Loss of a Pioneer in Media

by theaudioprof on October 17, 2011

Ratings Pioneer

Earlier this month saw the passing of a man who changed the way the television industry operates.  No, not Steve Jobs.  But A.C. Nielsen, Jr. The last namesake owner of the Nielsen Media Research company, it was Junior who took the innovative data collection inventions that his father created–in industries ranging from radio/television audiences, to coupons, and UPC scanning technologies–and “institutionalized” them, as was described in a recent obituary by The New York Times.

Nielsen has created products that are so much a part of the media industries now that they impact each of my courses–  Electronic Media Programming Strategies, Electronic Media Sales, and Electronic Media Advertising–in vast ways.  We often bemoan how imprecise the techniques that Nielsen uses to track the complex ways we use television media.  But, when you think about the challenges that exist with how widespread visual media have become the fact that a company is out there trying to aggregate that usage is impressive.  The company is often described as a monopoly and it certainly is the 1000-pound gorilla when it comes to providing the ratings data that acts as the only real currency in the television industry.  But the task is formidable and the investment would seem to so substantial that it provides a huge barrier to entry, preventing many other company from seriously considering getting into the biz.  Although there are some who are giving it a successful go such as Rentrak an Comscore.

But still, it largely started with Nielsen.  And I wanted to note his passing.

 

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A long time coming–I’m a book author!

by theaudioprof on October 3, 2011

A couple weeks ago I got an email from someone in the IFS office.  They said that they had received a package from Routledge press…and wondered if it was a package of desk copies for an IFS course I taught this past summer.  That seemed weird to me…but then I realized that I had been expecting the author copies of the book I’ve written with Paul Bolls Called Psychophysiology Measurement and Meaning:  Cognitive and Emotional Responses to Media. And, I wondered if perhaps the publisher had just sent them to the wrong address.

Sure enough, when I cut open the box, there were two copies of something that I had worked for a long time on.  And thought about working on for an even longer time.  In fact, a quick scan of old blogger posts this morning prove to be like an archeological dig sifting through the years.  I found a lot of good nuggets along the way, including two quick blurbs that were written about the book along the way:  Nugget One Nugget Two

And although it was an agonizing process at times, I feel pleased that I completed it.  It made me learn things that I only thought I knew, but realized that I didn’t know them well enough to write clearly and cohesively about them.  And it made me learn things I had very little understanding of (can you say “history of the field”?).   For that I am actually quite grateful.  So much so that my reaction to having this one behind me has been a little bit different from what I’ve observed in some colleagues who have written books.  They express satisfaction and pride in completing the project (just like me) but say they NEVER want to do it again.  As for me, I’ve already begun working on my next one.  My hope is that it won’t take a decade to squeeze out of myself.  More on that as it moves along.

My co-author, Paul Bolls, has also written a blog post about the books’ release.  Where this post points more to the personal feelings I experienced, Paul’s is much more to the point about the content of the book and how it hopes to help those interested in their own “brains on media.”  Check it out by clicking on the image below.

Another blog posting about Psychophysiological Measures and Meaning

 

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IFS Recap–Part One

by theaudioprof on September 6, 2011

Another semester–and another school year– has begun and I realize that I haven’t even had time to blog about the fantastic time I (once again) had with the Intensive Freshman Seminar (IFS) program. This program is one of the ways that Indiana University helps make a HUGE university smaller for the class of incoming freshmen. This is the fifth year that I’ve taught a course called This is Your Brain on Media, where I try to introduce students to the concepts of social science generally, cognitive science specifically, and give them a chance to think about media in a way they probably never have–as a complex psychological stimuli that requires your brain to process it.

Of course, during the 3 weeks we also spend plenty of time visiting some of the cool places IU has to offer–like the Wells Library and the Lilly Library.  And, lectures.  Of course.

My IFS intern Alex gives a lecture on Media Violence

A student captures a digital copy of the ORIGINAL Vesalius @ The Lilly Library

Jeff listens to our tour guide of the Wells Library, while Dr. Wells' bust overlooks the scene

But, of course, the main thing that I get pumped about in IFS is that the students actually do SCIENCE and do it quite quickly.  I mean, at the end of the first week the “Attention Group” is in the ICR collecting heart rate data to address an original hypothesis of their own.

Differences in Cardiac Orienting Responses to Complete Color Change versus Partial Color Change

The students in the attention group got together and brainstormed about different things they felt to affect the amount of attention that people paid to media messages.  In class we discuss the difference between automatic attention and controlled attention.  The later happens over a comparatively long time–kinda like what you think of when you hear the phrase “Pay attention to this lecture!”  The former, automatic attention, is a relatively quick attention response–also known as the orienting response–that often occurs following change in the environment.

The attention students–Jeff, Payton, Olivia, Conor, Sam, and Matt–initially focused on changes from Black & White to color in films, similar to to the famous one when Dorothy opens to door of her black & white house to reveal the technicolor Oz.  Then they recalled a common production technique of only have portions of the screen be colorized.  Like the “Girl in the Red Coat” scenes from Schindler’s List.

 

 

The hypothesis was that there would be more automatic attention allocated to the change in full-color scenes compared to the change to what the students called “spot color” scenes. The indication of this difference would be shown in the deceleration of heart rate at the point of the color changes. It is widely known that heart rate deceleration is an indication of the orienting response.

And so, they collected their data…cleaned and edited it…and found a pretty interesting result.

 

Olivia and Conor apply electrodes to Andrew to measure his HR

Sam considers how to edit Inter-beat Interval Cardiac Data

 

Below is a graph showing their Cardiac Response Curves, with data from 3 film clips making up the result in each condition.

 

Greater HR deceleration for Full Color clips (Blue Line) compared to Spot Color (Red Line)

 

Here is their presentation:

S105–This is Your Brain on Media
View more presentations from theaudioprof

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