 In contemporary times, we will often times think of artifacts as being presented by an individual and created by an individual And that does happen more now that it ever has in the past. Certainly. We have individual content creators posting things to YouTube and to to TikTok and different things like that much like this video you're watching now created by and and presented by an individual But the truth is you know these videos that I'm creating as much as I would love for them to go viral or whatever They're gonna have a pretty limited impact or they're gonna be maybe impactful of the people who are watching them But that number is gonna be fairly small compared to the videos and other artifacts that we see in in mass production and mass media so Those are created by an organization talking about films TV shows radio programs even even the biggest podcast Have a team of people behind them There may be one person on camera or a couple people on camera But they are represented and supported by a support staff of hundreds or thousands of people right and when that happens It impacts the the artifact the fact that it's created by an organization Impacts that artifact the way it's presented what a shared all of that kind of stuff So with that in mind, we're gonna take a look at organizational analysis as as a part of critical media studies and and look at that particular Perspective in that particular lens in the way that organizations impact the content that is created in the artifacts that are presented so very briefly organizational analysis Exams artifacts from the perspective that media is inherently influenced by the organization Creating it much the same way that if you had an individual artist you have an individual painter That that painting is going to reflect that person's perspective and their ideals and their morals and their whatever It's gonna carry a part of them with it, right? An artifact that's created by an organization will carry the same things from that organization You know if you have an ultimately a very conservative organization over, you know, very conservative moral So that's the kind of artifact that we're going to create as opposed to a very liberal or very very, you know Free organization, they're gonna create something totally different that artifact is going to going to represent the same values and principles as that organization so artifacts Need to be examined then from the perspective that the media is inherently influenced that artifact is inherently influenced by the organization creating it So some of the major premises in organizational analysis include first of all that organizations have structures Organizations are by definition Structured entities. They don't just exist freely and they're not just, you know Roman ground the organizations have structures and they're represented in a couple different ways first of all We have hierarchy this idea of hierarchy where there is a power structure, right? Where one person is over another has power over another and somebody report everybody has a boss, right? Everybody reports to someone. There's a structural hierarchy at play there where one person is going to have more Influence more same or power based on their position You also have this idea of differentiation where in an organization people are specialized into different areas So if we look at a major movie studio for example, you have the on-screen talent, right? You have actors and that's what they specialize in those are people who have that skill that ability to act Then you have people directing them who have the ability to to put people in the right positions and have this overall vision for the The film, right? You have producers who are kind of behind the scenes putting all these pieces together and making larger scale decisions But you also then have you have craft services. You have there were people who were making food You have accountants of all kinds You have you have all kinds of people that are there behind the scenes you have executives You have marketing people all these things and they're all specialized in these kind of silos, right? Where they they focus specifically on what they are good at so organizations are that's great for organizations They can bring together people with these specialties and and have them as specialized in these Expertises but at the same time it does divide up the work quite a bit You know, you don't have everybody looking at all the things necessarily and so Anyway, there's differentiation. There's their specialization within organizations You also have formalization there is a there's an etiquette to these things there a way that the things are done, right? There's a way that things are presented and there's kind of an ethos around that organizations You have a formalization of procedures You have a formalization of of interactions and interpersonal relationships and things within an organization So organizations have structures in all of these different kinds of ways There's different ways that they're specialized in different ways that they're organized So that in that's a major thing to keep in mind that organizations have structures And that's going to impact the ultimate artifact here The structure of each organization is going to be unique as well if we look at one movie studio It's going to be different than another movie studio, right? We see that in that there are some who focus on blockbusters and major franchises and things and there are some who focus on little Indie films or art house films or dramas or you know, the kinds of win awards for for actors and things like that But the structure of each organization is different some are more formalized some are less formalized some have More levels of hierarchy with you know, lots of different layers and others don't they're flattened organizations where there's very little Very few layers between the ultimate Decision-makers and the people kind of at the at the lower realms of the hierarchy, right? Every organization is unique if you think about different jobs you've had or different places you've worked They're all unique every organization is different and we need to keep that in mind as well And then that uniqueness then because they're all unique that affects the output So all of those things that are unique the hierarchy the differentiation of formalization the