Archive for the ‘Media Control’ Category

PDP Talon Media Remote Control for Xbox One, TV, Blu-ray …

I bought this remote because I habitually use my Xbox One to watch shows and movies on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. I saw the price of the official Microsoft Media Remote and said "nope". Seriously... $50 for a remote?! Being the reasonable person I am (and that you are since you are looking here), I went with this remote.

I am well pleased with the Talon Media Remote. There was absolutely no setup involved aside from placing the batteries inside it. I have read some reviews complaining that they had troubles with the remote's infrared getting to the console. Personally, this remote is working better than my Vizio TV remote. It may also help that my Xbox is on an open shelf of the TV stand with no interference such as cabinet doors.

The remote itself feels well-made. The material feels soft but has more than adequate grip. The entire backing comes off in order to add or replace batteries, which can be annoying to some, but it really makes the remote look nicer and it feels nicer to hold.

The remote also has a nifty backlighting so you can see in the darkest of times. Others have complained that the backlighting needs to sustain itself for just a little bit longer so they can find their desired button. I had experienced no trouble with that until I really needed the backlighting, and I couldn't agree more- hence the 4 stars instead of 5.

The Xbox "Home" button on the remote can turn on your Xbox which has completely eliminated my need for a controller when I just want to watch a movie or show. And the remote doesn't have to constantly be turned on and connected again when you haven't touched it for so long, unlike the Xbox controllers. That has been most handy for me.

If you want to use a simple, cheaper but well made remote to watch your shows and movies instead of your controller, this is an excellent option!

Hope I could help you with your decision. Godspeed.

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PDP Talon Media Remote Control for Xbox One, TV, Blu-ray ...

My keyboard has no "media" keys; can I … – Super User

AutoHotkeyAutoHotkey (AHK) is a free, open-source macro-creation and automation software for Windows that allows users to automate repetitive tasks. It is driven by a scripting language that was initially aimed at providing keyboard shortcuts, otherwise known as hotkeys, that over time evolved into a full-fledged scripting language.

http://ahkscript.org/

To learn about AHK I recommend checking its site, pages mentioned in Quick Reference and especially skimming at least AutoHotkey Beginner Tutorial. Don't forget to download, install and fiddle with it yourself. There is also helpful forum.

In this case you should look particularly at following pages: Hotkeys (Mouse, Joystick and Keyboard Shortcuts), List of Keys, Mouse Buttons, and Joystick Controls and Send / SendRaw / SendInput / SendPlay / SendEvent: Send Keys & Clicks. Then you'll be able to assemble simple AHK script, e.g. something like:

Here you define following actions:

You create .ahk file, paste above code in it (w/o useless MsgBox, of course), save and double click to run it. You'll get H icon in systray allowing you to interact w/ the script, particularly: suspend hotkeys, pause script (not useful here) or just exit it. For better convenience I suggest compiling such script. You can do it using Right Button Mouse on the file and choosing Compile Script. Then you'll get .exe file (pretty big, but it's like complete autohotkey) that you can share w/ others or add to autostart for instance.

In AutoHotkey's Remapping Keys and Buttons page you can read about other way of assigning keys to keys, remapping. It may be not useful in your case (unless you're ready to "lose" some keys), but it's still worth reading. (Then you should figure out why I haven't used AHK remapping in my example.)

Let me quote it (w/o blockquote to preserve formatting) and fix some links along the way:

There are at least two methods to remap keys via the registry:

http://www.eventghost.org/

Haven't tried it, but looks interesting and a bit related, so I think it's worth mentioning it here.

Some SuperUsers may remember Girder, that unfortunately stopped being freeware long time ago. EventGhost seems somewhat similar. I no longer have AverMedia's TVPhone98, but using remote via Girder was fun.

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My keyboard has no "media" keys; can I ... - Super User

6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America …

With so many channels to surf through and so much great programming, why cant we find anything to watch? 90% of what we watch, listen to and read is owned by 6 companies. Thats a large percentage to just be divided by a factor of six. 30 years ago 90% of media was held by 50 different companies,which is what most people would assume it would be now, but thanks to mergers and buyouts, its down to 6 major companies (until someone else buys another). The reason we never find anything new on TV is that 70% of what is on cable is owned by the Big 6. Thats 1 out of every 5 hours of television. Comcast now owns 51% of NBC, while GE owns 49% (even though the infographic states that GE owns Comcast), further controlling the market with a top cable provider and a top cable channel.

