Which audience analysis measurement principles and techniques are most effective and why?

How does a company know if they are doing well? If they sell products they can see if they are doing well by how many products they sell. But for the media, there are several ways to analyze how well the program or channel is doing. They can send out polls, surveys, use Nielsen, Arbitron, Gallup, Pew, Harris, samplings, and audits. Out of all of these ways to measure how well the media is doing, I believe that probability sampling is the most effective way to get accurate answers. Probability sampling is where a certain select amount of people are taken and asked questions; and then they can be used to accurately estimate for a larger number of people. I believe that it is the most effective because there are only four factors that have to be dealt with; sample size, sample selection, margin of error, and confidence level. Also there is the magic number of 384, which is that no matter how many people you ask, if you ask only 384 you will get 95% with a 5% margin of error. This makes taking the surveys much easier. This number helps break down large populations to get the most accurate results.

In what way do media and advertising work together?

Media and advertising work together in several ways, but the most important thing is that without either they would not exist. Media relies on advertisers paying for ad space and the advertisers need a place to put their advertisements. Advertisements are in every part of media, newspapers have ads all over them, quarter page, full page, half page you name it. Magazines are also full of ads, along with TV, Radio, and especially online. Advertisements in the media may be very blatant, or very subtle. The means of which they do their advertising can depend on what medium of media they wish to advertise. If the advertisement is going to air on the TV then a commercial has to be made, explaining the product while also grabbing the attention of the viewer before they switch the channel. For magazines and newspapers a still ad has to be created. This image has to grab attention and also say what they are advertising. But what is interesting is advertisement on the internet. Online, since it is a growing medium, can either have still image or video ads. Depending on the product of advertisement can change how the company wishes to portray it. For every advertisement in the world, they would not exist with out the wonderful world of the media.

How is Public Relations used as a persuasive tool in communications?

The job of a public relations agents is to manage a companies relationships and keep them beneficial to the company. Mainly their job is to make the companies look good. Public relations is used as a persuasive tool in communications because it manipulates people in certain ways to get a certain view from them. Some of the ways that PR agents do so are by, institutional openness where they allow for all information to seem accessible to anyone mainly the press, by finding upbeat angles where they express mainly the good news about a company, and by giving the organization a face where important people in the company are seen doing things that effect how the company is seen by the public, and straight talk where all things said have evidence that is verifiable. PR today is very crucial to companies and how the public sees them. Images that are given to the media are given to them with a purpose, which is normally to influence the viewer in some shape form or way.

What are some mass media effects and their impact on society?

Today, we know that the mass media has many different effects on people, and we have multiple theories for the effects of mass media, but until the 1940s the bullet theory was the only theory. Early mass communication scholars believed that the mass media had a direct and profound effect on people. they called their theory the powerful effects theory and assumed that the media could inject information into public consciousness. their theory was way too simple, and they had wrongly assumed that people are passive and absorb everything that the media tells them. In the 1940s people began to doubt that the media was really that powerful, and more theories began to emerge, including the minimalist effects theory and the cumulative effects theory.
The minimalist effects theory consists of the two step flow model, status conferral, and narciticizing dysfunction. The two step flow model shows that people are motivated less by the mass media than people they know and personally respect. Status conferral is a phenomenon that explains the media does not tell people what to think, but what to think about. Narcoticizing dysfunction explains that sometimes people are so overwhelmed by the media that they withdraw from involvement.
The most recent theory is the cumulative effects theory. This theory was developed by Elizabeth Noelle Neuman who says the media does not have powerful, immediate effects on people but that effects over time are profound. She says the media's messages are inescapable, and driven home with redundancy. Neuman's cumulative effects theory is the theory that I believe to be the most true. We can not escape the messages that the media is sending us, and weather we believe it or not, after hearing those messages over and over it is impossible for them not to affect us. Neuman's theory is troubling because she uses psychology studies to prove that the media works against diverse consideration of issues, and people who feel they hold majority views speak out confidently while people who feel they are in the minority are less inclined to speak out. If this theory is true, it is very troubling. This effect of the mass media has a very bad impact on society.

