Wall Street’s Content Wars: Financing Media Consolidation

If we frame the ongoing streaming transition occurring in the cultural industries as ‘content wars,’ with metaphoric ‘battlefronts’ in Hollywood, in Silicon Valley, and on Madison Avenue, then the silent arms dealer in this conflict is Wall Street and the investor class, whose financial engineering goes largely unacknowledged in studies of the media industries. This chapter will explore the impact of private equity in the American film, television, and music industries since 2004. The mercenaries of these content wars, private equity firms have enacted leveraged buyouts in every sector of the cultural industries: major music labels (Warner, EMI), radio networks (Cumulus, Clear Channel/iHeartMedia), film and television production and distribution companies (MGM, Miramax, Univision, Dick Clark Productions), exhibition (AMC, Odeon), the top talent agencies (CCA, WME, IMG), audience measurement (Nielsen), and the trade press (Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard). The arms race in this conflict is the ability to monetize content catalogues across streaming platforms, which is a lucrative opportunity for financialization. From a critical political economy of media perspective attuned to the significance of financial capital, this chapter demonstrates that the financialization of various components of the media sector is facilitating a dramatic extraction of value from the cultural industries, leaving further consolidation in its wake. Who is profiting from the streaming transition and who is losing out? The answers are the same as in the wider economy of the second gilded age: the wealthy are extracting private, untaxed profit from the public arena while the middle class of creatives is being hollowed out. The ‘creative destruction’ of this war is being fueled by financial engineering

Effective Reading Strategies to Increase Reading Fluency

Research states that a student’s reading fluency has a direct correlation to their reading comprehension. This literature review investigates the most effective reading strategies that increase a student’s reading fluency rate. The research explores strategies such as repeated reading, Readers Theatre, text complexity, phonics instruction, and intervention group conditions. This literature review will contain peer reviewed, scholarly journals to research the most effective reading strategies to increase student’s reading fluency rate. The results of the various studies utilized within this paper indicate repeated reading that incorporates scaffolded repetitive readings of a text have been highly successful

Examining Relationships Between Wellness And Student Success: Recommendations For Integration Of Wellness At A Community College

Wellness, persistence, and retention in higher education have a common goal of student success. Colleges and universities explore various methods to help students succeed and continue towards degree completion. Most of the research has focused on traditional predictors (e.g., high school GPA, ACT/SAT scores) of persistence and success. There is limited research regarding the relationship among student persistence, retention, academic achievement, and a holistic approach to wellness. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between student wellness and student success outcomes at a community college. Wellness is a multidimensional and active behavioral process that includes personal choices concerning physical, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being. This quantitative study was conducted at a rural community college. A sample of 139 students in their first year of their academic program completed the Body-Mind-Spirit Wellness Behavior and Characteristic Inventory (BMS-WBCI) to determine their wellness behaviors relating to six dimensions of wellness. They were also asked to indicate their intent to return for year two of their program. Institutional data, persistence (fall to spring semester) and first-semester GPA, were also collected for this sample of students. The results indicated a positive relationship between the body sub-scale (physical wellness) and first-semester GPA. Due to a lack of variance within the institutional measure of persistence and students’ intent to return for year two, statistical relationships were not tested on these two outcome variables. The final product of this study includes a white paper that highlights the issue of student wellness in higher education and provides recommendations for community colleges to implement to help increase student wellness and ultimately success. Keywords: academic achievement, persistence, retention, wellness, well-bein

