Garrett's Blog

Disneys Acquisition of 21st Century Fox

With Disneys purchase of 21st century fox, many people have been forced to think wether or not this is a good or bad thing. I think from a business standpoint, Disneys purchase was a huge success for a company that is already on top of the world. According to Vox, Disney spent just over 70 billion dollars.

When you spend 70 billion dollars, you would expect a lot in return, and I think Disney got what they paid for. With all the movies that Fox has produced, the TV shows, and everything else, I think it was worth it. Some people might say that because of this “merger” of two huge companies, there will be lots of jobs lost. This may be true on the Fox side of things, that what happens when your company gets bought out, but I think a good portion of the jobs lost are going to be re opened on the Disney side of things now.

To answer the question, I think that Disneys purchase of Fox does not benefit the American people. According to Cnet, Disney’s purchase of 21st Century Fox creates a monopoly. I applaud Disney for growing their company larger and larger, but with the acquisition of Fox, this does in fact create a monopoly. Disney was already large before they bought fox. Now with their new purchase, they can run the box office. 21st Century Fox made all the kinds of movies that Disney never made, because that wasn’t their style. Now that Disney owns their whole studio, they can make those movies, and not damage the Disney studio name. The only positive I see coming out of this is all the new TV shows and movies that will hopefully be coming to Disney Plus.

According to ScreenRant, over the past ten years, Disney has had more films in the worldwide top ten highest grossing films than any other studio. With the merger of these two huge movie studios, Disney could run up to 40 percent of the whole box office. Many experts after the deal was announced stated the possibility of a “media monopoly” could happen, and I think we are all about to witness it.

Another negative is that the movie release schedule is going to be overhauled. ScreenRant says that in 2019, Disney released around 9 films NOT including ones under the newly acquired 21st Century Fox. If Disney only has itself to compete with in the box office, then they won’t have as much of a reason to make more movies or varied content.

One last negative about Disneys purchase is that it will limit the movies we get to see. Disney demands a 65 percent cut from ticket sales, and demands that the film is shown for 4 weeks minimum. Theaters who do not comply with Disneys commands may not have access to future films, but those who do comply have their screens taken up. Removing spaces for other films from different studios. Star Wars- The Last Jedi, was the highest grossing movie of 2017, but because of Disneys demands, many theaters did not show the movie. Because many theaters did though, and Disneys cut from ticket sales, added with the amount of time shown in each theater means it was still the highest grossing movie.

In Conclusion, the negatives outweigh the positives, making Disney’s purchase of 21st Century Fox not beneficial for Americans.

Daily Dose of Media

February 10th 3:00PM- Computer (2 hours): Wrote essay for English, read chapter of online PR textbook
February 10th 7:00PM- Phone (1 hour): Watched Adam LZ on Youtube
February 11th 1:00PM- Computer (1 hour): Listened to all 3 lecture videos for emergent media
February 11th 3:00PM- Computer (2 hours): Played video games
February 11th 8:00PM- Xbox One (2 hours): Played Forza Horizon 4
February 11th 11:00PM- Phone (1 hour): Browsed through social media
February 12th 1:00PM- Computer (1 hour): Did more English work
February 12th 3:00PM- Computer (2 hours): Played video games

As you can see by the numbers and the hours, I spend lots of time on technology each day. Weather it be for school work, or my own personal pleasure, I’m using media a lot each day. I think that media is used so much in our lives because people can learn a lot from it, but there are also consequences to being drawn into media as much as we are today.

One possible downfall to media is the amount of messages sent. People interpret things differently. In 2.3 “components of media literacy” the powerpoint says that because we all decode messages in different ways we want to take shortcuts, such as stereotypes. When people do this, messages you might be trying to send could be misinterpreted.

One upside for media however, is the upcoming of new products that consumers have never seen before. In August of 2012, the production of the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset began. This product caught fire when it hit the open market because nobody had ever seen anything quite like this before. In 4.1 “patterns of development” it states that new innovative products have no standards set, so its up to the consumers to decide how much the item will impact them. For some people, the Oculus Rift meant nothing. But I think for people like content creator on YouTube, this was a huge deal. The ideas for videos including the product are endless, and some content creators even became more popular thanks to the product.