structure of these organizations Because it's different in every organization that impacts what you see on the other end, right? I remember a famous story about the Lord of the Rings trilogy the original Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy he shopped those around forever really wanted to make these movies and he shopped it around forever and he shopped it around as a trilogy and then Many places said well, that's just too much. Why would you do three films? So he eventually put it together as like a two-film package, right? So we okay We can do this in two films and then he went to the the studio that ended up making it and they kind of look at I'm said, but why are you making two? There's three books. Why would you not have three? Why would it you know? Why would you condense it into two when there are three books and he said oh great We can do three but because that they had a different different perspective They had a different organization and different ethos and different way of doing things and looking at things and So they viewed things differently They could see that vision differently than the other studios could because they're different every organization is different so these are the major premises that organizations have structures those structures are unique and Because of that uniqueness, it's going to affect the output that you eventually see from whatever organization you're looking at In a contemporary sense, we can look at a couple things as well There are very a couple of very important contemporary perspectives that we need to consider first is the gate kind of gatekeeping function that media plays So essentially in short and we're not going to get into great detail There's a lot we can talk about with gatekeeping just in and of itself But gatekeeping basically means these large organizations and in another one we talked about, you know Conglomeration and concentration of these things. So you have a few organizations that are basically deciding What gets made what gets heard what gets said what kind of movies are being made? What kind of TV shows are getting on the air? And so we have this gatekeeping function where these organizations are making decisions about What's going to be what's eventually going to be put out and what perspective we're going to get? We see this in a lot of different ways and we'll get into that we'll get into here in a few minutes But there's definitely a gatekeeping function, especially in modern media. That's always been true in media But that's especially important in today's media where we're especially fragmented in the way that we consume and view media Also keep in mind that we have large organizations. It's huge conglomerations and concentrations and lots of lots of intersection and integration of media So there are lots of hands touching every product that comes out every artifact is You know very rarely is for a major media artifact Is it going to be just one person's vision and one person's product? It's going to have been touched by you know by my all kinds of hands by the marketing department by the accounting department by the legal department by the Executives by the you know and then the creative people as well So there's there's a lot of hands and by the time you know and think about how we think about sometimes a Bill that starts out in Congress and then by the time it gets out and passed into law It looks like something totally different because you know You had a one or two few people that put this bill together And then you get hundreds of people to get their hands on it and add things and subtract things It's hardly recognizable at the other end, right? That's true of artifacts in major organizations as well It's one of the impacts that organizations have is that it puts a lot of hands on every artifact And then we have to think about the impact of social media as well, which is a newer thing, right? It's a newer thing 20 years ago We didn't have to think about this or really have a much impact on on from social media But now we do we have individual creators of content individual people be a being able to express their opinion and and and it's been you know If I've defined it influence others based on their opinion and so we have some people who are influencers So we have the impact of social media in that way kind of giving other people some input and and and on this as well Organizations are cognizant of that and paying attention to that so Now that we have a sense of what organizational analysis is kind of all about let's take a look at some of the questions that are commonly asked by someone who would be engaging in organizational analysis Or engaging in critical media studies with the lens of organizational analysis, so First of all we ask as always who created this artifact Whether it's an individual whether it's an organization whatever we want to know who is behind this artifact And and where it came from then we also want to ask ourselves What's the purpose and the values of this organization in this instance because we're engaging in organizational analysis the artifact comes from an organizations we want to ask Who is that organization? What is their purpose? What are they trying to accomplish? What are their values? What do we know about them? So we're going to dig a little bit into who is this organization and what are they all about? so how did this purpose and values impact a creation and presentation of this artifact and so Once we know who created the artifact and what that organization is all about then we can start to make some deductions about What are the purpose and values and and how did those impact what we see in front of us? What what that article or artifact became and what the eventual output was there and then what's the agenda behind that artifact? What was the purpose of releasing it of producing it of putting it out there in the world? What are they hoping to accomplish with this artifact? So these are some of the basic questions and then this can spin off in a variety of different directions as we're going to find out here But so we want to ask them these broader questions and then see how they apply to specific artifacts So let's take a look at a couple of different instances here The first one we're going to look at is the case of Norm McDonald The comedian Norm McDonald when he was on SNL