Better and more profitable media

By Blanca de Lizaur, PhD, MA, BA, Content specialist.

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Redimensionador de tamaño de fuente

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Redimensionador de tamaño de fuente

Anthropological studies on fiction the arts and media

Multimedia For everybody Para: Videos

THE POWER OF SOUND –…by its effects you shall know it; talk by Julian Treasure

In the same way that “no action is without an equal and opposite reaction”, there are no sounds that produce no effects.
And precisely because they generate things inside of us –they change us–, sounds are powerful: Just as they make us happy or well, they make us uncomfortable or ill.
That said, what do we know about them?; what are their effects?
Do we know how to use them, both in our professional lives (for example: as a brand for our product), as well as in our private lives?
Julian Treasure is a professional who creates sounds for marketing and for communications media. And today’s talk (the video) –the first of three–, simply and brilliantly introduces us to the world of sounds. Because “hearing better”, is living better…

© Ramon Grosso
For media people Para: Magazine

Little by little, you can grow ACCUSTOMED TO (ALMOST) EVERYTHING!

A story where “nothing happens”, may hardly prove interesting. Another one that produces in us a brutal level of anxiety, by accumulating destructive events, cannot sustain itself as the most enjoyable one –as a “long runner” product, either. In mass media, like everywhere else, the “right” seasoning is difficult to obtain, as different types of contents must be balanced and integrated to produce an enjoyable and memorable “dish”, so that it will be able to fulfill its social function without harming society. This is what this article talks about.

© Prudencio Alvarez
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MARGINALIZED LITERATURE, a new vision of an everlasting cultural issue

This article was our first project on literary theory (or “poetics”), regarding works produced for popular, mass consumption. It explains how they are characterized by the repetitive and codified use of certain narrative schemas with which the audience is already familiar, and provides examples taken primarily from the telenovela industry.

It was published long before Hawkin’s “memes” (contagious, imitated ideas) became habitual amongst Communications people, and it does not only refer to them, but to the many various elements Literary scholars have analyzed as narrative building blocks in cultures all around the world, for centuries without end.

For media people Para: Magazine

A test about media, YOU JUST WILL LOVE TO ANSWER!

Once in a while we run across the words “colective aesthetics”, but few can explain to us what they mean in terms anyone can understand. This brief article achieves this seemingly unsurmountable task, through exposing us to a fun and short test no-one “flunks”, no-one fails to answer. Not only does it make us laugh, it also makes us think why in the world we all know these things. If our brains strive innately to learn and retain them, then –somehow, they are necessary for our survival both as individuals and as societies. It naturally follows that those literatures that feed on these elements and keep them alive, constitute a premier social institution, even if our society frequently fails to appreciate it.

Steven Pinker lo atribuye a la tabla rasa
Multimedia For media people Para: Videos

Steven Pinker: THE PRESENT FAILURE OF ELITE ART TO ATTRACT US is linked to the blank slate theory.

Steven Pinker, in his book “The blank slate; the modern denial of human nature”, gathers scientific evidence in regards to the fact that all humans are born equal in terms of those traits which are innate to our species.
This renown neurolinguist talks here about what has been discovered to be essentially human, and why this knowledge has irated so many people, despite the fact that it can save arts, media, and the humanities in general.

Utilizada como portada del vídeo en la sección Multimedia
Multimedia For everybody Para: Videos

When and WHY MASS MEDIA DIE

Many say that the Digital Revolution –the birth of the internet, mobile (cell) phones, etc.– killed traditional electronic media (radio, tv and cinema), as well as paper media.
Nevertheless, when we analyse media sales-and-consumption statistics around the world –and particularly in the Western world, we realize that they started to lose credibility, reach and financial viability, long before the Digital Age.
This talk makes a quick review of seemingly indestructible mainstream media along centuries and decades of our history –many of whom we are still familiar with, and how and why they met their end.

Limpia de códigos
For media people

HELP SAVE MEDIA PEOPLE! (artists, creators, producers, publishers, distributors…)

Communications media ARE in a terrible financial state; and not only in Spain, but in the better part of the Western world as well.

Last week news-programs loudly celebrated the fact that in 2010 “more Spanish films than ever before” had been shown (…!) in Spanish movie theaters; but this week only a few mentioned the fact that Madrid’s movie theaters had 9% fewer patrons than last year… (Report on the Economic and Social Conditions of Madrid’s Residents, apud “Qué” (daily newspaper), October 13, 2011, p. 4).

MacLuhan believed that “the media is the message”, because the dizzying developments in the technology we use to transmit media contents, dazzle and appeal to us in-and-of themselves –it calls out for attention like a volcanic eruption would. That said, the frenentic technological race is coming to an end –in addition to proving to be extraordinarily costly, both for the media as well as for society. …And the contents that those in power allow us to transmit, are further and further removed from what their respective societies would naturally and spontaneously choose to consume, if allowed to.

The “ropes” are on fire; and it would appear that few in the world of Communications media –traditional, electronic or digital–, are prepared to risk it all, shouting “water for the ropes!”. The majority are terrified of speaking out, and of admitting that something is terribly wrong. And therefore they are losing trustworthiness, influence, audience, and money.

As we already said on another occasion: Every nation needs media; but the media –without its people– cannot exist at all…