Mickey Mouse Takes Over the World

After doing some research and scrolling through seemingly never-ending lists, I'm just going to assume that Disney actually owns Earth. Below is a list of their assets:

Film and Theater

Disneynature

Disney Theatrical Productions

Touchstone Pictures

Marvel Entertainment

LucasFilm

Walt Disney Pictures

DisneyToon Studios

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Pixar Animation Studios

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International (Distribution)

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment

Music

Disney Music Group

Hollywood Records

Walt Disney Records

Television

ABC-Owned Television Stations Group

WLS (Chicago, IL)

KFSN (Fresno, CA)

KTRK (Houston, TX)

KABC (Los Angeles, CA)

WABC (New York, NY)

WPVI (Philadelphia, PA)

WTVD (Raleigh-Durham, NC)

KGO (San Francisco, CA)

Disney ABC Television Group

ABC Television Network (ABC Daytime, ABC Entertainment, and ABC News)

ABC Family

ABC Studios

A&E Television Networks (50%)

The Biography Channel (50%)

Disney ABC Domestic Television

Disney ABC International Television

Disney-ABC-ESPN Television

Disney Channel Worldwide (Disney XD, Playhouse Disney, Jetix, and ABC Kids)

History (formerly The History Channel) (50%)

H2 (50%)

Hungama

Lifetime Entertainment Services (50%)

SOAPnet

Disney Junior (Flanders and the Netherlands)

ESPN, Inc. (80%)

ESPN (and ESPN.com and ESPN360.com)

ESPN2

ESPN 3D

ESPN Classic

ESPN Deportes

ESPNEWS

ESPNU

ESPN Enterprises

ESPN Interactive

ESPN International

ESPN Mobile Properties

ESPN on Demand

ESPN PPV

ESPN Regional Television

Longhorn Network

Radio

WDDY AM (Albany, NY)

WDWD AM (Atlanta, GA)

WMKI AM (Boston, MA)

WGFY AM (Charlotte, NC)

WRDZ AM (Chicago, IL)

WWMK AM (Cleveland, OH)

KMKI AM (Dallas-Fort Worth, TX)

KDDZ AM (Denver, CO)

WFDF AM (Detroit, MI)

KMIC AM (Houston, TX)

WRDZ FM (Indianapolis, IN)

KPHN AM (Kansas City, MO)

KDIS FM (Little Rock, AR)

KDIS AM (Los Angeles, CA)

WMYM AM (Miami, FL)

WKSH AM (Milwaukee, WI)

KDIZ AM (Minneapolis, MN)

WQEW AM (New York, NY)

WDYZ AM (Orlando, FL)

WWJZ AM (Philadelphia, PA)

KMIK AM (Phoenix, AZ)

KDZR AM (Portland, OR)

WDZY AM (Richmond, VA)

KIID AM (Sacramento, CA)

KWDZ AM (Salt Lake City, UT)

KRDY AM (San Antonio, TX)

KMKY AM (San Francisco, CA)

KKDZ AM (Seattle, WA)

WSDZ AM (St. Louis, MO)

WWMI AM (Tampa, FL)

ESPN Radio

WMVP (Chicago, IL)

KESN (Dallas-Fort Worth, TX)

KSPN (Los Angeles, CA)

WEPN (New York, NY)

WDDZ AM (Pittsburgh, PA)

Publishing

Hyperion Books

ABC Daytime Press

Hyperion

Jump At The Sun

Mirimax Books

Voice

Disney Publishing Worldwide

Disney Digital Books

Disney English

Disney Global Book Group

Global Children's Magazines

U.S. Magazines

ESPN The Magazine (50% with Hearst)

ESPN Books

Parks and Resorts

Adventures by Disney

Disney Cruise Line

Disneyland Resort

Disneyland Resort Paris (51%)

Disney Vacation Club

Hong Kong Disneyland (48%)

Shanghai Disney Resort (43%)

Tokyo Disney Resort (Owned and operated the Oriental Land Company)

Walt Disney Imagineering

Walt Disney World Resort

Other

The Baby Einstein Company

Club Penguin

Disney Consumer Products

The Disney Store

Disney Apparel

Disney Accessories & Footwear

Disney Fashion & Home

Disney Food

Disney Health & Beauty

Disney Stationery

Disney Toys

Disney Interactive Media Group

Disney Interactive Studios

Disney Online (Disney.com)

Disney Online Studios

Disney Mobile

El Capitan Theatre

The Muppets Studio

Playdom

Rocket Pack

UTV Software Communications

(list found at http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=disney)

I was aware that many of these are owned and operated by Disney, but seeing the full list is completely different. They are everywhere! Television, movies, books, theater, parks, radio, stores, and so many others. I think the way that they do things is very smart. Having their feet in a bunch of different areas allows them to maximize the size of any franchise they're interested in making. It could start with a movie, then they could create a TV show spin off of those characters, or a book series. Disney has a presence in media, including social media, everywhere we go, and I think they do a great job with it. The quality of media produced by Disney is good because they have the money to do so due to their high profits. The idea of large companies owning so much of our world can be scary but companies, such as Disney, manage to do it well. 