NOTE: This infographic is not completely up to date and is missing some key transactions. GE does not own NBC (or Comcast or any media) anymore. So that 6th company is now Comcast. And Time Warner doesnt own AOL, so Huffington Post isnt affiliated with them. It still shows how much of a monopoly the Big 6 is.

In a market so monopolized, it can be hard to cut through the red tape and get past dominant gate keepers. In an environment like this, a company needs to have a clear marketing strategy if it can hope to have any marketing success. A company needs to have strategic goals to reach their audience. Without this focus, marketing efforts can be lost in the void of noise, that is the marketing world. To kick start this process, click below to learn how to make strategic, SMART goals for your company.

Link to post

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6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America ...

Media Hype Questionable Gun Control Study – YouTube

Dozens of news outlets reported that America has the most mass shooters in the world. Many say that shows America needs more gun control.

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CNN claimed that "the U.S. has the most mass shootings". The WSJ reported that "U.S. leads the world in mass shootings." Nearly every major media outlet and former President Obama said the same.

But the claim is based on just one study, and the author of that study, Adam Lankford, would not release his data to other gun reseachers in the field.

Economist John Lott argues that Lankford's study has many flaws.

Lott is the author of the books More Guns, Less Crime and Bias against Guns. His son, Maxim Lott, works for Stossel TV.

Stossel says because of that, he repeatedly asked Lankford to show him the study data that he would not reveal to Lott. But Lankford would not disclose it to Stossel either.

Lankford claimed to find "complete data" for all mass shootings in 171 countries from 1966 to 2012. But Lott notes that Lankford doesnt reveal basic details about how he found shootings in so many countries -- most of which dont speak English. And most of those years, those countries didnt have the internet.

Lott argues that finding complete data for mass shooters in just one developing country, such as India, would be an incredible feat, as many shootings would be reported only in local outlets in the local language.

U.S. mass shootings, on the other hand, are well-documented and hard to miss.

Lott says that if Lankford missed foreign cases but found all the U.S. ones, his papers entire conclusion that the US has the most mass shooters could fall apart.

Lankford has declined to answer questions about how he searched for foreign-language cases.

Did Lankford miss foreign cases? Because Lankford would not release his data, Lott and the think tank he runs -- the Crime Prevention Research Center -- compiled their own count of mass shooters. (His paper is at http://ssrn.com/abstract=3238736 )

Lott counted more than 3,000 cases around the world -- several times more than the 202 cases Lankford found. Lott found 15 times more, despite the fact that he only looked for shootings in the last 15 years, whereas Lankford looked at 46 years.

Lott attempted to use the same definition of "mass shooter" that Lankford used, although thats difficult. In Lankford's paper, Lankford says he excludes "sponsored terrorism" but does not define what he means by that.

To be safe, Lott removed all terrorism cases from his data. When he did that that, he still found 709 shooters around the world -- more than 3 times what Lankford found.

Gun control advocates have used the Lankford study to argue that mass shootings are caused by the comparatively high gun ownership rate in the U.S.

But when Lankford's data are fixed, Lott says, there is no longer any correlation between gun ownership rate and mass shootings.

Lott concludes: "There is a lesson here. Lankfords critical but simple error could have been picked up if journalists had only demanded his data and methods before publicizing his study.

Thats something journalists rarely do.

Lott adds: "Journalists should learn to be skeptical... and in the meantime, we should all be skeptical of news coverage of studies like this -- that simply confirm what journalists and people want to hear."

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Media Hype Questionable Gun Control Study - YouTube

Ownership and control of the media – Sociology Revision

After studying this section, you should be able to understand:

Trends in ownership and control

KEY POINT - Recent trends in media ownership and control suggest that the number of companies controlling global mass media has significantly shrunk in recent years. Bagdikian (2004) notes that in 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the USA, but by 2004 media ownership was concentrated in seven corporations.

Curran (2003) notes that ownership of British newspapers has always been concentrated in the hands of a few powerful press barons, e.g. in 1937 four men owned nearly one in every two national and local daily newspapers sold in Britain. Today, seven powerful individuals dominate the ownership of British national daily and Sunday newspapers.

The content of commercial terrestrial television is mainly controlled by one company, ITV plc, whilst access to satellite, cable and digital television in Britain is generally controlled by two companies News Corp, (owned by Rupert Murdoch) which owns BSkyB, and Virgin Media (owned by Richard Branson).

Global conglomeration

KEY POINT - The major difference in media ownership and control compared with forty years ago is the movement of media corporations into the global marketplace. The major media companies are now global conglomerations transnational corporations (TNCs) with a presence in many countries.

