/ , , /

A Holiday Wish of Gratefulness

Every Friday evening, my family and I light a candle and count some “gratefuls.” These can be mundane happenings of the week or transcendent gifts in our lives: a new birth, health, passing an exam, a new piece of business or promotion, even that we have a meal to share.  The practice is adapted from a friend and former client’s religious tradition. That’s something else I am grateful for: the ability to constantly learn, to be exposed to new and better ways. I’m grateful for fellowship and companionship, for the overflowing enjoyment I can get from a smile or a kind word, and for the ability to do the same for others.

These are all gifts I cherish more than material goods I’m likely to get.  I’m also grateful to business partners, clients, colleagues and people who’ve put so much energy into MediaThon events, and for the smiles and laughter and creative output the events generate. I’m grateful to students I teach and consumers of media I produce and that I can help others make their media more effective.

And I’m grateful that I can wish you a year full of “gratefuls,” abundance and joy.

Dorian

/ , /

Why Trump? Ask The Daily Show

Screen Shot 2015-12-02 at 3.35.16 PMMedia scholar Jay Rosen wrote last week of reasons the press is befuddled by Donald Trump’s ascendance even as they call out his bombastic inaccuracies.

Rosen writes that the political press has a weak sense of purpose, suffers “institutional isomorphism” — a sameness across the board — and purports to compete while having “shared assumptions” of what they should and shouldn’t do.

Let me posit another reason Trump is emerging unscathed: The Daily Show. Like SNL, Colbert and John Oliver, Jon Stewart and team turned light on the blind spots of news programming, making “fake” coverage that often hit truths the “real” news shows eschewed.

Stewart was not afraid to show his sense of purpose while his correspondents called out absurdities in the subjects they covered. Stewart would ask politicians, entertainers and authors startlingly pithy questions that “serious” — Jay may prefer “humorless”— reporters are loathe to pose.

The Daily Show mimicked superficial news conventions, the grammar of TV news, while the taking piss out of people who lacked humility and hewed to false objectivity.

“Trump may not be telling the truth, but he’s sure as hell telling their truth,” Rosen quotes Politico’s Glenn Thrush as saying* of the business mogul’s fans. So, too, for The Daily Show. They, to paraphrase Jay’s words, told “people what’s going on … without illusions.”

Twelve percent of Americans said they got their news from the show, “on par” with USA Today and The Huffington Post, the Pew Research Center found.

And it’s into that world, in which the comedic can be more truthful than the real, and “serious” journalists become discounted, that Trump and his ilk can thrive.

===

* Corrects earlier version of attribution.

/ , , , /

Media News Roundup: Japanese Buzzfeed, 2016 Candidate Ads on Instagram, and Twitter’s Sale of Video Ads Outside of their App

Buzzfeed Looks to Go Viral in Japan

  • Buzzfeed and Yahoo Japan are working together to create a Japanese-language version of the site. It’s a new type of partnership for Buzzfeed, which previously had complete ownership of operations in other countries.
  • By working with Yahoo Japan, Buzzfeed will have the opportunity to get massive traffic and will also gain
    access to the largest digital media sales team in Japan.
  • This is yet another step taken by Buzzfeed to go more international as it reaches an increasingly global audience.

2016 Candidates Take Political Ads to Instagram

  • As of this week, Instagram is offering 2016 candidates ways to advertise. Advertisers are able to use Facebook’s ad targeting capabilities to reach users.
  • With the new ad targeting options, candidates can upload a file of voter information and Facebook will match it to user accounts. Campaigns can also target Instagram users by demographics such as ZIP code, gender, relationship status, and interests.
  • “It’s a two-way dialogue between the candidates and the electorate,” said Liz Bourgeois, the Instagram spokeswoman who is working on 2016 campaign-related projects.

Twitter is Selling Video Ads in Other Apps

  • Twitter announced this week that it’s now selling autoplay video ads inside of other apps through it MoPub ad network. This means that advertisers buying video ads on Twitter can use the same targeting to show people video ads inside other apps they use.twitter-video-ad1
  • Video ads are the most profitable type of ads, so this move means Twitter can sell more video ads than it could otherwise fit into user timelines on Twitter itself, thus boosting revenue further.
  • Video ads are rising in popularity thanks to the targeting capabilities of social networks and the rise of mobile video. Twitter isn’t alone in this move; Facebook announced the same ad-buying feature last week.

 

« Older Entries