Media Industries Final

Front 1

A la carte

Back 1

refers to the option for cable subscribers to pick whichever channels they want and pay a fee per channel, rather than being forced to select from packages determined by cable providers.

Front 2

A-list/B-list issue

Back 2

refers to the arbitrary, yet significant, variation among the talent involved in media products. The financial consequences of a decision to select a well-known talent (A-list) to star in or make media productions over a relatively unknown talent (B-list), who may offer just as good of performance for a smaller salary, is not absolute or consistent in a way that such decisions often have economic consequences that can be calculated.

Front 3

Above-the-line

Back 3

refers to costs and workers that are unique to each media production, rather than costs and workers that the organization maintains from project to project. Generally, above-the-line workers are creative staff, while 'below the line' workers are technical or support staff.

Front 4

Access

Back 4

refers to one's ability to use or receive media and communication services.

Front 5

Adaptive strategies

Back 5

are conventional practices that media organization have adopted to help make commercial media production more predictable and help defray risks

Front 6

Agency

Back 6

the amount of control media industry workers have over how and what they do, allowing them to be meaningful actors in how their companies operate and in the creation of media products.

Front 7

Affiliates

Back 7

are the individual television and/or radio stations that make up a broadcast network.

Front 8

Analog

Back 8

is a non-digital method of recording that stores signals in a manner that represents that message using a direct facsimile, or an 'analogy', of the original (eg. audio tapes, vinyl records).

Front 9

Anti-trust regulations

Back 9

laws, handled in the US by the Dept of Justics with the Federal Trade Commission, intended to prevent too much industry consolidation.

Front 10

Ars longa

Back 10

is the long economic life of media-industry products. After an initial period when a company loses money on a media tet such as a TV show, the media text may continue producing profits for decades through avenues such as syndication.

Front 11

'Art for art's sake'

Back 11

is an attitude pursued by many creative workers in the media industries whose primary incentive is not necessarily to make media texts that are likely to make the most money, but to make the story they really want to tell

Front 12

Artificial scarcity

Back 12

is a practice used by industries, involving windowing an dprice differentiation, to control where, when, for how long, and at what cost people may experience a media product.

Front 13

Audimeter

Back 13

a device designed by media audience-measurement firms that records which channel a television or radio is set to.

Front 14

Auxillary practices

Back 14

refer to a category of 'secondary' or 'supporting' roles and practices in media industries, including critics, agents, and audience-measurement companies

Front 15

Below-the-line costs and workers

Back 15

those that tend to carry over from project to project, including the costs of production and post production, as well as workers who are primarily involved with the technical aspects of media production.

Front 16

Bicycling

Back 16

is a media distribution strategy that involves transferring physical copies of media texts from exhibitor to exhibitor.

Front 17

Block booking

Back 17

is a practice used by film studios that required independent theaters to agree to take a block of studio-selected films (often films that were not very desirable) if they wanted to get the big new studio film with top talent

Front 18

Boutique

Back 18

media firms that are small firms, typically with a small number of employees , that specialize in one particular segment of media production, distribution, or exhibition.

Front 19

Brands

Back 19

refers to particular characters, story worlds, or recognizable elements of texts that can be exploited across multiple media, sometimes referred to as transmedia storytelling.

Front 20

Broadcast flag

Back 20

prevents digital recording from television, or involves mechanisms that prevent us from freely moving purchased audio files among devices or recording them to a physical medium.

Front 21

Broadcasting

Back 21

permits a single transmission to reach hundreds, even thousands, of listeners with the same message at the same time, through the utilization of radio waves of the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit voice (radio) or voice and video (television)

Front 22

Buzz

Back 22

refers to the excitement generated around a particular media text, whether that excitement involves only those who work in the industries or society at large.

Front 23

Carry over effect

Back 23

is an exhibition strategy of television broadcasters that encourages viewers to watch a new program by airing it immediately after a popular program, in the hope that viewers will stick around to watch the new show.

Front 24

Casual work

Back 24

is hiring independent workers on a project-by-project basis rather than hiring them on long term contracts. It is increasingly popular costcutting strategy of commercial media industries.

Front 25

Circumscribed agency

Back 25

is a perspective that assumes that the choices we make in our lives are not wholly our own, but neither are they simply imposed upon us by outside forces

Front 26

Commercial mandate

Back 26

is the primary goal, or reason for being, of a media industry that values the earning of profits

Front 27

common carriers

Back 27

are telecommunications companies, such as the telephone company, that simply carry content, rather than originating it themselves.

Front 28

Communications technologies

Back 28

are mechanical or electronic innovations that permit human beings to communicate with one another in ways that differ from our natural abilities.

Front 29

Complex professional era

Back 29

refers to the period beginning in the 1950s during which creative workers became salaried employees of organizations devoted to creating culture. these organizations have grown steadily larger, more diversified, and more global, and they rely on workers with highly specialized skill-sets.

Front 30

Conditions

Back 30

refer to the economic, regulatory, and technological realities that media industries operate within and that are larger than any individual entity or organization.

Front 31

Conglomeration generally

Back 31

refers to the increased dominance of companies involved with many different products or services (ie, the same companies that air the shows on their networks also the shows in their studios).

Front 32

consolidation of ownership

Back 32

describes the concentration of many media industry operations into the hands of just a few companies, resulting in less competition.

Front 33

constructed audience

Back 33

is the audience-its characteristics, likes, and dislikes-imagined by creators and those throughout the industry during the making of media.

Front 34

content aggregators

Back 34

organizations that select and bring together an assortment of media texts in order to sell them to exhibitors or consumers.

Front 35

content regulations

Back 35

governs what can be included in media texts. typically, these regulations are based on social unacceptability or they enforce copyright.

Front 36

conventions

Back 36

are agreed-upon ways of creating media texts, including the use of particular genres, narrative techniques, and strategies of organization. (formulas)

Front 37

convergence

Back 37

describes the new connections among media enabled by digitization, in terms of technical language, cultural and technological forms, media products, communication systems, and the media industries themselves

Front 38

co-production

Back 38

refers to a business arrangement in which production staff and creative workers from more than one country or organization work together on a project.

Front 39

copyright

Back 39

refers to legal protection for creators of original works (eg music, poetry, books) from those who might distribute other's work, passing it off as their own and profiting from it.

Front 40

corporate image

Back 40

a style of advertising that was used to advance corporate image, rather than focus on the attributes of the product. it was common during the sponsorship era of broadcasting.