Back in my day...

Four score and five years ago, the first television broadcast was aired and forever changed how we receive news. I recently spoke with 2 people from an older generation to get their opinion of the evolution of television news, specifically, cable versus networks. Both subjects stated that they never watch local news, and only one of them watch any televised news at all. Terry only watches one news program, CNN Headline news. Why not regular CNN news or any of its cable counterparts? She said that the reason she chooses that specific show is because they mix it up. They talk about the sad or serious stories but they incorporate humorous stories as well. The reason Terry doesn't watch the local news is because she says that it is not relevant enough to her and it is too depressing, but CNN Headline news delivers in a style that isn't so heavy. She believes that the cable networks and the traditional networks are all equal in quality, but they are covered differently. To her, traditional news networks such as ABC, CBS, and NBC are too serious and have lacks the entertainment factor found on other programs. Along with headline news, she reads the newspaper. What she likes about that over broadcast news is that she can select to read whatever she wants. She can skip over stories she's not interested in and read the ones that are relevant, something that just isn't an option when receiving news through television.

Brian had a slightly more opinionated take on the subject. He chooses not to watch televised news broadcasts at all. He believes that all programs on both the cable and traditional networks have a political agenda and oftentimes come off as being bias. When he was growing up, he remembers watching the news where the anchors would give you all the facts and let you decide your own opinions for yourself. He specifically recalled events such as the moon launch and landing, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the assassination of John Lennon being delivered on the news in a much more credible and neutral way. Brian gets almost all of his news from online sources, specifically an from an app called Flipbook, which allows you to get news stories from a variety of sources all in one place. He prefers this because he can read the same story from a variety of different sources and them form his own opinions on the topic. If he's not getting news from his iPad, then he's reading the Sunday paper. He stated that unlike televised news, newspapers are a reliable, neutral source. The one downside is the timeliness of the whole process. That's where there's an obvious benefit from being available online. 

It is unlikely that television networks will go back to the way that they used to be and we'll have completely unbiased news reporting, but there are plenty of alternative news sources available to those who may be concerned about neutral reporting. 

Articles Drowning in a Sea of Ads

You're waiting in line to check out at Kroger and pick up a magazine. You begin to flip through it. Ad. Ad. Ad. Ad. Ad. Ad. By the time you get to the substance of the magazine it's time for you to ring up your items. This seems to be the situation with most magazines that we see nowadays. Sometimes it even appears that there are more ads than articles. A well known example of this would be Vogue. Pick up any issue of Vogue and you'll have to flip through seemingly never ending Dolce & Gabana, Ralph Lauren, Dior and Prada advertisements. In fact, Vogue has increased their number of advertisements more than 4.5% since 2012. All of the ads are very similar content-wise and all make sense for the magazine they are in (as they should be considering that it costs $173,075 for one full page color advertisement.) The ads are primarily clothing designers, large department stores, and makeup and beauty brands.

On the other hand, there are magazines that are more content-driven, as opposed to ad-driven. A great example of this is National Geographic. Sure, there are some advertisements, it'd be difficult to find magazines today that didn't, but they don't draw away from the content of the magazine. If you were to open a National Geographic, you wouldn't be so bombarded by ads that you would be deterred from finding the actual articles that the issue has to offer.  What's interesting is the difference in the subject matter of the articles and the items that are advertised. In National Geographic you can find ads for perfume, clothes, shoes, jewelry, makeup, and designers. While the content of Vogue appears to be influenced by the advertisers that are featured in it, National Geographic is obviously not adjusting their content to pertain to the ads in the magazine. 

I do think that it's possible to have a balance of content and ads. National Geographic is evidence of this because they are much more focused on the articles and stories which is the original purpose of a magazine. 