Most people is todays world have all types of devices that have access to media. Laptops, Computers, Phones, just about anything that can be connected to the internet has access to some form of media. In 4.3 “convergence” it says that all media, on the digital level, looked the same. Now this may be true for the 90s because technology had just become truly relevant and we didn’t have anything nearly as powerful back then as we do today. In todays media, I think everything looks different. There’s different formats of media when you compare it from your phone to your laptop. Some media is only available on certain technology. Sometimes media may require an extra add on that you may not have. The point being, that no media today is the same, although the same concepts of media are still the same.

Going back to my media usage, I think my numbers are pretty reasonable. Take into account that I’m a college student, all the notes for classes are online, I have to take quizzes and tests online, over half of my textbooks this semester are online textbooks, essays are no longer handwritten. There are so many factors that go into media use, especially for college kids. We might as well be considered an online school at this point. I go to class, listen to a teacher talk for about an hour, sometimes more, and then I get up and leave. I get back to my dorm, and what do I do? I do all my work for those classes online.

Aside from work for my classes, whenever I’m done, I like to reward myself for my hard work. I do this by relaxing and either watching youtube videos, or playing video games whether it be on my Xbox or my laptop. Depending on the person, these hours may be different because not everyone plays video games or watches YouTube. Others might spend their time just scrolling through instagram, or watching Netflix or TV.

To conclude my thoughts. Media has both upsides and downsides. I think depending on the person and the situation that person is in, your personal activity in media could be different. I think my usage is higher because I’m in college and a majority of the things I do involve me being on a computer. But for say a 50 year old who’s a clinical therapist, their time on media would be considerably less because they’re spending all day talking to clients and meeting people, so they don’t have time to browse through instagram or watch YouTube videos, or play video games.

2020 Supra. Better or worse than the MK. IV?

As a kid, I always grew up loving cars. The Fast & Furious movies are my favorite movies of all time, and like every other kid who watched those movies, I wanted either Paul Walkers Nissan R34 GTR or the infamous Orange targa top Toyota Supra. It absurdly massive rear wing and the beautiful noise coming from the twin turbocharged 2JZ have only made me want to own one. Toyota stopped production of the Supra in 2002 because of sales not being efficient. But in March of 2019, the Detroit auto show revealed the all new 2020 Supra.

Toyota sent a message in this commercial to prove that the Supra was back, even though some people criticized the way that Toyota brought it back. I think the most obvious points that are meant to grab views attention are the shots of the bright red Supra sliding around all corners of the track, then instantly switching to a shot of the driver smiling than counter steering in the other direction. I think they do this to please the viewer with the fact that even though it’s a brand new car, you can still have loads of fun with it. Compared to a Japanese commercial for the 1993 Supra (aka the MK. IV) Toyota went with a more classical, laid back kind of ad.

I think no matter who is seeing the commercial, they will think “Oh look it’s a new Toyota” or for people who knew there Supra from before, “oh Toyota is bringing the Supra back”. But I do believe the way people view it can change their opinion on the car. Say a car enthusiast like me sees the ad. Some words that go through my mind are words like exciting, exhilarating, fast, furious, classic. But to someone else who sees the ad, they might think “oh my gosh that car is insane who would ever drive that” simply because of the way they conducted the car in the commercial. People drive SUVs and Honda Civics, but you don’t see them drifting around in their commercials now do you? Of course not, because they aren’t meant to be driven like that. The Supra is something you’re supposed to have fun in, go fast, and have everyone looking at you no matter what speed you’re going.

The purpose of this message is to show that the Supra is back, obviously. But I think they did this to prove that no matter how long the car was gone, when they bring it back people are gonna love it and buy it and modify it to no end. Popular YouTube Adam LZ and many others bought them as soon as the pre-order was available. According to The Drive, in August of 2019 Toyota sold more then 600 Supras (50-60k msrp) compared to 500 combined between the Toyota 86 and Subaru BRZ (26-32k msrp). This is insane because of the fact that the Supra is two times more expensive as the BRZ/86. And it hasn’t even been a full year since the new MK. V Supra has been released. Another amazing thing is the love for the car with aftermarket parts. From wide body kits to exhausts to independent suspension, the possibilities are endless for the Supra. As the years go on, I can only imagine how many more models will be released.