Tech 02-A Stone vs. iPad

I tried to express my disappoint about iPad in its functions, but that would be a long sloppy talk. Luckily, I found a picture which could speak for me.

Mass Media is Really a MASS

According to traditional theories, there are 8 functions of mass media; inform, surveillance, service the economic system, hold society together (cultural glue), entertain, act as a community forum to educe discussion, set the agenda, service the political system. Seems quite a lot responsibility to mass media, but that’s just in ideal world; in reality, no modern media could serve all 8 functions.

The function what mass media capable of now, in short, is being the watchdog of our government, entertaining, and advertising. Mass media in Mainland China are totally lost its function as “the fourth power” aka the function to surveillance major powers of our country.

Why is this happening? I can’t help asking. There was no forged news, no vulgar stories, or soft advertises in major media 10 years ago; but these problems exist in most media nowadays.

Credibility of Mass Media

The most important element affects media functioning as they suppose to be is their credibility; not like 10 years ago, people believe everything on news, they have their own opinions about every affair these days। Major reason of this phenomenon is that there was too many forged or twisted news out there. There are people who actually think, believing in news equals to being fooled around by the media.

Having worked as News Editor Intern in news room for two years, the most deep impression about news programme production is that the subject of the programme is the most important thing, not the value of subjects but whether you got a subject or not; and the competition in mass media is fierce today, so every thing could be on news। That’s the ultimate cause of forged news, like Baozi Incident. After it was predicted as a false story, it became a blast all over the country, even more shocking than before. My conclusion of this affair is that, general public could accept the dark side of our society but not the cheating part of daily news in their television.

Because it was such a big deal, not a corruption big but related to people’s daily life, after knowing the truth, the general public probably became cautious of news। After watching certain news, they might ask themselves, “Is this true?” ”Should I believe in it?” Credibility of media became a scare on its face.

Constraints on Mass Media

Mass media in China has very strict constraints on choosing news topics; there are limited subjects on television or newspapers। No social damaging stories, like hide-and-seek case; no rebellion news, like Massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square; no civil law suit topics, like Tan Zuoren case. Mass media have to serve on behave of the party and for purpose of social stability. Those constraints are widely spread, even affecting the Internet domestically; and that’s the time our media policy become famous all over the world; Craig Ferguson even made a joke about it on “The Late Late Show” on CBS several weeks early, says everything in television networks of America is blocked by the Chinese government.

Because of those regulations, the general public could get only part of the truth about our society; what they get to know is positive side of it। If we test mass media in Mainland China using traditional theories like “right to know”, our media could not even fulfill the basic responsibility, and lost the primary function of it.

Overall social environment

While taking any course related to news, the first issue to figure out is what’s news value. News is stories, which are newly happened, information that is rare, and subjects that are meaningful to the society. It’s actually decided by the societal values, but things people value now is quite different from 10 years ago.

I have watched a so-called news interview online weeks ago; it was a piece done by Xinmin।cn. A girl who’s appearance is far away from normal range of attraction, of course in a negative way, of our time, was giving away flies in Shanghai Lujiazui about her standard of perfect life partner, which was high above Shanghai World Financial Center; she made such a scene that big enough to be invited into the recording room; and next thing we know, she became a major topic of every new media in Shanghai the next day. Similar to Sister Furong, these are the things people want to watch now, which are vulgar, unworthy of mentioning, and impossible to be called “news” 10 years ago.

There was a survey few years back about how educated of most people watching TV everyday। Result turns out that the general education gradation of those television heavy users is equal to a junior high sophomore. In order to gain more viewing rate producers have to adjust the depth of their programmes, that’s why there is fewer and fewer meaningful information on television. There was actually a conversion among my former colleagues from news room, they says they never watch TV after work, because once they sit in front of their televisions the only thing they can do is holding remote controls and changing channels.

The major part of TV viewer decides what those programmes should look like, that’s the main reason why mass media become worldliness and sever in a low taste level affected by the social environment.

Mass media in Mainland China have a really big shoe to fit in according to our founding fathers in communication, it’s impossible to change right now, but I hope it will change in the hands of new generation.

Our Marketing Strategy_2nd report of Online Auction

1. Facebook
As it is online selling, so we aimed to online activities to promote our products.
We think that stating from our friends must be the good point as they know how we love our cloth and the can be a good WOM, World Of Mouth.
We have put our link to the product page and to the online auction page onto our facebook page and always activated our status by using the word " need cloth need vintage please clivk here"

2. Twitter
We also use twitter to combine with facebook in order to cover a more larger scale of buyers. We have put our link onto our twitter page.

3. Forward Mails
We use forward mail to mail to our friends list in our mail. This way will help to spread the promotion of our cloth easily as our friends will pass through the one who interested in vintage fashion.