We Get What We Ask For

The Streeter and Sterne readings play a role in today’s society based on the facts that the government will always be apart of the broadcasting world and we as viewers do (kind of) have a say on what we want to see or hear. Epley talked about people in the Midwest demanding they get the same TV getup that the people on the West and East coast were getting, and they did. This can be seen today when relating to people voting by either texting or via email when shows go for a user based programming that allows us as viewers to be apart of the action. American Idol, Flavor of Love 3, and even the WWE have a viewer based paper view where all matches are picked by fans. Sure we can’t have exactly w hat we want because not everyone in this country thinks alike, plus “the man” is always involved to make sure he gets what he wants as well. When Epley brought up things about “vertical integration” and how a company had the power to control production and control where viewers could see the finish product…nothing in present day really came to mind. Monopolies aren’t easily seen these days because large companies have a lot of smaller ones named differently and companies still may not officially own everything but the major ones definitely have a hand or two in the cookie jar. Last week we got in a debate about how “strong” the FCC is and a lot of what would happen if’s…The whole Don Imus incident is the most recent, public seen where the FCC stepped in, but we know how that ended and Don has his stupid show still. Like everything is America “if there’s will there’s way” and “everybody has their price.” I don’t know how it all works and my question is, “Does anybody, and where do they live?”