Chapter one from the previous week is about understanding media industries. Some main take-aways from this reading were understanding the factors that separate the products of a media industry VS there importance for society. This chapter also discusses the roles of individual agency and ideology within the media industries, and how this results in diverse, various products. This part of the chapter is what I found most interesting.
I always knew that different companies and different people would produce different projects for various reasons. But after reading this chapter, I developed a better understanding as to what actually goes on. Something I learned that reflects what a company produces is agency. Agency is the amount of control one has over something. Agency effects employees and their creative boundaries. The three principals of agency are circumscribed agency, ideological uncertainty, and the cultures of production.
The one that struck most interesting and valuable to me was the cultures of production. Cultures of production are the many conditions surrounding the production of content in an industry. The examples that were discussed in class were audience feedback, aesthetics, conventions or genre’s, professional organizations, and industry norms. All of these things play a role in what type of content a company produces. In my opinion, one of the most important thing that companies should abide by is audience feedback and reviews. An example I can think of is with the show American Horror Story. The show’s ratings began to drop after the first few seasons as consumers lost interest in the storylines. The producers at American Horror Story noticed this and presumably listened to consumer feedback. The new season, which came out last week, was supposedly a cross-over between the first and third season. By doing this, they’re listening to what consumers want to see and hopefully bringing back revenue that they lost during the decline of the series after the third season.
entertainment media 