By Renee Hobbs
Media Literacy IN ACTION
Questioning the Media
CHAPTER 10
how do MEDIA COMPANIES MAKE MONEY?
Learning Outcomes
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Examine the changing nature of the workplace for freelancers and professionals who work in media industries
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Appreciate how consumers support media industries through the purchase of goods and services
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Consider how global media systems are shaped by regulatory and business practices that include both freedom of information and censorship
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Reflect on the social value of media regulations as they influence workers, consumers, and society
The value of creative labor is shaped by business practices and government regulation
Select a media or technology company of interest to you. It might be a company whose products and services you use every day or a company that you have acquired an interest in as a
result of reading this book.
Use the Internet to find two different types of sources:
• The company’s annual report, which is how the company describes its successes to its stockholders
• At least three independent news stories about the company over the same 12-month period
as the annual report
Construct a Venn diagram using PowerPoint or another digital tool to compare and contrast
the information sources by considering these questions:
• What key ideas and information are presented in both the annual report and news coverage?
• What information and stories were presented in news media that were not highly visible in
the annual report?
• What information was presented in the annual report that was not in news coverage?
You can post using the #MLAction hashtag to share your published work with a global community
of media literacy learners.
CREATE TO LEARN
Compare & Contrast Information Sources
about a Media Company
FLIPGRID
INQUIRY
CONSIDER THE
PROS & CONS OF MEDIA ECONOMICS
With a discussion partner, consider the advantages and disadvantages of the three different revenue models explored in this chapter. As you analyze these different economic models, be sure to consider the different points of view of the
media creator, the consumer, and the society as a whole.
After discussion and analysis, reflect on what you have learned about media economics by considering these questions as you plan a Flipgrid response:
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of the different ways of paying for mass and digital media?
• Which approaches are best and worst for creators, consumers, and society as a whole?
• If you could change something about how you pay for media, what would it be?
You can also view and respond to comments of other people who have offered thoughtful reflections on the topic of media economics.
INTELLECTUAL GRANDPARENT:
DALLAS SMYTHE
"People are subject to relentless pressures from Consciousness Industry; they are besieged with an avalanche of consumer goods and services; they are themselves produced as (audience) commodities; they reproduce their own lives and energies as damaged and in commodity form. But people are by no means passive or powerless. People do resist the powerful and manifold pressures of capital as best they can.”
--Dallas Smythe, 1981
Learn more about how Dallas Smythe influenced media literacy educators, researchers & activists
VIDEO
You ARE The Product
