The Media and Some of Valarie Geller's Philosophies - Research Paper Example

Introduction Valarie Geller is a radio producer, author, broadcaster, talent coach, instructor, and consultant. As a radio producer she has appeared in various radio stations since the start of her career to help broadcasters understand the dynamics of the radio industry and also other basics such as interaction with the media audiences. She has also written books such as “Creating Powerful Radio - A Communicator's Handbook for News, Talk, Information & Personality”, “The Powerful Radio Workbook- The Prep, Performance & Post Production Planning” and “Creating Powerful Radio - Getting, Keeping & Growing Audiences” which elaborate more on the media and interaction with the media and some of her philosophies on communication have been demonstrated in the books. Rebecca Mackinnon is a website producer and blogger. Her blog is referred to as RConversation which she basically uses so as to post information about work, readings and ideas that she may have. She also has a book by the name “Consent of the Networked”. The book talks about freedom of communication with regard to aspects such as personal and political matters. She has also worked with the likes of Ethan Zuckerman, so as to co-find Global voices which is an organization that seeks to build up and nurture talent in communication and the individuals can be able to blog and post media information by using Global voices to the rest of the world. Dr. Dre is a music producer and rap pioneer. His real names are Andre Romelle Young and he was born on February 18, 1965. He started out as a Disk Jockey and that is when the music career started up until now where he has become the most sought after music producer. He has worked with major artists such as Eminem, Tupac, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Akon and 50-Cent only to mention a few. Biography Valarie Geller started her path to radio when she was a journalist, reporter and presenter and since then, she has catapulted her career to new levels. Some of the titles that she has held during her career path include; program director at WABC in New York in 1990, news director at K101 in San Francisco and executive director at KF1 in Los Angeles. In addition to that, she later began her work as a consultant with radio stations universally; these included the likes of BBC in the UK, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Australia, CBS Radio, NPR, Univision TV and Radio in the USA and SR in Sweden (Redroom, “Valerie Geller's Biography”). As an author, she has written a variety of books such as; “Creating Powerful Radio - A Communicator's Handbook for News, Talk, Information & Personality”, “The Powerful Radio Workbook- The Prep, Performance & Post Production Planning” and “Creating Powerful Radio - Getting, Keeping & Growing Audiences”. All these books seek to communicate about how to talk to audiences and how a broadcaster can be able to capture the attention of their audiences. Valarie books also incorporate an additional aspect of teaching how to be effective managers and the art of being tolerant in the business. In 2009, she went back to Holland to showcase her book “Creating Powerful Radio - Getting, Keeping & Growing Audiences” and to give more information about how the book can be utilized to its maximum with some of the information that it provides such as how to get and maintain an audience as well topics on management and how to make it in the radio industry. Valarie has since has a key interest in radio. She has always had the idea that radio should be revolutionized so as to make it interactive and not just a source to communicate information to its audiences. This is evidenced by the fact that she has written books that handle topics on effective communication. Another factor is that, she coaches radio personnel to be dynamic in that, proper communication, interaction and involvement ought to attract a lot of audiences. Some of her contributions to news/talk format radio include the fact that she trains broadcasters to up their skills in relation to media content, creativity, caring about the listeners and generally connecting with the audience. Geller has influenced the medium of radio in terms of understanding what the audience wants and being able to give it to them; she also has managed to capture the minds of audiences by talking on interesting events and news (Giger, “Valerie Geller: Radio Is The Last Magic”). Geller has had major philosophies that she has since implemented and they have reaped benefits. These include; making the most out a listeners time. This is by ensuring that each second a broadcaster is speaking to the audience; they make an impact at that moment. Telling the truth is another philosophy that Geller insists on. Broadcasters are taught to practice telling the truth while communicating to their audiences. Another aspect is to speak visually to the audience rather than communicating too much information to the audience. Geller coaches on how to communicate to the audience in a mixed ratio and understanding the audience is made up of a mixed proportion. Another philosophy is the art of storytelling. As a broadcaster, the audience needs to be captivated by stories as compared to keeping it strictly official. She also insists that as a broadcaster, one should