In what ways do media and advertising work together?

Advertising could not exist without media, and media could not exist without advertising. The relationship between advertising and the media is symbiotic, with both of them supporting and benefiting the other. Advertising is vital for companies. In order for people to buy products, they must know about those products. The media connects the company to the public. The media acts as a messenger for advertisements. Companies who are trying to sell or advertise something send their message to the public through the media. Advertising is not a mass medium, but it does rely on mass media. Mass media and advertising pretty much began at the same time, and have been working together ever since Johannes Gutenberg made mass production of the printed word possible, thus making advertisements possible. It began with fliers, then advertisements in papers and magazines, and today there are advertisements on TV, on the Radio, on billboards, and almost everywhere else. Companies have greatly benefited from being able to advertise through the mass media, but most of the mass media would also not be possible without advertisements. The media relies on advertisements for funding. Companies pay TV programs, radio stations, and newspapers to advertise their products. This money that the media gets from advertisers is used to produce the media. In the relationship between the media and advertising, both benefit. The advertisers get their product known and more people but it so they make money, and the companies pay the media for their advertisements so the media makes money as well.

How is Public Relations used as a persuasive tool in communications?

Public Relations is used as a persuasive tool in communications in many ways. The use of PR for persuasion can be seen as far back as World War I, when president Woodrow Wilson created a new government agency whose job was to make war popular out of his concern about the widespread anti- war sentiment. This committee created news, releases, magazine pieces, posters, movies, and even sent speakers all over the country trying to persuade people to support the war. From there, the idea of using PR as a persuasive tool in communications took off. When World War II broke out, a new committee was put into place with Elmer Davis as the head, and they began using PR for persuasion on a giant scale. They employed hundreds of people, and their jobs were to persuade the public. Today, public relations continues to be a persuasive tool in communications in almost all areas. Politicians have PR reps and agencies who make them look good and send out positive messages about them. In this case, the politician is using PR to persuade people to vote for him or support him. Even celebrities use PR as a persuasive tool. Celebrities have PR people who work to persuade people to like them and watch their movies or but their albums. They also use PR when they get in trouble to persuade the public they are innocent. It is easy to see PR being used as a persuasive tool in communications anywhere.

Who are the gatekeepers of news? How effective is investigative reporting in informing the public?

Gatekeepers are those who decide what makes the news, and what does not. Most gatekeepers are invisible and their work can not be seen in the paper, but they are making important decisions on how the world will be portrayed to the public. Not all news can make the daily paper or newscast, there is just not enough time or space. Gatekeepers have alot of power because they decide what we will know and what they will not. Gatekeepers also must be creative at times. They often have to trim stories because of lack of space, but if they trim stories right they can actuall make them better. The gatekeepers of news go unnoticed, but they have one of the most important jobs.

I think investigative reporting could be extremely effective in informing the public if more people were listening. Investigative reporting has been extremely effective in the past in exposing corruption and being a government watchdog. By doing investigative reporting, journalists are doing their job of acting as the fourth estate. Investigative reporting goes back to the 1800s. Nellie bly began stunt journalism, an earlier type of investigative reporting, when she commited herself to an insane assylum and exposed the terrible treatment of the wonen there. Ida Tarbell began muckracking by uncovering abusive corporate practices at standard oil, and Woodward and Bernstien sparked enthusiasm for investigative reporting by exposing the watergate scandall. In all three cases, these reporters were very effective in informing the public, and their stories all broughtgood results. After the watergate scandal, investigative reporting became very popular, but it seems that with the changing news and mass media, investigative reporting is becoming rare. This is unfortunate because investigative reporting can be very informative and make alot of good changes in society. More journalsits need to do this type of reporting so that the government will be forced to take action.