Introduction to Mass Communications Sec 001
Location Activity: Oktoberfest
On September 29th I attended Oktoberfest to witness how mass media plays into that event. Obviously an immediate example of mass media before I even attend the event itself, was how it was advertised for. The festival runners put ads in the newspaper, in local magazines, on television as well as commercials on the radio. This was my first encounter of mass media for Oktoberfest but when I got there I found much more. What I found was constant advertising, radio stations broadcasting from the event, live music, and best of all the event was free!
The first type of mass media I found was advertising. Everywhere you looked and walked on that long street there were throngs of people as well as hundreds of signs advertising for food and beer. At one point I actually saw the racing wieners from Miller Stadium. It was really cool because they were signing autographs for all the kids that were surrounding them as well as taking pictures. That is an advertisement for the Brewers, with it's purpose being to sell more tickets to Miller Stadium to be apart of the fun and see them in action.
Another type of advertising that I saw was the advertising for beer. Budweiser was the official sponsor of beer at the event. Because Oktoberfest's biggest claim to fame is the celebration of beer, it was present every five steps you took. Everywhere you looked people were carrying around plastic cups filled with what was supposed to be Budweiser beer (although I'm not entirely sure if they only sold Budweiser, I believe that there were other options for beer, but I'm not of age so I wasn't exactly scouting out the beer tables.)
At one of the stages for live music, I noticed a van for 95.9 Kiss FM. For a while, radio personal were walking around and asking people questions. They were giving broadcasts from the event and playing snippets of the live music as well as the noisy people on the radio, inviting everyone to come on down to the last night of the celebration (we heard when we were on our way down to the event.)
There was tons of live music. Oktoberfest is such a big celebration that attracts many people, so if your a band and you score a seat on the lineup at Oktoberfest that means good news for you. You're able to get all of that attention from festival goers as well as radio and television stations coming and sometimes covering a couple seconds of your band. That's great for your band to get their names out there threw using means of mass communication.
Oktoberfest was a lot of fun not to mention easy on the wallet by being free. The food was great and the atmosphere, though a little wild at times, was really lively and fun. It's interesting when you take a step back and really look from a different point of view at how mass media really plays a huge part in our lives.
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