When asked in lecture to consider what's a technology we recently acquired and the gratification we seek from it, there is really one big answer my phone. iPhone more accurately. My phone checks off all the different types of gratification,
Modality-based Gratifications: Presents images, videos, sounds, and texts.
Agency-based Gratifications: Allows for me to pick and choose what types of entertainment I want to enjoy at the moment, including music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, games, etc.
Interactivity-Based Gratifications: Allows for communication with people all over the world, via phone, text message, and various social media apps (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc.)
Navigability-Based Gratifications: Allows for Internet surfing, many websites can be visited in the web browser. In addition, there is seemingly lots of choice among applications to put on the phone.
While I'm sure I'm not the only person to have written about their phone, I'm sure you can understand why. As I pointed out above, the phone checks off the four types of gratification in a significant way.
In the lead up to the release of the new trailer for Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens I came across an article on Forbes, written by Scott Mendelson titled "The New 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Trailer Is Not For You." In the article Mendelson argues that the trailer, which debutted during Monday Night Football on ESPN, is not intended for the legions of Star Wars fans that already exist and already have plans to see the movie (myself included - obviously, look around my blog if you can tell I'm a huge Star Wars fanatic than you need your eyes checked!), but rather than it's intended for the people who may not be aware of the film or, more accurately probably, know the film is happening but don't know anything about it.
Mendelson writes,
"You are already onboard and frankly have been since October 31,
2012. And that’s why this new trailer is debuting during a football
game.
Yes, football fans can and do like Star Wars as well,
and yes the demographics for a given prime-time game are somewhat
divided in terms of age and gender. But the audience that Walt Disney
and Lucasfilm are after is the one that just happens to be watching
the New York Giants playing the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial
Field and is surprised by the trailer or at least is watching tonight
for the actual football game and not the trailer drop. People like my older brother for instance.
He grew up withStar Wars and was a bigger fan than I was, since he was just old enough to experienceEmpire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in
theaters. But he moved on and is the kind of person that almost never
goes to a movie theater save when he is taking his kids to something
animated or kid-friendly. If he is watching tonight’s game, it will be
for the football and not the new Star Wars trailer. Yet he will probably be somewhat interested in whatever Disney is selling tonight."
I think Mendelson raises some interesting points about who the intended audience is for the trailer.And I think he's right.I loved the trailer. I sat half a football game, a sport I can barely stand to watch during the Super Bowl (hockey and baseball are more my speed) just to have a look at the trailer first. And it did nothing to convince me to buy a ticket. In fact, I had bought me ticket 45 minutes before the trailer aired on ESPN (well, TSN here in Canada but whatever). I was already excited for the film and, sure the trailer made me even more excited, but I already knew I was seeing the film on opening night and had been planning on doing so since I first read the headlines announcing the film on October 30th, 2012.
I think Disney (who owns both Star Wars and ESPN) is doing the right thing by corss-promoting. It would beeasy to live in the echo chamber of internet fandom, where it seems The Force Awakens will not only surpass Avatar as the highest grossing film of all time, but will do so by several billion (yes, billion) dollars. And while Star Wars fandom is certainly larger than most (demand for tickets were so high on Monday multiple ticket selling websites had their servers crash - and the previous trailer set world records for number of views online), but even Star Wars needs to reach beyond it's base to achieve the highs Disney, who paid $4.05 billion for it, want it to.
I am very curious to here what a non-hard core fan thought of the trailer, someone like Mendelson's brother. The trailer was clearly designed with them in mind. Classic characters like Harrison Ford's Han Solo, Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia, and Chewbacca the Wookiee had more of a presnece in this trailer than in the two teasers that had come prior (Solo and Chewie only appeared for one shot at the end of the second trailer and Leia's hand was all that could be seen in an earlier shot). In addition, there seemed to be a focus on the return of iconic vehicles like X-Wings, TIE Fighters, and the Millennium Falcon.
The trailer definitely seemed to be focused on the fans like Mendelson's brother, those who haven't thought about Star Wars much about since the 80s. The question is, did it reach them? Are they going to be in line with me on December 18th? (Or at any subsequent showings of the movie?) Only time will tell.