Horizontal and vertical integrationOwnership and control of the mass media is a complex business as the following examples illustrate. Some media companies are characterised by horizontal integration or cross media ownership this refers to the fact that global media corporations often cross media boundaries and invest in a wide range of media products. NewsCorp, for example, owns newspapers, magazines, book publishers,terrestrial and satellite television channels and film studios in several countries.

Some media companies have focused on increasing economic control over all aspects of the production process in order to maximise profits, e.g. film corporations not only make movies, but distribute them to their own cinema chains. This is referred to as vertical integration.

Diversification, synergy and technological convergenceSome media corporations are not content to focus on media products, but have diversified into other fields. The best example of this is Virgin which began as a music label and record shop chain, but has expanded into a wide range of products and services including cola, vodka, banking, insurance, transport, digital television, cinema and wedding dresses.

Media companies often use their very diverse interests to package or synergise their products in several different ways, e.g. a film is often accompanied by a soundtrack album, computer game, ring tone or toy action figures. A company may use its global interests to market one of its own films through its television channels, magazines and newspapers in dozens of countries at the same time.

Technological convergence is a recent trend which involves putting several technologies into one media product. Companies that normally work in quite separate media technology fields are joining up or converging in order to give customers access to a greater range of media services across technologies such as interactive television, lap-tops, MP3 players and mobile phones.

Theories of media ownership and control

KEY POINT - Doyle (2002) suggests that examination of ownership and control patterns is important for two reasons.

Doyle argues that too much concentration of media ownership is dangerous and unhealthy because the media have the power to make or break political careers and have a considerable influence over public opinion.

The pluralist theory of media ownershipPluralists argue that media owners are generally responsible in the way that they manage information because media content is mainly shaped by consumer demand in the marketplace. They therefore only give the buying public what they want. Moreover, editors, journalists and broadcasters have a strong sense of professional ethics which act as a system of checks and controls on potential owner abuse of the media.

Pluralists suggest that the mass media are an essential part of the democratic process because the electorate today glean most of their knowledge of the political process from newspapers and television. Pluralists argue that owners, editors and journalists are trustworthy managers and protectors of this process.

Furthermore, pluralists argue that media audiences are the real power holders because they can exercise the right to buy or not to buy. If they did not like the choices that media owners are making available to them, or if they suspected that the media product was biased, such audiences would respond by not buying the product. The media, therefore, supply what the audience wants rather than what the owner decides. If some viewpoints have a greater range of media representing them, this is not necessarily biased. It merely reflects what theaudience wants or views as important.

Pluralists also argue that concentration of ownership is a product of economic rationality rather than political or sinister motives. It is driven by the need to keep costs low and to maximise profits. Globalisation too results from the need to find new audiences rather than from cultural imperialism.

Pluralists argue that it is practically impossible for owners to interfere with the content of newspapers and television programmes because their businesses are economically far too complex for them to regularly interfere in the day-to-day running or the content.

Public service broadcastingPluralists point out that a significant share of the media market in Britain is taken up by public service broadcasters (PSB), i.e. media outlets controlled by the state such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The BBC has a legal obligation to inform, to educate and to ensure that all programming is pluralistic and diverse, i.e. that all sections of society are catered for. Pluralists argue that PSB is impartial and objective, and balances out any potential bias in the private sector.

Pluralists note that the power of media owners is also restricted by state, or government, controls, e.g. in some societies, owners are not allowed to own too much media or different types of media. Many countries also have crossownership rules preventing people from owning more than one type of media. Furthermore, newspapers, television and radio in Britain are subject to legal controls and rules imposed on them by The Press Council and the Office for Communications (Ofcom).

Media professionalismPluralists stress that the professionalism of journalists and editors also constrains the power of owners. They argue that journalists are fierce in their pursuit of the truth and consequently they have too much integrity to be biased regularly in favour of one particular perspective. Investigative journalism also has a good reputation in uncovering abuses of power and corruption among the ruling elite.

The Marxist critique of media ownership and controlMarxists argue that the economic system of Britain, i.e. capitalism, is characterised by great inequalities in wealth and income which have been brought about by the exploitation of the labour power of the working classes. Marxists believe that in order to legitimate and reproduce this system of inequality, the capitalist class uses its cultural power to dominate institutions like education and the mass media and transmit ruling class ideology. The function of these agencies is to socialise the working class into accepting the legitimacy of the capitalist system and capitalist ideas. Consequently, Marxists argue working class people experience false class-consciousness they come to accept thatcapitalism is a just system that benefits all social groups equally. They fail to see the reality of their situation that they are being exploited by a system that only benefits a powerful minority.