Patriarchy: the Missing Link in Understanding Globalization’s Impact upon Women

This study explores the link between globalization and patriarchy to assess the resulting implications for female development around the world. The purpose of this study is to utilize patriarchy as a frame for addressing and analyzing globalization. It can be concluded that globalization is masculine based on who holds the decision-making power when formulating, advocating, implementing, and evaluating globalization. These aspects have been disproportionately male dominated since the emergence of globalization as an economic system. Therefore, a gender gap emerged because women are largely absent from the equation. This study determines that globalization is largely a manifestation of patriarchy and adversely affects women worldwide through a lack of consideration for women’s issues, promoting goal-oriented growth without protective measures, and an overwhelming focus on the public sphere (politics and economics) and disregard for the private sphere (home and family life). Since males dominate the political, economic, and social arenas worldwide, it places them in a privileged position compared to women. Because of this proliferation of patriarchal ideals, it created separates spheres of gender dominance (women dominating the private sphere) and a gender hierarchy placing privileged men at the very top. The study concludes that globalization does not fail women because it is a substandard economic strategy or oppresses women like certain regime types or economic systems; but it does negatively impact women because it applies masculine values and perspectives to a multi-gendered problem

Catalonia, An (Unhappy) State Within a State

The main purpose of this paper is to argue for Catalonian autonomy and separation from Spain in the wake of the intensifying Catalan nationalist movement. The Catalonians already attained cultural and language autonomy, but now strive for complete political autonomy without interference from Spain. This study identifies the need for autonomy and the benefits it would present from a political, cultural, and economic standpoint. The study goes on to explore the possibility of integration of Catalonia into Europe as a new state if Spain were to grant autonomy. The study concludes that separation is the only reasonable course of action in this specific case and the Spanish government should grant autonomy

Media Education in Latin America: A Book Review

This book review examines Media Education in Latin America (Routledge, 2020) edited by Julio-César Mateus, Pablo Andrada, and María-Teresa Quiroz. This book provides insight to the contribution made by Latin American educators and scholars to global dialogue about media education and educommunicacion. This review explores the concepts and contexts as outlined in eleven case studies of specific Latin American countries and a series of critical essays This impressive book provides essential insights to enhance the fields of literacy, educommunicacion, and media education

The Damaging Effects of Gender Roles in The Bell Jar and “The Yellow Wallpaper”

This comparative literary analysis paper examines how traditional gender roles and their impact upon women’s mental health have been explored through literature. An examination of the struggles with mental illness witnessed in both female protagonists in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and The Bell Jar demonstrates the overwhelmingly negative effects of imposing traditional gender roles upon women. These two works show two different cases of female mental illness, however, display an underlying theme that these illnesses are reactionary to societal expectations and pressures. This paper examines the women’s struggle to fit into their designated roles as ‘wife and mother’ and ‘future housewife’ to conclude that these women were not sick, but rather, oppressed and found their escape through ‘madness.’ Gilman and Plath use their fictional works to criticize the treatment of female mental illness and the failure to recognize the link between the oppressive standards placed against women and the resulting ‘madness.’ This comparative paper finds that though the two female protagonists lived nearly 100 years apart, they share many similarities in the struggles they face, the societal pressures placed upon them, and their responses to them. This suggests that these illnesses result from the confining nature of traditional gender roles

Testing use of mitochondrial COI sequences for the identification and phylogenetic analysis of New Zealand caddisflies (Trichoptera)

We tested the hypothesis that cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) sequences would successfully discriminate recognised species of New Zealand caddisflies. We further examined whether phylogenetic analyses, based on the COI locus, could recover currently recognised superfamilies and suborders. COI sequences were obtained from 105 individuals representing 61 species and all 16 families of Trichoptera known from New Zealand. No sequence sharing was observed between members of different species, and congeneric species showed from 2.3 to 19.5% divergence. Sequence divergence among members of a species was typically low (mean = 0.7%; range 0.0–8.5%), but two species showed intraspecific divergences in excess of 2%. Phylogenetic reconstructions based on COI were largely congruent with previous conclusions based on morphology, although the sequence data did not support placement of the purse-cased caddisflies (Hydroptilidae) within the uncased caddisflies, and, in particular, the Rhyacophiloidea. We conclude that sequence variation in the COI gene locus is an effective tool for the identification of New Zealand caddisfly species, and can provide preliminary phylogenetic inferences. Further research is needed to ascertain the significance of the few instances of high intra-specific divergence and to determine if any instances of sequence sharing will be detected with larger sample sizes