learn to always start with the best material. This is prone to attract the audience and keep them tuned into the station. In conclusion of that, her last major philosophy is to be real and dare to be great (Larrygifford, “Valerie Geller”). Lastly Geller is the president at her own long term innovation by the name Geller Media International that seeks to coach individuals on radio broadcasting. Some of the company’s big clients that rely on her services include; London’s LBC 97.3 Talkback radio and News Direct, The BBC Radio in UK, BBC Radio Leeds, Rogers Media, Toronto's 680 News, The Fan and CHFI -FM, ABC from Australia, 774 in Melbourne, Classic FM, Radio National, News Radio and Triple J, The National Radio Corporation of Singapore, In Kenya they include; Nation FM, Kagiso Media, SABC from South Africa, RFM in Portugal, WOW in Florence just to mention a few (Centreforconsciouscreativity, “Valerie Geller”) As a web blogger, Rebecca Mackinnon has a blog RConversation which she mostly uses so as to post information about work, readings and ideas that she may have. She also has a book by the name “Consent of the Networked”. The book talks about freedom of communication with regard to aspects such as personal and political matters. Her educational background was quite forthcoming. She did her honours in Government and later on became a Fullbright scholar to Taiwan. She is also a Fellow student from Harvard in the field of Internet and Society and from this venture she managed to co-find the company Global voices Online which is an online media community for bloggers to report and share on media information from around the world. Her career path started a while back in 1998 where she was a CNN journalist until 2001, where she later became a Tokyo Bureau Chief. She has also analyzed topics such as blogging and journalism in major conferences and some of her works can be reviewed from her RConversation blog. After moving from her employment, she founded Global Voices with Ethan Zuckerman who is also a blogger and an internet activist. This was the breakeven point as Global voices sought to bridge the communication gap by allowing interactive communication between people all around the world. With regard to her website and innovation, “Global Voices”, its intention was to enable bloggers to report and share on media information and news from the world to people. “Global Voices seeks to aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore. We work to develop tools, institutions and relationships that will help all voices, everywhere, to be heard” (Globalvoicesonline, “About”). Some of the universities that she has been a fellow include the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. She has also taught at George Soros' Open Society Institute, Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy and the New America Foundation (Globalvoicesonline, “Rebecca Mackinnon”). Currently she is an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre where she lectures on aspects such as Internet and journalism (Wiki mania, “Presenters/Rebecca MacKinnon/Biography”). Some of her cultural and political philosophies about the internet in creating a more and equal just world include the fact that the creation of Global voices with Ethan Zuckerman enabled the cultural gap between different societies with different languages and cultural backgrounds to be minimized. This was done by the fact that the website incorporated the translation of news and information to a variety of different languages. Internet freedom is another philosophy that MacKinnon describes passionately. She describes Interest freedom like, “a Rorschach inkblot test: different people look at the same ink splotch and see very different things” (Thierer, “Book Review: Consent of the Networked by Rebecca MacKinnon”). In addition to that, her political philosophy about the internet was portrayed in the e-book, “Africa voices of hope and change”. The e-book was written so as to tell the stories about what encounters people in Sub Saharan Africa do face. The regions included in the e-book include; Senegal, Uganda, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mauritania, Kenya, Angola and other countries. MacKinnon also talks about sovereignty. She describes it as a concept where the relationship between the state and its citizens is implemented on so as to have independence between the two entities. She comments stating that, the people can join together so as to make social sites such as Facebook and Google sovereigns of cyberspace. She adds that, no corporation had tapped into the powers of a sovereign cyberspace and debates on Internet freedom, online privacy, digital copyright, and online freedom of speech are often misconnected as to what they build upon if they are implemented (Thierer, “Book Review: Consent of the Networked by Rebecca MacKinnon”). As a conclusion, Internet freedom seeks to showcase the right that individuals have with regard to online communication and expression. Global voices is achieving much of its goals because it has incorporated the use of different languages so that people around the world whether they speak Italian, Filipino, Portuguese, French, Swahili, and Chinese they still have the capability to understand and get the concepts and news information as showcased in the website. Secondly, as an