“These are all cultural products set firmly in the realm of values. They are not concerned with which billionaire son inherits his father’s empire, but rather focus on ordinary people struggling to live lives of dignity with the force of the world against them. They are concerned with principles, with how one defeats temptation, greed, and avoids dishonor. … [And] you can listen to a K-pop song with your grandmother in the room, no lyrics have to be beeped out.” – The New York Times
Category: AUDIENCE
$80 Million: Chicago Storefront Theater’s Contribution To Local Economy
“What of the storefronts, those famous Chicago institutions where a full house can mean 80 people and where artists frequently toil for little or even no compensation? Can they claim a significant economic impact?” Oh yes, writes Chris Jones. – Chicago Tribune
Thousands Of Subscribers Say They Were Hacked After Signing Up For Disney+
On 12 November, its first day live, people had technical problems and many complained on social media. Others said they were locked out of their accounts, and since they contacted Disney they have not heard back. According to an investigation by Zdnet, thousands of user accounts went on sale on the dark web. – BBC
This Woman Had More Than 70,000 Shows That News Stations Lost, Deleted, And Recorded Over
Marion Stokes, a former Communist activist who turned into a recluse, recorded MSNBC, CNN, FOX News and many other news programs, more than 70,000 of them, on Betamax and VHS tapes. “Stokes began recording around the birth of the 24-hour news cycle. She felt it was an important influence on public opinion and wanted to capture this lens through which people view current events,” according to her son. – WBUR
Disney Spent A Lot Of Money And A Quarter-Century Getting The Internet Wrong
Kara Swisher has been writing about companies and the internet for even longer than Disney has been trying to figure out how to deal with the contemporary world. Swisher: “Forget the dashing Mandalorian. Do you remember Starwave? Infoseek? Go? Daily Blast? Spoonful.com? Club Penguin? Tapulous? Maker Studios? I’d like to say I don’t either, but I know them very well. They were among the many failed efforts by Disney that I have covered as a reporter since the mid-1990s, when it became clear to Disney that this internet thing just might be a big deal.” – The New York Times
Will The New Streaming Landscape Help Or Hurt The Movies?
“Abundance can be its own kind of scarcity. Without a sense of occasion, without the idea that a given experience is special, even rare, all experiences become equivalent, and our attention follows the path of least resistance.” – The New York Times
Fans And The False Intimacy Of Podcasts
All across the podcast realm, from the heights of self-help to the depths of true crime, imagined relationships are blossoming. Listeners may press play for the content, but many of them eventually come to nurture something like a one-way friendship with the hosts. – New York Times Magazine
Disney+ Is Attaching Warnings To Its Classic Movies About “Outdated Cultural Depictions”
Users of the service have seen the warnings attached to some of the company’s best-known animated films, such as Dumbo, Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp, with text that reads: “This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.” – The Guardian
Should We Worry About Knowing The Social Class Of Our Audiences?
“As long as we continue to make vague generalisations about the social background of our audiences and users, we further the conditions in which a culturally entitled minority can continue to benefit from the majority of publicly supported arts and heritage.” – Arts Professional
Why Netflix Shouldn’t Give In To Movie Theatres For Its Releases
Netflix can deliver filmmakers a prospective audience of 300 million people (and growing) with each release. This film distribution strategy is enabling rich, diverse stories to reach a massive audience. And that should be celebrated as a win for movie lovers — and the movie business. – The Hollywood Reporter