The age old tradition on Thanksgiving is to argue with your relatives about politics, stuff yourself with Turkey, and then sit down on the couch and watch football. This year, there was a slight variation on that. It definitely wasn't the politics (if anything, that was more intense most places given that there's an election coming up) and certainly wasn't the Turkey either. No, it was the football. With the Toronto Blue Jays in the playoffs for the first time in 22 years (aka, the first time in my lifetime), all eyes were not on football, but rather on baseball!
According the Yahoo! Canada's "Great Canadian Ratings Report," it is clear that Baseball dominated the airwaves (or cable ways) in Canada this thanksgiving weekend. Via Yahoo!, here are the top ten highest rated Sporting programs in Canada for the Thanksgiving weekend,
1. MLB, Blue Jays at Rangers, Monday, Sportsnet: 4,380,000
2. MLB, Blue Jays at Rangers, Sunday, Sportsnet: 4,170,000
3. MLB, Rangers at Blue Jays, Friday, Sportsnet: 2,400,000
8. NHL, Maple Leafs at Red Wings, Friday, Sportsnet One: 587,000
9. CFL, Eskimos at Stampeders, Saturday, TSN: 545,000
10. CFL, Roughriders at Ticats, Friday, TSN: 463,000
As you can see, Baseball dominated the top three spots, with the numbers increasing as each game went up. The NFL didn't make the list until #5, still sitting behind both Baseball and Hockey. And the CFL didn't make the list until #9.
While I'm sure this may have been a shock for some advertisers this year, I doubt this trend will continue. Next year, I expect Football will be back near the top of the list. This is likely an anomaly, because usually there isn't Baseball relevant to casual fans in Canada in October. This was the first Blue Jays playoff appearance in over twenty years, and odds are they won't be back next year. The Baseball playoffs are notoriously hard to get into (far fewer teams qualify than in the NBA or NHL where over half the league qualifies) and the Jays would have to repeat this year's success. Not to say that that's impossible, lots of the Jays key players will remain with the club through the 2016 season but others (like star pitcher David Price) are apt to leave and the Jays will have to replace their production.
In other words, the advertisers who may have been a little caught off guard by the Blue Jays success shouldn't feel too bad about this. The tradition may have slipped this year, but unless the Blue Jays can repeat their success, I would expect the NFL to be back at (or near) the top of the list next year. And if the Jays do make the playoffs, they have these numbers to turn to when making decisions.
When reading in our textbook Media Matters: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power by John L. Sullivan, I came across the line "Opinion surveys are therefor quite useful as neutral touchstones for political debate" (69). It made me think back to the U.K. general election earlier this year where Prime Minister David Cameron was re-elected by a large margin, despite advance polls showing his Conservatives being basically tied with the left wing Labour party.
With our own election coming up, I have been very skeptical of any polls for this very reason. And reading that line in the textbook made me wonder if I should be concerned about other political polls, not about who will win the election but about the public's opinion on various issues. In the textbook, the history of polling was explored in great detail so it's easy to see why traditional polling is being relied on when it's worked for so long.
Hodges argues that polling companies came together to ensure that their numbers were similar, as to not look bad if they all had different results. He explains the problem with this saying,
"Polls aren’t just used to predict election results, they’re also used to
try to influence election results. A few days before polling day the
BBC produced an all-singing, all-dancing full page online interactive
graphic detailing the “Close constituency battles” it said were “being
fought with less than a week to go before the general election”. At the
bottom, it carried this small disclaimer. 'Most of the polling shown was
commissioned from independent polling companies by former Conservative
party deputy chairman and donor Lord Ashcroft. Seven were conducted by
Survation on behalf of UKIP donor Alan Bown or trade union Unite. One
was carried out by ICM for former Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott.'
If the polling companies don’t want to be regulated, fine. But let’s not
pretend we don’t know why they got it wrong on 7 May. Because we do."
Polls are important to both the people and the parties. We need accurate reflections of what the vote will be. If companies are going to come together like thisand influence results by putting out bad information then shouldn't they be held to the same standards as politicians running. That if they do wrong by the people they won't get their job back in the next election. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
It's not unique to the U.K. either, Hodges points to an article by Nate Silver about a similar occurrence in the 2014 US election. One can understand why the polling companies would not want to look like the outlier and risk being the only one to get it wrong and would therefore come together. But when they all get it wrong, then we have an epidemic on our hands. Once the Canadian election is over, it will be interesting to go back and see not only how accurate were the polls, but how similar were they as well.
