Malone Post 3

I decided to go visit the Univision website and become acquainted with what exactly Univision is and what its goals are.  Univision is a media corporation that aims to serve the growing Hispanic community in the United States.  While exploring the website I made of number of interesting observations.  First of all, I thought it was slightly strange that the headquarters of Univision were based in New York City.  I found that odd because New York City is not known for having a particularly high population of Hispanic people.  I would have assumed the headquarters be based in the southwestern part of the United States or Texas or Miami.  Secondly, I thought it was rather remarkable that the Univision Network is one of the top five networks in the entire country regardless of language.  I wouldn't think that a Spanish channel would be able to compete with all of the other English channels and be that popular.  But then again, the population of Hispanics is nearly the same as the population of caucasians in this country so maybe it shouldn't have surprised me.  Furthermore, when reading some of the press release headlines on the website, I thought it was interesting that about half of them were about the rising Hispanic population in certain states in the country.  I would have thought their press releases would have been much more geared toward what their company was actually doing rather than just numbers from the census about how Hispanic populations in certain states are increasing even more than expected.  However, I did find some of the states on the releases were surprising and I wouldn't have guessed that the Hispanic population would be growing so fast; for example Vermont. 

Malone Post 2

There are probably many reasons for Hollywood's global domination of film production and distribution.  American society may have a slightly larger infatuation with entertainment such as movies, but also including music, television, and sports.  It seems to me that many Americans that are in the middle-income of the economy and higher spend a larger of their income on entertainment such as movies than most other countries.  In addition, the film industry somewhat originated in Hollywood so it had a head start on the rest of the world.  It is natural for the nucleus or origin of something to continue to be the place of dominance for something.  American society may also encourage the "celebrity life" and everybody thinks they can go to Hollywood to become a famous movie star.  There are probably many reasons for Hollywood's global domination of film production and distribution.  American society may have a slightly larger infatuation with entertainment such as movies, but also including music, television, and sports.  It seems to me that many Americans that are in the middle-income of the economy and higher spend a larger of their income on entertainment such as movies than most other countries.  In addition, the film industry somewhat originated in Hollywood so it had a head start on the rest of the world.  It is natural for the nucleus or origin of something to continue to be the place of dominance for something.  American society may also encourage the "celebrity life" and everybody thinks they can go to Hollywood to become a famous movie star. 

Malone Post 1

I think it is fair to say that US-dominated Western news media shapes the global news agenda.  Most of the major players of the news media that control the world's flow of information are from Western culture.  I imagine it as a hierarchy where the major Western players are at the top and they have the first chance to shape the news in the media.  The information then trickles down to the smaller players and onto other cultures in the world.  But it it is always starting at the top with the large Western corporations then they are able to control many aspects of the information: what part of the message is communicated, how it can be perceived, etc.  To summarize simply, the more powerful players at the top are able to shape how the rest of the world receives its news.  If the power of the media was more spread out and even and there were many players that were on the same level then the world might have a far different view of things. People in the Western culture might not have the assumption that Western culture is the "right" culture and everyone else in the world should change and adapt to the same way of life.