Binary Models

        During this lecture, we learned about the binary models of journalism. Throughout our everyday lives, we experience these four models but we just don't know it. The four binary models are: hot-cold, elitist-populist, information-entertainment, and content-distribution. The model that connected to all the others was hot-cold. I never knew how I could be in the kitchen and still not miss anything on the TV. Apparently, TV is a cold medium since it doesn't require your full visual attention. An instance when TV is a hot medium is whenever you are watching a subbed show because you are reading and it requires your visual awareness.

        Today, you see a lot of elitist-populist categorized media. Elitist has a purpose, such as education. Populist, on the other hand, is just in it for the money. I noticed during the lecture that the media is becoming more populist. Our society is more interested in trivial things like celebrity drama and viral videos. This closely ties in with the  information-entertainment model. Since, populist media is all about money, it uses entertaining topics to gather more views or reads. However, there are some elitist media like 60 minutes whose purpose is to educate. The purpose of education is related to the information side of the model. Elitist media gives information to the world for the sole purpose of educating the audience and not really paying attention to his much money it makes.

        To me, the content-distribution model was confusing. I did however find out that when companies make products is way cheaper than when we buy it from the store. This model is merging because companies thought it would be easier and more cheaper to have your own distributors.