Audience demand for radio

Over the decades, radio has been shaped based on what the audience wants to hear.

Like in any form of media, the audience has the overall effect on what is put out in the world. If the audience is not happy with what is broadcasted, the rating of a particular media will drop drastically and the media will lose money. Therefore, the media must listen to the audiences demands and use that feedback to put out what people will tune into everyday. And in this way, the media is shaped over time to meet the growing demands of consumers.

In radio, the audiences demands of the 1920's drastically changed what the radio would broadcast. Standardized program formats were made and had daily/weekly schedules to attract the audience. This was the birth of radio shows which would eventually lead to television. Also, because of audience demands, the radio shows brought about radio stars that people would idolize and want to be. And because of these programs on the radio, advertising was able to come around to fund the radio. As quoted in the book, "In the 1920s, regulators and the radio industry worried that audiences would reject radio if it carried too much advertising. However, people were so enthusiastic about the new medium that they accepted the ads without much objection."(Media Now, Pg. 162)  So, because of audience demand, the radio was able to form in the 1920's and come to prosper through the decades to come.

Social Learning

The theory of social learning has helped me better understand the ways in which the TV show "16 and Pregnant" leads teenagers to believe that being pregnant at a young age isn't a horrible thing.

Social Learning Theory states that people who view something in the media will imitate the actions that they see through a process known as observational learning. Increasingly, people are concerned with the violence, sex, and drugs that are being put out in the media as though it was nothing at all. In a lot of the media, the bad guys aren't punished and they get away with their crimes. And because of this, people are becoming concerned that younger viewers will begin to imitate those things and follow the same paths that they see on TV or in movies. But on the same note, in some media, the bad guy is caught and punished, which can lead viewers to believe that all crimes are found out about and therefore people will not commit crimes.
In the show "16 and Pregnant", teen pregnancy seems to be glamorized. Yes, the girls do go through some hardships, but in the end, they have their baby and are comforted by the people around them and everything seems to be just fine. Younger viewers can see this and think that if they have sex early in their lives and get pregnant, that they will be just fine as well.
The show does show some problems that teen moms can encounter, but overall, it shows all of the good things about having a baby. And because of this, the show 'Teen Mom" was created which also glamorizes teen pregnancy, and the movie Juno(a comedy) was made about a pregnant teen. This has caused teen pregnancy to not be frowned upon in our society much like it was a couple of decades ago.
Hopefully, parents will inform their children to wait or to be safe, because teen pregnancy is not all that it is lived up to be as shown in the media.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLiXS02Mj7U

Hegemony Post

Using hegemony, I have been able to better understand this interview between Bill O'Reilly and Laura Berman in the following way. In this interview, Bill O'Reilly is using agenda setting in order to give his audience what they want. Fox News is known to be a conservative news station, and it has been shaped that way by the people who own the company. In being a conservative, biased station, Fox News is once again putting a story up that they feel viewers should see. It is not necessarily an important story, but since the story covers something that conservatives despise, Fox News felt the need to put it on The O'Reilly Factor. And therefore, agenda setting has taken place to put a certain kind of content of the media on this program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g8VNUkIemw

Bill O'Reilly is putting this segment on his show, because he knows that his audience are conservatives. And since this segment is over a teen lesbian couple, he knows that he will be able to further enforce the conservatives negative feelings toward gays people and gay supporters. And in this way, Bill O'Reilly is instead telling his viewers how they should interpret and feel about this issue instead of thinking for themselves. In this way, agenda setting is clearly seen, which I would have not noticed without learning the meaning of hegemony. And after seeing this, I feel as though we need to have a moderate news channel, so that viewers may get the information that they need, and be simply told what to believe because the news companies don't want the viewers to have different views on matters than the news stations.