33 1/3 Rpm Long-Play Disc a Device That Made the Syndication of Full Radio Programs An

33 1/3 rpm long-play disc a device that made the syndication of full radio programs an affordable alternative for smaller radio stations in the 1930s.

360-degree campaign a campaign that presents the client’s message across a wide range of media platforms, including the Internet, television and radio, print and mobile devices.

acetate blank recording disc a device onto which radio stations could record on the spot, earning it the name the “instantaneous” record.

acquisition in film or television, the stage of the media creation process in which a producer acquires the rights to a story.

Action news Magid’s term for an audience-responsive news format; also called Eyewitness News.

active media platforms platforms that allow for the exchange of information between users who share in creating the media content and messages.

actualities a term coined by the Lumière brothers to describe their 10 short films displaying vaudeville theater acts.

AdSense a Google advertising program that allows customer content sites to deliver text, images, videos and interactive advertising targeted to specific audiences with the goal of enticing consumers to click on their ad.

advertising a type of communication that attempts to persuade individuals to take some form of action (buy, believe, consume) toward a product, idea or service.

AdWords Google’s main advertising platform that matches keywords in searches to Google client advertising; payment is based upon a pay-per-click model and accounts for a large share of Google’s revenues.

affinity paths messages and media that attract and focus the receiver’s attention through clarity of image and information.

agenda setting a theory that describes the ability of news media to influence the public agenda—research that demonstrates that the more frequent and prominent the coverage of a given news story, the more importance audiences will give the issue.

agent-based artificial life program the use of computer modeling to study real-life systems; used in science fields, including physics and biochemistry, where the study of the actual systems is either impractical, very costly or both.

air checks in radio, recordings of commercials sent back to advertisers to prove airtime purchased.

alternative music a catch-all label given to the music that does not easily fit into the popular mainstream; also called independent music.

amplitude modulation (AM) the primary broadcast technology used before FM; it offers limited sound range and muddled, static-riddled signals, especially during bad weather.

analog-based terrestrial broadcasts a communication system in which broadcast signals are transmitted and received via antennas through radio waves.

animatronics the use of computer-controlled electronics and robotics to give mechanized puppets lifelike movement, facial expressions and, in some cases, voices in real time.

anime a Japanese lm genre based on animation.

antiquity stage the final stage of innovation during which technologies become obsolete.

antitrust laws U.S. federal efforts to break up industry monopolies and allow for healthy competition in such as areas as steel, tobacco and oil.

appropriate technologies the notion that just because innovation enables enhanced communication through mass media, it does not automatically mean that these systems are the best platforms for certain forms of communicating.

appropriation tort a legal mechanism that protects individuals against identity theft and the use of the information for the benefit of anyone other than the individual who “owns” it.

arena rock bands prominent fixtures of the 1970s music scene; these music groups rated high on production values and commercialization but low on creativity.

art house theaters film theaters that specialize in showing foreign and lower-budget independent films; they are located mostly in urban centers.

Articles of Confederation under the newly founded United States, the first attempt at a national government.

audience broadcasting a type of media message that seeks the widest reach and the largest number of “eyes” or “ears” for an ad.

audience demographics factors such as age, sex, race, educational levels, geographic location and psychographics, as well as attitudes, social and cultural values, interests and lifestyles, which content producers and advertisers use to identify exactly who their audience is and what they want.

audience share the market share of the media audience.

author any creator of an original work, regardless of the form of the work.

authoritarian system a system in which the government totally controls all media content and uses the media to spread information to favor the government’s authority.

author’s rights system a copyright system based on the French-Napoleonic legal system wherein the value of the created product can never be separated from the original author.

authorship works that can be perceived, reproduced or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

avatar a player’s alter ego.

backpack journalism a journalistic approach in which the individual field journalist performs all the roles of newsgathering, photojournalism and reporting that traditionally have been performed by a team of professionals. It is made possible by advances in digital cameras, portable photo and video editing systems, and Internet-based communications.

backward compatibility the ability for a new format to work with older technologies.

bandwidths smaller slices of the crowded range of broadcast frequencies.

Berne Convention a treaty ratified in 1902 that attempted to reconcile copyright law conflicts and bring much of international copyright law into a cooperative treaty structure.