Friend or Foe

         Hollywood is made up of stereotypes. They’re the tool that makes it easy for directors to create a quick movie. Need a hero? Let’s have an underdog who comes from nothing. Need a sidekick or two? Let’s have 2 misfits who befriend the hero. Need a villain? Let’s have someone with a thick foreign accent. But why does the villain have to be foreign? I think this idea is a deeply rooted connection to that we see in movies and other media throughout our lives. Many films nowadays utilize foreign characters to play to stereotypes, usually that of a villain or a mysterious character. What’s interesting is that in many instances, these “foreigners” are played by Americans. The actors are forced to don fake accents or even sometimes speak the language of the character’s homeland. However, these characters have also been played by an actor or actress that is of the implied nationality. 

Think about movies such as the James Bond series or the Die Hard series. It was common for the villains in these movies to have accents of some sort. I think this is a tool used by Hollywood to easily represent someone as evil. Although it is an obviously ridiculous accusation to say that all foreigners are evil, it is easy to make them appear that way in cinema because they are foreign in the since that most Americans do not know about the culture of other countries. It is easy to portray evil by using someone who is from a different land because we don’t like to think of fellow Americans as bad people. What we don’t know, what is strange to us, is often viewed as bad. A multitude of countries around the world watch American television and movies, but Americans do not commonly watch foreign films or tv shows. This shows even more that a large number of Americans are uneducated about other cultures. Not all foreigners are portrayed as evil in movies, many times they can be a love interest or an ally to the protagonist. However I think it’d be close to impossible to completely do away with this practice of casting foreigners as the villain because it is so engrained into our mind.

Who owns my ears?

Atlanta is one of the largest music hubs in the country, therefore, it unsurprisingly has a ridiculous number of radio stations, as listed below:

8.5 WRAS GPB news/talk Georgia State University
89.3 WRFG Jazz, blues, Afro-pop, bluegrass, folk, Latin, Indian, talk
90.1 WABE NPR news/classical
91.1 WREK Diversified Georgia Tech
91.5 WWEV Christian
91.9 WCLK Jazz/soul Clark Atlanta University
92.1 WJGA Contemporary/oldies
92.3 DEPO Hispanic sports talk
92.5 WEKS The Bear Country,
92.9 WZGC The Game: sports talk
93.3 WVFJ Joy 93.3, Contemporary Christian
93.5 WRSM South 93.5, country
93.7 W229AG Simulcast of sports/talk 680/The Fan
94.1 WSTR Star 94 Hot AC
94.5 WSTR-HD3 Streetz 94.5, hip hop
94.9 WUBL The Bull Country
95.5 WBTS news/talk, simulcasts with 750/WSB-AM
96.1 WKLS Power 9-6-1 Top 40
97.1 WSRV The River Classic Hits
97.5 WAMJ Majic simulcast R&B 107.5 at
98.5 WSB B98.5. Soft rock from the 80s, 90s and today.
98.9 WWWQ-HD2  Nash Icon (a mix of current country with country from the 1980s, 90s and 2000s)

99.3 WTZA-HD2 Old School R&B (with a little bit of hip hop, too)
99.7 WWWQ Q100 Top 40
100.1 WNSY in Jasper. Mexican pop, simulcasting La Raza
100.5 WNNX Rock 100.5 Rock
101.1 WLJA Southern Gospel, bluegrass, and classic country
101.5 WKHX Kicks Country
102.3 WLKQ La Raza – Spanish
102.5 WPZE Gospel
102.9 WMJE News/talk simulcast of
103.3 WVEE V-103 R&B/hip-hop  

103.7 WXKT Chuck from North Georgia  pop-rock mix from the 1970s to today
104.1 WALR Kiss 104.1 R&B  from the 1970s until today
104.7 WFSH Fish Contemporary Christian
105.3 WBZY El Patron Regional Mexican
105.7 WWVA Alternative rock Radio 105.7 

106.1 WNGC Country
106.7 WYAY newsradio
107.1 WTSH X107.1 in Rome and Atlanta, alternative rock
107.9 WHTA Hot R&B/hip-hop 

(list found at http://radiotvtalk.blog.ajc.com/atlanta-radio-station-links/?__federated=1)

…and those are just the FM stations. With this long of a list and with so much variety, I’d say most formats are covered; many of the formats are even offered on more than one station. There’s country, rock, soft rock, alternative, R&B, pop/Top 40, news/talk, latin, Christian, classical, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, jazz, blues, sports, and the list goes on. Unless you solely listen to polka music, you should be able to find a channel you like. Even with all the diversity that’s offered, it’s no surprise that the top ranked stations in the city are 2 R&B stations, followed by a multitude of pop stations.