Saturday Night Live back in the 90s He was the a cast member on SNL for many years and then became the host of the weekend update feature on Saturday Night Live Ended that for a number of years and as part of that He really became fixated at the conclusion of the OJ Simpson murder trial when OJ Simpson was found not guilty Norm became pretty fixated on the fact that he believed OJ was guilty and that the trial was a joke and and that the verdict was a sham and so forth and and So he made that very clear almost every week on on weekend update He would make a joke about how OJ was guilty or he actually did it or whatever and at the time the the president of NBC happened to be a friend of OJ Simpsons and did not like this this feature of Weekend update and he let it be known that he did not like it He wanted Norm McDonald to stop commenting on the OJ Simpson trial and stop saying that OJ was guilty And so forth and Norm basically refused. He said no and as a result that was fired Not only from and they first was pulled from as anchor of weekend update And then eventually after a few more weeks was fired from SNL all together and and removed from the show never came back And and so lost his job eventually because of this and this is you know again Not necessarily an organizational decision so much as an individual decision, but we see the hierarchy within NBC at that time We see that the formality the differentiation But this the president was able to make that decision and say look if he's not going to stop and clearly he's not that I want I'm going and so as an organization They basically let it be known that they were not only going to follow the lead of this this leader But that they were essentially tacitly endorsing the not guilty verdict for OJ Simpson but but really kind of in the view of many people letting the tail wag the dog in the sense of he had one person with a personal connection to the person that was being Talked about in this feature Making the decision for the organization and then forcing that organization then to say no We're not doing this and pulling the plug on on that the personally on Norm MacDonald in this instance So that's kind of a very specific Instance that we see where an organization has really pervaded its its values and Essentially as one person but we see this also in contemporary times in the for example the fragmentation of the news media in cable news So you have essentially three primary news media outlets in cable news Fox News MSNBC and CNN and we see how this has grown first of all out of The fragmentation of the media and the fact that used to have more of a generalized news program on network news It was more broadly appealing but now with the fragmentation of the media. We see news channels You know, there, you know theoretically news channels are supposed to be unbiased, right? They're supposed to be You know Presenting just the facts, right? Well, we know that's not the case. None. There's nothing unbiased about any media outlet But but certainly we've taken this to the Way opposite direction of this with the fragmentation of the media in the news media outlets where we have, you know Fox News, which is Ultra conservative. Okay, and this I'm saying this without Politics entering into it for me personally Fox News is objectively Really conservative like ultra conservative, right? And it appeals to that again. They're their Media is here to make money. So that's what they're trying to they're trying to appeal in a fragmented media Society, they're trying to appeal to a specific group that of ultra conservative people and people who espouse those values So the values of Fox News are You know the values of conservatism they would say, you know those types of things So they have a very specific outlook MSNBC has kind of a Opposite outlook there. They're kind of the liberal side of things right in this fragmented world CNN tries to straddle that fence a little bit they age a little bit toward the liberal side But they're really trying Recently anyway to move back toward strictly in the middle where they're focusing strictly on journalism and things So, you know, we can argue about how successful they've been with that and their ratings indicate that that's not as successful as Taking a stand on one side of the other now Journalistically certain CNN's probably in the strongest position of the three but in terms of media We see that when an organization allows its its values and purpose to come through Then that is that draws people in a fragmented media society toward them So it's interesting to watch these though if you watch the same story being reported on all three of these Networks it's interesting the different takes that you will get from them And that is really the kind of the crux of organizational analysis this idea that even though they're all ostensibly News organizations here to present the facts and keep the public updated first of all that gatekeeping function of what they what they report on what stories they choose to tell and and and make Available to their publics and then also the spin that they put on those things is really interesting In terms of critical analysis and we can that's you know one area We can really easily see this impact of organza in terms of organizational analysis We can see the impact of the organization and its its values and its purpose Shining through in terms of the way they report the news and what they report and the way they present these ideas and the the publics that they attempt to To which they're attempting to appeal Okay, so hopefully this gives you a better idea of what we mean by organizational analysis the fact that any artifact That comes from an organization is going to be reflective of that organization's purpose of their values And we need to keep that in mind and be able to To identify that when when it comes up and when we see it If you have questions about organizational analysis or any of the other critical perspectives that we're gonna be talking about here Please feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you there and chat with you about that Or in the comments or however you want to do it But in the meantime, I hope this gives you again one more perspective one more Set of glasses if you wish of lenses that we're gonna put on as we examine these artifacts in the media from a critical perspective