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Media Today, 4th Edition
Chapter Recaps and Study Guide
Chapter 5: A World of Blurred Media Boundaries
After studying this chapter, you will be able to:

Identify and discuss the six guiding trends shaping the world of mass media.

Analyze and discuss media fragmentation’s impact on media organizations and
their consumers.

Recognize and evaluate the audience segmentation strategies of media
organizations.

Identify and explain the benefits and challenges of distributing products across
media boundaries.

Analyze and discuss the impact of digital convergence on media organizations
and their consumers.

Recognize the trend toward globalization in the mass media and evaluate its
consequences.

Recognize the trend toward conglomeration in the mass media and evaluate its
consequences.

Harness your media literacy skills by taking a critical view of the six trends
discussed in this chapter.

Six related trends describe the mass media world at the turn of the twentieth
century.
o media fragmentation
o
o
o
o
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audience segmentation
distribution of products across media boundaries
globalization
conglomeration
digital convergence.

MEDIA FRAGMENTATION: This term refers to the increase in the number of
mass media and mass media outlets that has taking place the past two decades.
Media fragmentation encourages audience erosion, a decrease in the percentage of
the population using any particular mass medium (such as newspapers in general)
or a specific media outlet (such as a specific newspaper).

AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION: This term refers to the activity of deciding what
portions of the population to pursue as your target audience and what kind of
content you will use in order to attract their attention.
o When a mass media organization sets its sights on having as its audience
one or more of the social segments it has identified in the population, that
behavior is called targeting.
o The more marketers find a group attractive, the more they are prone to
take it apart to find subgroups that have special features that attract them.
o The reasons why a media company would want to segment and target its
audience is due to business considerations—whether or not the media
company is supported by advertising.

DISTRIBUTION OF PRODUCTS ACROSS MEDIA BOUNDARIES: Market
segmentation and audience targeting due to outlet fragmentation and audience
erosion in the mass media pose major challenges for the producers of mass media
materials. Executives have responded to these challenges in ways that virtually
force them to distribute their materials and products across media boundaries.
o The expectation of making a profit by releasing content in one medium no
longer holds for many mass media firms.
o In the television and film businesses—where production costs are quite
high—the challenge of covering costs has forced production organizations
to design their output with an eye toward moving it across mass media
boundaries.
 Vertical integration is an organizational structure that allows for
the control of production, distribution, and exhibition.
 Syndication is a strategy whereby a production firm rents its
product for a specified number of uses.
 The term windows describes the series of exhibition points for
television and film products through which revenues are generated.
o In the print media, firms have begun moving products across media
boundaries with the notion that the more windows of opportunity they can
find to gain more revenues from content, the better.
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Syndicates often play a role in moving print content across and
into other media boundaries.
Print companies sometimes license other media to transform print
products into other kinds of products
Print companies, especially book companies, often enter into
entertainment licensing, allowing a different medium to transform
a print product into some other kind of product.
o One reason media firms cross media boundaries with their products or
brands is the need to achieve good share of mind.

GLOBALIZATION: In the face of media fragmentation, audience erosion, and
the need to move materials to more outlets in order to extend revenues, U.S.
production and distribution executives have been looking beyond America—to
globalization of media content and channels—as a way to solve their revenue
problems.
o At the same time that major U.S. media organizations are distributing their
American products to countries around the world, they are acutely aware
that their international presence angers local media production
organizations in other countries.

CONGLOMERATION: Conglomerates—even mass media conglomerates—are
not new. What is relatively new is the approach that their corporate leaders have
taken to them.
o Horizontal integration involves the ownership of production, distribution,
and exhibition facilities in a number of media industries, as well as the
strategy of bringing those parts together so that each can profit from the
expertise of the other.
o Synergy is the intended outcome of horizontal integration.

DIGITAL CONVERGENCE: Digital convergence refers to the use of computer
technologies to allow different media to share the same or similar materials.
Digital convergence is changing the way media firms do business and audiences
use media. It is also encouraging, and accelerating, the blurring of media
boundaries and the development of conglomerates that move materials across
those boundaries.
o The digitization of content actually encourages this activity because it
turns the material into cross-platform data.
o The industry term “repurposing” means the reuse of content for different
aims.
o At the turn of the twenty-first century, Napster was the most visible
manifestation of the issues surrounding digital convergence.
o Media executives, copyright attorneys and technologists have been trying
to figure out how to create profitable business models in an era where
digital convergence threatens to allow consumers to move material across
media platforms without charge almost as easily as companies can do it.

The often-used term “conglomerate power” reflects a fear by some in the United
States and around the world that a few large media corporations are accumulating
the kinds of assets that allow them to dominate the major channels of mass
communication. Three general fears emerge:
o When a small number of firms exercise power over production,
distribution, and exhibition, they narrow the mainstream agenda in society.
o When a small number of huge firms exercise power over production,
distribution, and exhibition on a global basis, they accelerate the
homogenization of world society in the interest of commercialism.
o When a small number of huge firms exercise power over production,
distribution, and exhibition, the democratic political process is harmed
and/or jeopardized.

Critics offer three common criticisms of the growth of media conglomerates.
o Media conglomeration narrows society’s mainstream agenda.
o The control of a few companies over content produces a lack of diversity
of voices in the media.
o The cross-media mind set of the media executives creates a huge
marketing advantage for the media products of the conglomerate.
o Media conglomerates have the power to frame the social agenda.
o Media conglomeration accelerates homogenization of world society in the
interest of commercialism.
In the interest of media literacy, it’s important to see the developments discussed in this
chapter as social phenomena that ought to be looked at critically.
SPECIAL NOTE: Be sure to use Table 5.4 to consider the pros and cons of the six trends
discussed in this chapter. The table also raises some good questions that media literate
people should probably think about.