BGAN satellite terminal a Hughes Company, satellite-based phone and Internet service that allows full phone and Internet access from anywhere in the world.

bias by selection deliberately selecting which stories will appear during all points of a nightly news program.

Big Five the five major lm studios (Paramount, Loew’s/MGM, Fox Film Corporation, Warner Bros. and RKO) that dominated Hollywood during its Golden Age.

Black Power movement a subcurrent of the civil rights movement that encouraged Afrocentrism, black autonomy and violent activism.

blacklist the purposeful denying of privileges to select parties.

block-booking system a film distribution system that typically bundled five films together: a single high-quality A-film along with four lower-quality A- and B- films.

blockbusters spectacular, huge-budget lm productions.

blog a Web log; a Website launched and maintained by individuals who have strong interests in and usually strong views about the topics on which they focus.

blogosphere the interconnected community of blogs.

Blu-ray optical disc an information storage format that offers improved image and audio quality with features unavailable on high-definition digital video discs (HD DVD).

Bollywood the Indian film industry based in Mumbai, which produces more than 1,000 films each year. The Indian equivalent of the Hollywood movie industry.

Book Rights Registry a database that documents the legal status of all works and arbitrates disputes between parties claiming rights to any work in the database.

breaking story a “new” major news story happening in the moment. It requires more airtime and commentary than stories that have been circulating for a while.

broadcasting spreading media content through telecommunications.

broadcasting region the geographic spread of television stations owned by a company.

broadsheets large-format newspapers, typically between 15 and 24 inches.

bylines the inclusion of the author’s name with a newspaper article; it helps a newspaper reader to better understand the writer’s complex work.

camera obscura an early photographic technique that used a pin-hole light box (camera) to study the behavior of light.

Carl Rowan (1925–2000) a journalist, author and government of official. Rowan was one of the first black journalists to work at a major American newspaper, starting his career at the Minneapolis Tribune in 1948. In 1961, Rowan was appointed deputy assistant secretary of state by President John F. Kennedy and, in 1964, the director of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) by President Lyndon Johnson. Rowan later became the first black American to serve on the National Security Council. After his stint in gov- ernment, Rowan returned to journalism at the Chicago Sun-Times.

categorical imperatives Kant’s principle that people are obligated to observe certain thoughts and actions, regardless of the outcome, because they are intrinsically right.

CD technology a recording technology that was able to reproduce digital audio with much higher fidelity than previous tape-based systems.

Celler-Kefauver Act (1950) U.S. federal legislation that sought to close loopholes that might result in conglomeration of businesses; also commonly referred to as the Antimerger Act.

censorship the effort to control or ban the flow of information.

Chicago Defender one of the largest and most influential national black-owned-and-run newspapers in the history of the black media.

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 the first U.S. federal regulation that put curbs on foreign immigration.

citizen journalist a nonprofessional, untrained journalist who writes stories and shares information via the Internet or by submitting stories to mainstream news services such as CNN’s “I-Reports” program.

Citizens United the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) in which the court held that the First Amendment prohibited the government from limiting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. This landmark and controversial ruling opened the door to very wealthy corporate partisans investing hundreds of millions of dollars in attempts to influ- ence the outcome of elections at both the state and national levels.

click fraud a service that creates large runs of repetitive automated link clicks to a page, giving a false representation of the number of real-page views.

clickbot a program that runs a click fraud operation.

cliffhanger a suspenseful chapter ending in a serially published novel that encourages readers to purchase the next issue.

closed societies societies that discourage freedom of thought and expression.

cloud; cloud computing the delivery and use of computing programs, applications and le and data stor- age capacity as a networked Internet-based service as opposed to programs, les and data being stored on individual users’ computers.

code of ethics a clear statement of guidelines developed to help individuals make ethical decisions.

Code of Federal Regulation federal legislation that limits the disclosure of nonconviction information.

commercial press a type of newspaper that reported on trade and business dealings and was paid for by the promotion of products and the sale of advertisements.

commercial radio advertising-backed radio that helped to increase radio’s financial base and spurred a rapid improvement in both the quality and quantity of programming.

commercial satellite radio a radio technology developed in the early 2000s to capitalize on the desire of U.S. listeners for greater diversity in radio programming.

