Chapter one starts with introducing what "media" is. It analyzes different ways of using media on both individuals and business. The media history has changed from the simplest to convergence. For example, we used video to gather the information we want to know, until now, we can use internet through i-phone to check the worldwide news. The progress of changing has huge impacts on both individual behaviors and business style. The impacts can be positive and also negative.
I have a strong feeling while reading the part that Rodman mentions about: culture imperialism. Media are strong methods that directly influence people’s minds, even more into culture. It is sometimes good, but sometimes bad. As the example that Rodman give out in the paragraph of “media criticism”, the media tend to make smoking looks cool or other sexual scenes attracts to the teenagers. This is just in the United States. Students start receiving sexual education in their ninth grade. School has set a smoking area at school. It works fine in the United States since the students receive enough mature knowledge in their early ages. However, when it comes to other countries, it is different. In those conservative Asian countries, such as Taiwan, China, or Korea…etc, they learn to be very conservative in their early ages; otherwise, students can put themselves into big trouble. No dating or no smoking is allowed at school. That was the rules that the school has always been very strict. When the media come into these conservative countries, people think that “Wow, it is so cool that those Americans can do this and that.” The more the media come in, the more influence it can cause on the culture.
One more thing that I found it very true is that in horizontal integration: “concentration of media ownership can result in one company’s having too much power to sway public opinion” and after that Rodman is talking about “government control”. Actually, I found that sometimes it’s a combination. I don’t know if it works the same in the United States, but in Taiwan, there are two political parties; if the president of one broadcasting station supports one of the two parties, he will block the news of another or using language to insult another party; which I think it’s sometimes very unfair. In this case, to me, it is more likely the combination of “government control” and “horizontal integration” because once the broadcaster owns another company, they can use their power to block the information to the audience and it is a negative phenomenon. And I don’t think it’s a good role model for both of the society and individual.
I have a strong feeling while reading the part that Rodman mentions about: culture imperialism. Media are strong methods that directly influence people’s minds, even more into culture. It is sometimes good, but sometimes bad. As the example that Rodman give out in the paragraph of “media criticism”, the media tend to make smoking looks cool or other sexual scenes attracts to the teenagers. This is just in the United States. Students start receiving sexual education in their ninth grade. School has set a smoking area at school. It works fine in the United States since the students receive enough mature knowledge in their early ages. However, when it comes to other countries, it is different. In those conservative Asian countries, such as Taiwan, China, or Korea…etc, they learn to be very conservative in their early ages; otherwise, students can put themselves into big trouble. No dating or no smoking is allowed at school. That was the rules that the school has always been very strict. When the media come into these conservative countries, people think that “Wow, it is so cool that those Americans can do this and that.” The more the media come in, the more influence it can cause on the culture.
One more thing that I found it very true is that in horizontal integration: “concentration of media ownership can result in one company’s having too much power to sway public opinion” and after that Rodman is talking about “government control”. Actually, I found that sometimes it’s a combination. I don’t know if it works the same in the United States, but in Taiwan, there are two political parties; if the president of one broadcasting station supports one of the two parties, he will block the news of another or using language to insult another party; which I think it’s sometimes very unfair. In this case, to me, it is more likely the combination of “government control” and “horizontal integration” because once the broadcaster owns another company, they can use their power to block the information to the audience and it is a negative phenomenon. And I don’t think it’s a good role model for both of the society and individual.
