a lot of creative control when they sign with larger record companies that can limit what they can and can't write songs about or the songs they have to always perform at concerts. These are all issues that artists usually have more control over when working with an independent record company. Independent record companies are much smaller and do not have the capital or advertising power to boss around their artist clients as he larger companies do.