Committee on Public Information a U.S. government committee headed by George Creel; it exercised a significant amount of control over Americans’ perception of World War I and standardized war coverage across the vast array of publications in the United States.

Committee to Protect Journalists an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981 to promote worldwide freedom of the press by defending and protecting the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of imprisonment or punishment.

Communications Act of 1934 federal legislation that empowered the FCC to regulate communication media, including radio and television (both cable and satellite).

compact disc (CD) a recorded music medium that is the product of a cooperative partnership formed in about 1981 between Philips, which had acquired access to Laserdisc designs from MCA, and Sony.

Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) a system that allowed users of IBM mainframe computers remote access as well as the ability to leave messages for other users.

composite a clever fusing of two separate photographs.

console a computer system designed for interactive entertainment.

Constitutional Convention also known as the Philadelphia Convention; a convention during which the delegates discussed core tenets of the proposed U.S. Constitution.

Consumerism a system that creates and encourages the purchase of goods and/or services in increasing amounts.

contempt of court an offense in which the offending reporter can be fined or jailed for ignoring a court order.

content coding a technique used by researchers to analyze specific content delivered in the mass media so as to enable the scientific study of that content’s effect on audiences.

content mobility also known as three-screen convergence; an approach that supports relatively seamless transferring of video content between digital television, personal computers and mobile devices.

content sharing the exchange of intellectual property among users over the Web.

contingency planning a form of PR that develops action plans to address problems that are likely to confront organizations in the future; it includes crisis management.

convergence of content and businesses a movement that is forcing the reinvention of business models and in some cases threatening the very existence of traditional forms of media.

Copyright Law of the United States federal legislation enacted by Congress in Title 17 of the U.S. Code in 1976 that defines authorship.

copyright legal tradition in the United States and Britain, the view that intellectual creations are another form of “property” that can be bought and sold, licensed, transferred and inherited.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) the U.S. federal government’s conduit for passing taxpayer funding into the public broadcasting system through station and programming grants.

covers songs and tunes performed by artists other than the original.

crisis communications a form of PR communication meant to stimulate interest in a product after a product line has been developed or to reform the image of a company in the wake of an emergency.

crónica a popular genre and early staple of the Latino immigrant press that provided readers with satirical commentary on current events, issues and trends, often through fictional characters and stories.

crosscutting an editing technique that establishes action taking place in multiple locations.

cross-genre films films that are considered to fall within more than one category.

cross-platform also known as multiplatform; a term used to describe video gaming devices that also support Blu-ray HD movies.

cultivation effect a theory drawn from research on the long-term effects of television viewing that states that the more time people spend projecting themselves into the worlds they see on television, the more likely they are to believe that the social realities portrayed are “real,” even if what they are viewing is in fact fictitious.

cultural aesthetics what is considered “in good taste” within a specific cultural context.

cultural context the social, religious and political rules that govern how people are expected to behave and respond toward one another.

cultural convergence the breaking down of the demarcations between cultural contexts.

cultural hegemony in a media context, typically the nation that controls or dominates the media throughout the world.

cultural imperialism the spread of a culture into the society of another, generally without that society’s consent.

culture the integrated and dynamic social system of behaviors, characteristics, customs, language, artifacts and symbols that distinguish one social group from another.

customized ad viewing a service that allows users to select which ads they will watch and when they will watch them while online.

daguerreotype process a photographic process invented by Lois Daguerre; it involves the use of silver-coated copper plates, with images being developed by combining silver iodide and warmed mercury.

dangerous news according to the Committee on Public Information, news that might contain information about military movements or possible threats against the president.

dark money contributions to political campaigns from undisclosed hidden sources—to unduly influence American elections.

Daughters of Bilitis the first major lesbian rights organization in the United States.

dead air media downtime, during which no new news or information is being aired or released.

Declaration of Principles Ivy Ledbetter Lee’s foundational work that presented the rst set of ethical standards for public relations.

defamation any form of implied or explicit communication that damages a person’s, organization’s or product’s reputation or standing in the community.

defamation with malice deliberate wrongful action with the intention of harming another person.

demographic studies studies that examine basic human characteristics, such as individuals’ age, gender, race and income.