But who owns all these stations? Apparently there is not one super mogul company in charge of all Atlanta radio. The larger companies with broadcasts in the area are Cox Media, Clear Channel, Radio, ABC Radio, and Lincoln Financial Group. But there are many other smaller companies or even individuals, who own stations in the area. Local colleges each have their own radio stations as well. There doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem with diversity of ownership and I think that’s perhaps why we have such variety in the stations that are offered. 

Internet Radio and Satellite Radio opened a whole knew door. They allowed people to listen to radio stations that aren’t broadcasted from their local area. Especially with these forms of radio now being featured in newer car models, I think it does hurt the FM/AM stations. However, I know that many cars do not offer that option, and even if they do, some people may not want to pay for satellite radio option. Unless you absolutely love a particular local station, I think satellite an internet radio are a greater alternative. There are hundreds of options to choose from and they can cater to a more unique crowd. For example, there are satellite radio stations just for 40’s music, Elvis, and Tom Petty. It gives the listener more power and choices. (Not having commercials isn’t so bad, either.) In the future I think there will still be plenty of local stations, but more people will move towards the satellite and internet options.  

It's not dead...it's dying

In my hometown of Dunwoody, GA there are 3 local newspapers but the largest is The Crier. You’d think as a journalist that I would regularly read the newspaper. You would be wrong. The only time I ever read the paper was when my cross country team was in it (narcissistic, I know). I want to know what’s going on around me but I never found myself reaching for what I viewed as the “old people’s news.” The stories covered almost always had nothing to do with things affecting me or things I would be interested. That being said, 23,000, that’s half the population of Dunwoody, people read the Crier so there must be some redeeming qualities, right? I suppose adults and older people might like it but the obvious bias put a bad taste in my mouth. I attended a public high school and it was apparent that the Crier had some sort of affiliation with private schools in the county based on the way that they covered and wrote their stories. 

Apart from simply not being a fan of the newspaper, I also found a better alternative. A woman in my neighborhood started up a website called the ‘Aha! Connection.’ It contains many of the same aspects that the newspaper does but it is organized into a format that it much easier to read and is more relevant. It features upcoming events, real estate listings, pet adoptions and community announcements much like other publications. However, the Aha! Connection has local business recommendations, classifieds that are open to anyone to submit (with a price much lower than a newspaper), book recommendations, garage sale announcements, special deals for local businesses, and much more. They’re connected through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. They also send out a weekly email blast to subscribers with the most important news, events, and offers of the week. I have personally found out about many more events from the Aha! Connection that I ever did from the newspaper. It’s relevant and current and frankly, it’s more fun. In comparison, The Crier and even the website for the Crier, seem dated and drab. 

In this day and age, publications have to adapt to stay current otherwise they fall behind and disappear into oblivion.

Creativity is Dead

Looking at the list of top 20 movies for the past year I am astounded and slightly heartbroken at the number of spin-offs, reboots or sequels. Out of the twenty, twelve fell into this category. This leads us to the sad realization that the movie industry is running out of ideas and has been for a long time. This is why, I believe, many times they turn to books for inspiration and new stories. Three of the top twenty movies from the past year were based on the novels. I think this has the ability to both benefit and hurt the book industry. On one hand, there are the movies that are based off of books that are already extremely popular, such as the Harry Potter series or the Lord of the Rings series. These books were successful before the release of their movie counterparts, and continue to gain success even today. However, I don’t think those franchises would have been nearly as large and present in pop culture as they are now if there had never been any movies produced. On the other hand, there are movies that end up over shadowing the books they were based on. Sometimes the movies don’t don the same title as the novel or it may not have been advertised that it was based on a book. An example of this would be the movie “Mean Girls.” Despite its success even now in pop culture, despite its release date being ten years ago, it is a little known fact that it is based of a novel which is loosely based off of a Shakespearean play. In this case the book was over shadowed and did not receive the press or praises we see with other adaptations. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I think there are some movies that were put into production solely because they were based on popular books and they knew they would make a large profit. In a lot of situations these movies don’t seem to follow the story as well. There are other movies based on books that aren’t quite as popular but that do justice to the original text. Book-to-movie adaptations should be viewed as a separate entity because it’s close to impossible to find a movie that perfectly follows the storyline of the original novel. So as difficult as it may be for those die-hard fans to watch the movie based on their beloved book without pointing out the things that have been changed, I think its’s something we need to learn to expect and accept from the cinematic world.