The media and ideologyMarxists believe that media owners (who are members of the capitalist elite) use their media outlets to transmit ruling class ideology. Miliband (1973) argued that the role of the media is to shape how we think about the world we live in and suggested that audiences are rarely informed about important issues such as inequalities in wealth or why poverty persists. The capitalist system is rarely criticised or challenged. Instead, Marxists suggest that owners shape media content so that only approved and conformist views are heard.

Tunstall and Palmer (1991) suggest that governments are no longer interested in controlling the activities of media owners because they need their support to either gain power or hang onto it.

Evidence for the ideological nature of ownership and controlMarxists are suggesting that media owners, wealth holders and the political elite are united in some sort of ideological conspiracy to brainwash the general population. However, it is almost impossible to scientifically gather empirical evidence that supports this hypothesis. Sociologists generally only have anecdotal evidence to confirm their suspicions that concentration of media ownership is damaging democracy.

However, Currans (2003) detailed systematic examination of the social history of the British press does suggest that the evidence for owner interference in and manipulation of British newspaper content is strong. Curran notes that in the period 192050 press barons openly boasted that they ran their newspapers for the express purpose of propaganda that reflected their political views. Curran points out that even when engaged in investigative reporting, the majority of newspapers in Britain have supported the Conservative Party.

Curran also notes that the period 197492 saw the emergence of Rupert Murdoch. However, Curran rejects the idea that Murdoch is part of a unified capitalist elite but acknowledges that Murdochs newspapers are conservative in content and strongly supportive of capitalist interests. He argues Murdochs motives are economic rather than ideological in that Murdoch believes that right wing economic policies are the key to vast profits.

Currans analysis of British newspapers suggests that both pluralist and Marxist theories may be mistaken in the way they look at media ownership. He argues the pluralist view that media owners do not intervene in media content is evidentially false. Curran argues that since 2000 there has been even greater intervention by owners such as Murdoch. However, Curran disagrees with Marxists about the motive for this. He notes that the actions of media owners are not collectivised, rather they pursue their economic goals in a ruthlessly individualised way in anattempt to obtain a bigger share of the market than their capitalist competitors.

The Glasgow University Media Group

KEY POINT - The Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) suggests that media content does support the interests of those who run the capitalist system. However, this is an unintended by-product of the social backgrounds of journalists and broadcasters rather than a conscious capitalist conspiracy. The GUMG points out that most journalists working for national newspapers, television and radio tend to be overwhelmingly male, White, and middle class, e.g. 54% are privately educated.

The GUMG claims that these journalists and broadcasters tend to believe in middle-of-the-road (consensus) views and ideas because these are generally unthreatening. Journalists believe that these appeal to the majority of their viewers, listeners and readers. Ideas outside this consensus are viewed by journalists as extremist. People who hold these opinions are rarely invited to contribute their views in newspapers or on television, or if they are, they are ridiculed by journalists.

The GUMG argues that these journalists are not motivated by a desire to defend capitalist interests. Media companies are profit-making businesses. Those who commission and plan programmes, or decide newspaper or magazine content, usually play safe by excluding anything that might offend or upset readers or viewers. Losing several thousand readers, or viewers, because they were offended by extreme views and potentially losing millions of pounds in revenue and profit is too much of a risk.

Barnett and Weymour argue that such decisions have had a negative cultural effect in the sense that education, information and news have been increasingly sidelined. They compared television schedules in 1978, 1988 and 1998 and argued that the evidence suggests that television in Britain has been significantly dumbed down, e.g. the number of one-off dramas and documentaries has halved, while soap operas and cheap reality shows have increased fivefold. There are also now more repeats and cheap American imports. Time allocated to news programming has fallen dramatically, and more time on serious news programmes is devoted to celebrity news and human interest stories. Barnett and Weymour note that even the BBC is succumbing to these commercial pressures. Furthermore, they conclude that despite having hundreds of television channels, we do not have more choice, just more of the same thing.

Agenda settingThe result of this journalistic consensus, argues the GUMG, is that the media set the agenda and decide what issues are discussed by society and which ones are not. This is known as agenda setting. The GUMG argues that the media consequently present society with a fairly narrow agenda for discussion. Agenda setting therefore results in cultural hegemony. The basic principles of capitalism private enterprise, profit, the free market and the rights of property ownership dominate media content and are presented as normal and natural. There is actually little choice for audiences in that there is no radical alternative to the mainstream newspapers and dissenting views on subjects like the monarchy are rarely presented.

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Ownership and control of the media - Sociology Revision