Online Video Streaming...

One thing that I have been noticing more and more lately is the use of internet video streaming for just about any purpose. I mean, everything from news stories and advertisements to school presentations and such seem to be utilizing YouTube clips or hulu links. I even noticed this week that when I logged onto facebook, there were a couple of people who posted that they were catching up on their favorite television shows through online streaming. I have done this myself from time to time too, it just seems like video streaming is becoming more and more integrated into different aspects of day to day tasks.

Is this something that other people have noticed as well? Do you guys watch television/news videos online just as often, if not more than on television? Do you use online videos in school projects and things of that nature? I'm just curious about how common this is and how it is likely to evolve even further in the future...

The Oprah Effect...

I had seen a show a while back called The Oprah Effect, that was all about the talk show legend and the power she has when it comes to attracting the public to certain products, public figures, etc. and then I watched an episode of Chronicle that I had in the DVR that was all about the entertainment industry in New England and this show had an entire segment dedicated to the Oprah Effect as well. I knew Oprah was a very influential person, but I never realized just how much of an impact her stamp of approval could have on such a broad range of things. For example, one of the things mentioned was a pie company in Centerville who had sent Oprah two pies while she was on the Cape for Eunice Shriver’s funeral. Apparently Oprah and her entourage loved the pies and Oprah’s friend Gayle King who has her own radio show was talking about how great they were on the air. Just this brief mention caused the companies daily orders to triple. That is amazing! Another example that was discussed on the show was a writer from up north somewhere (Vermont maybe?) who had published a few books that had been moderately successful, but were not breakout hits with the public. However, after Oprah chose one of this particular author’s books as a selection for her book club, that specific title sold over a million copies! Basically, the point of the shows seemed to be that Oprah Winfrey has the Midas touch! Is it just me, or is anyone else fascinated by the fact that one person has such a strong influence over millions of people?

Distorted Views of Reality?

For my senior seminar project this semester, I chose to research reality television and I figured that since this is a media studies class, this might be an interesting topic to discuss on my blog as well. For the project, I wanted to find out whether or not watching reality television caused viewers to form false perceptions of the world in which they live. I used a survey to gather new data for the project and asked basic questions on things like the amounts of time spent watching television (and reality television specifically), as well as more specific questions about the portrayals of different kinds of relationships, social activities, etc. I also asked questions about whether audiences changed their own behaviors or altered their priorities based on what they saw on screen. The survey results showed that most of those who responded were light television viewers and for the most part, identified each element of reality television as unrealistic. The majority of participants also agreed that reality television downplayed things like working hard for success and caused some viewers to change the ways in which they prioritized things in their own lives. Obviously, the results only represented one distinct group of television viewers, so there is still a lot of room for future research, but I just thought I would share this and see what everyone else thought about the subject. Do you think reality television has significant effects on people who watch it regularly?