Introduction to Mass Communications-Week 3

So on the 21st of June, Monday, the class started as usual, after lunch. Having done my Critical Thinking presentation earlier that day had lifted a weight of my shoulders and I was more enthusiastic to learn. Anyhow, on that day, Miss Zee taught us about Newspapers. 

We started with the history of newspapers, how it came about. It was popularized by the US and back then the news is only supplied by the government. John Peter Zenger wrote about taxes and was jailed but his imprisonment has caused quite a stir. It lead to the rise of new publishers that write about how England abuse it's power and other political related issues. 

Then we proceeded to The Penny Press. It changed the distribution pattern from 6 cents to just 1 cent per paer and thus making it far more affordable and he tactic attracted many people to read the newspaper. The definition of news changed, news are updated everyday and there are specific types of news. I had also learned about how news was collected, from the carrier pigeons to the Pony Express, railroads and steamships.

As we went further into the topic, we learned about the Pulitzer awards and also E.W Scripps who introduced newspaper chains (i.e The Star may own Metro Harian). Then came the era of yellow journalism, or another word for it is muckracking. This is where the news focus on bribery, social ills, corruption and many more. Then we learned about The Great Depression and how it affected the industries. We also learned about Jazz Journalism and the pioneer Al Capone,as well as postwar newspapers, the contemporary developments and also the categories of newspapers. 

On the second day, the 22nd of June, we learned about Magazines. The basic history of magazines, as Miss Zee had told us, was started by the housewives in America who had decided to make scrapbooks of what they like from the newspapers during their pat times. Magazines, however, is not always recent news. 

There are many types of magazines, news magazines functions as collection, archive and reference.Digests, are random articles put together. These are small news and digests were introduced during the World Wars.There are also pictorial magazines. During the postwar periods, people were taught to be more liberalized with their freedom and so came the provoking magazines such as Playboy.

General consumer magazines are about fashion, photography and many more. These magazines can be found at news stands anywhere. Custom magazines, can't be find in news stands. Examples of these magazines are in-flight magazines, which are intended to keep customers coming back. There are two types of distribution , controlled distribution and paid circulation. Controlled distribution, for example, are free copies of magazines you may find in Starbucks, or hang out places. Paid circulations are the ones we buy.