Frank Michael Russell

Framing Technology Coverage | Risk, Progress, and ‘Exuberance About Gadgets’

Introduction

This paper examines the framing of news coverage of the technology industry.  According to a recent content analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (2010), in “the mainstream media, particularly on front pages and general interest programs, the press reflects exuberance about gadgets and a wonder about the corporations behind them, but wariness about effects on our lives, our behavior and the sociology of the digital age” (p. 3).

Apple, the Silicon Valley maker of Macintosh computers and mobile devices including the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, was the most-covered technology company by U.S. news outlets, the Pew study found.  This paper examines Apple’s success in influencing media coverage of its products.  This paper also examines the challenges journalists face in covering complex corporate and financial news, as well as competing frames involving risk and progress in coverage of scientific and technological developments.

Apple's iTunes and Peer-to-Peer File Sharing

Introduction

This paper examines Apple’s iTunes and file-sharing sites such as Napster and Kazaa.  It will include discussion of iTunes and the controversy over illegal downloading of music.  In particular, it will consider how record companies responded to illegal file-sharing sites.  It also will examine how Apple’s iTunes provided a convenient, legal way for consumers to download music. 

What is iTunes?

On its website, Apple (2010) pitches iTunes as a convenient site for “all your digital media, all in one place.”  It described iTunes as “a free application for your Mac or PC.  It organizes and plays your digital music and video on your computer.  It keeps all your content in sync.  And it’s a store on your computer, iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV that has everything you need to be entertained.”

The introduction of Napster, file sharing, and MP3 music downloads

File-sharing and peer-to-peer networks had a “formative impact” on the digital distribution of music, Madden (2009) noted.  “Distributed networks of socially-driven music sharing” such as Napster “helped lay the foundation for mainstream engagement with participatory media applications,” she wrote.  Until the introduction of Napster, Bakker (2005) noted, it was possible “in theory” to transfer music files over the Internet.  “But because of the size of CD-tracks (30 Mb or more) and low bandwidth,” he wrote, “transfer of these files was next to impossible for the average user” (p. 43).  In the late 1990s, though, technological developments such as the MP3 format led to the introduction of Napster in 1999, followed by Kazaa, Gnutella, and other peer-to-peer networks (Bakker, 2005).

Who Framed Hollywood and Silicon Valley | Thesis Proposal

Introduction

This study will examine news coverage of The Walt Disney Co., Apple Inc., and six other major entertainment and technology employers in California.  This is a worthy topic of study because these large corporations—especially Disney and Apple—are economic and cultural forces, globally and within California’s two largest population centers.  These companies, particularly Disney and Apple, have strong business connections and operate in a media and business environment that has been changed by new technologies such as the Internet.

In 2006, Disney purchased Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion (Barnes, 2008b).  The acquisition combined two pioneering forces in the film animation industry.  It also made Apple Chief Executive Officer and Pixar Chairman Steve Jobs—who had purchased Pixar in 1986 from Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas—a member of Disney’s board of directors and the Southern California media conglomerate’s largest individual shareholder (Barnes, 2008b; Catmull, 2008; Telotte, 2008).

The entertainment industry is the largest employer in Southern California, and the technology industry is the largest employer in Northern California’s Silicon Valley, which stretches from San Jose, the largest city in the region, north to San Francisco.  Economists and geographers suggest such regional industrial agglomerations, also known as business clusters, are a powerful form of organization for the deployment of capital and labor.  This study will examine the framing of news coverage of  large corporations in the Hollywood and Silicon Valley business clusters, both by large newspapers within those regions and by national publications.

"Hello, I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC." | Branding, Identity and Consumer Perceptions of Apple and Microsoft

This paper examines Apple’s Get a Mac advertising campaign in the context of the Silicon Valley computer maker’s history, since the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, of positioning its brand as incorporating counterculture values, creativity, nonconformity, and technological superiority worthy of a premium price.

The Get a Mac campaign is known for two characters, who open each of the ads with the line, “Hello, I’m a Mac. And I’m a PC.” Actor Justin Long plays young, casually hip, creative “Mac,” and comedian John Hodgman portrays business-oriented (and somewhat dorky) “PC.” In “Mac” and “PC,” Apple and its advertising agency provide two ready-made identities for computer users.

Book Critique: Living in the Information Age, A New Media Reader, 2nd Edition, Edited by Erik P. Bucy

Living in the Information Age: A New Media Reader, Second Edition is a collection of readings examining the new media revolution, the rapidly changing technology behind it, and its effect on our culture. Editor Erik P. Bucy begins with selections that survey the growing number of communications channels made possible by advances in telephone, television and networked computer technology. We’re introduced to the idea of “mediamorphosis,” in which existing media adapt to a changing communications environment, and Paul Saffo’s “30-year rule” for the acceptance of new ideas in a culture.

Book Critique: The Future of the Mass Audience, W. Russell Neuman

The Future of the Mass Audience was published in 1991. Just as the Internet is beginning to emerge as a mass medium, W. Russell Neuman examines its potential to change public discourse.

 Neuman first acknowledges the rapid pace of technological change in our post-industrial society, and considers Ithiel de Sola Pool’s thesis that the large-scale social institutions and mass media we now take for granted are only very recent developments in human history.

Does Place Matter?

Will Silicon Valley survive the "Great Recession"? Absolutely, says a long article by Richard Florida in the Atlantic. L.A., Seattle, Chicago, New York will be OK, too. (For New York, even despite the loss of high-paying financial jobs. In fact, Florida suggests, New York might be better off without them.) Why? Educated, productive, creative people live in these places, so other educated, productive, creative people will want to live there, too.