DURATION: 2.5 hours
KEY TOPICS
- Information as a social (public) product and a commodity
- Advertising as the lifeblood of commercial media
- Ratings and circulation figures as gauges for media products and services
- The threat of consumerist culture (audience needs vs. wants and desires);
- Strategies and approaches in commoditizing information;
- Intellectual property rights and public-domain information
- Copyright and other proprietary information rights
- Public domain information
- Free and open-source software (and Creative Commons).
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After completing this unit, teachers will be able to:
- Define commoditization of information
- Recognize the different strategies and approaches in commoditizing information
- Explain how the media feeds into a consumerist culture, or more specifically, how media messages create needs, wants and desires for commercial ideas, products and services
- Distinguish between proprietary information rights and public-domain information, and appreciate the use of public-domain information to promote universal access to information and to serve the common good