Global Media in a Digital Age

 For companies, the most important thing is how much money is made. Much of that money comes from advertisement and subscriptions, so it's very important to have a good image in the public, or a loyal audience which will stick with you. In the most recent years, we have seen campaigns led against advertisers of media outlets in attempts to get them to pull sponsorships and deprive disagreeable outlets of cash. This has been met with mixed success. Brands want to appease the public. In reality, corporations largely don't care about social issues or justice. They care about money. If it makes them money to make their logo a rainbow, they'll do it. If it doesn't they don't. I was in Egypt during pride month. Not. One. Single. Rainbow.  I find this exhausting. I'm not really interested in some big commentary on pink capitalism or corporate double standards, but it's just so tiring. People rush to get Coca Cola to pull ads from YouTube because of a single racial ...

 Video games are a growing part of entertainment. The industry continues to get bigger and more profitable as more people are able to access video games. People like to harp on about microtransactions or gatcha games or their favorite consoles or the best PC parts, but what everyone is failing to recognize is the rise of Asia and Africa in gaming. Online communities are becoming more and more diverse as more people get access to video game consoles or free to play games. PUBG Mobile for example is still widely popular throughout Africa and the Middle East, where anyone with a smartphone was able to download the game and play for free. Though internet is limited for billions still, any access online means they are keen to join the international community of gamers. Competitive tournaments, once dominated by American and Japanese players, now has spread to Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, with Africa slowly joining in as well. Games such as FIFA or Smash Bros cultivate lar...

Live-streaming content has been a growing market over the past decade. With the possibility to make millions often from home doing what you love, many have jumped at the opportunity. The most well-known dedicated streaming site is Twitch. As more people every day get access to reliable and cheap internet, and with more and more working from home, Twitch is gaining in popularity. People like being able to watch their favorite creators in real time, where they have a chance to interact with them as well. Creators, too, find this a fun way to interact with their audience as well as having a far more reliable stream of revenue over sites such as YouTube. Twitch can be extremely profitable for charismatic people, and a successful creator will see Twitch as a serious competitor to a real job. The benefit of Twitch for creators is that they can largely do what they enjoy on their own time and still make more than they may doing something which they don't enjoy.  Just yesterday it was reve...

In my rather uninformed opinion, I think that podcasting has stepped in to fill an itch in society which was only partially being scratched by the radio: targeted background noise. When people listen to music or the radio, they do it for two reasons. One, to enjoy, or two, for white noise. The issue that people have is that many wish to have white noise which is pleasant. I like to listen to rock music in the car while I drive to and from college. I'm not following every lyric, often I am talking to my passenger, but I would feel weird to have no noise. Here is where podcasting kicks in. Podcasts give you something to listen to beyond just music, so you're engaging your brain as you listen to a conversation. Myself and my girlfriend both like to listen to other media while we play video games (which aren't necessarily story-driven.) I mostly use YouTube, but Skyler likes to listen to podcasts. In effect, we're doing the same thing. As discussed in class, there is a podc...