audience informant, Global voices covers news from all over the world so as to reduce the linguistic, cultural and information gap between people of different parts of the world. Thirdly, it facilitates the training of citizens so that they can be open to the media and be able to express themselves by blogging and posting information. It has also incorporated the use of social networking sites as a way to capture more audience especially those who are frequent users of Facebook and Twitter. In addition to that, those who want to communicate or comment to posts and blog in Global voices they can be able to do so through social media. Dr. Dre is a music producer and a rap pioneer. He started his career as a Disk Jockey (DJ) when he used to spin and turntables at a local club. He got recognition from the members and later joined the Class Wreckin’ Cru in 1982, and that is when his name changed from DJ J (where J was the name of his favorite basketball player, Julius Erving) to Dr. Dre. In 1984, he left the Class Wreckin’ Cru and the next year, he got involved with artists such as; Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Yella, MC Ren, the Arabian Prince and the D.O.C. so as to form the music group N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude). This was the group that enabled him to be the producer he is now. He worked with them and even helped in the production of their lyrics. In 1988, the group later gained momentum and produced a second album by the name “Straight Outta Compton” which reflected on life in the streets and the relationship between the police and the black community. With the experience from N.W.A, he decided to go on a solo career where he recorded his first record label “The Chronic” which managed to be hit in the rap genre. He went ahead and produced a second record album called “2001” in 1999 and it was also a success. Soon after that, he established his record label by the name, Aftermath Entertainment. This is the point when he also started working with Eminem and 50 Cent where he helped Eminem produce his second studio album “The Slim Shady LP” and his third studio album “The Marshall Mathers LP” in 1999 and 2000 respectively. As for 50 cent, he helped him produce “Get Rich or Die Tryin” in 2003. At this point, he was now a fully experienced music producer (Biography, “Dr. Dre biography”). Some of the early music influences on Dr. Dre included; Parliament Funkadelic, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, Afrika Bambaataa, Run DMC Schooly D, Public Enemy, N.W.A., DJ Quik, Too Short, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tupac (Shmoop, “ Influences on Dr. Dre”). Dr. Dre deals with the rap and hip-hop genres where rap consists of lyrics spoken as compared to being sung, while hip hop consists of sampling music beats and implementing lyrics to the sound being produced. Dr. Dre has a music philosophy that is related to producing music that is the best and that is what has brought him as far as he is today. Some of the contributions that Dr. Dre believes his music brings are a way to communicate to the society on issues that affect the society. Most of his songs and what he got involved in during the beginning of his career was music that reflected what the black community was undergoing and life in the streets. Dr. Dre’s music has two key messages; peace and unity in the black community and the streets and working hard to attain the goals that someone wants to achieve. Dr. Dre music is attractive because his philosophy is the best quality of music there is. His music is heartfelt and since it is rap it talks about what is going on in the streets and ways to make the community a better living place. It makes the street life and experiences a reality in music so that people can know what goes on. Works cited Redroom. Valerie Geller's Biography. Web. Retrieved from: http://redroom.com/member/valerie-geller/bio Giger, Thomas. Valerie Geller: Radio Is The Last Magic. Web. Retrieved from: http://www.radioiloveit.com/radio-programming-radio-formats/valerie-geller-radio-is-the-last-magic/ Larrygifford. Valerie Geller. 2011, January. Web. Retrieved from: http://larrygifford.wordpress.com/tag/valerie-geller/ Centreforconsciouscreativity. Valerie Geller. Web. Retrieved from: http://site.consciouscreativity.com/advisory-board/47-valerie-geller Keynotes. Rebecca Mackinnon Keynote Speaker Videos on Trend Hunter. Web. Retrieved from: http://www.keynotes.org/speaker/RebeccaMackinnon Wiki mania. Presenters/Rebecca MacKinnon/Biography. 2007, July. Web. Retrieved from: http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Presenters/Rebecca_MacKinnon/Biography Globalvoicesonline. About. 2012, December. Web. Retrieved from: http://globalvoicesonline.org/about/ Globalvoicesonline. Rebecca Mackinnon. Web. Retrieved from: http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/rmackinnon/ Thierer, Adam. The technology liberation front. Book Review: Consent of the Networked by Rebecca MacKinnon. 2012, January. Web. Retrieved from: http://techliberation.com/2012/01/25/book-review-consent-of-the-networked-by-rebecca-mackinnon/ Biography. Dr. Dre biography. Web. Retrieved from: http://www.biography.com/people/dr-dre-507628?page=2 Shmoop. Influences on Dr. Dre. Web. Retrieved from: http://www.shmoop.com/nuthin-but-a-g-thang/influences.html Read More