Theories of Media Exposure and Impact Concerning the BP Oil Spill

This first blog post is just an introductory post summarizing what I will be discussing in the rest of my blogs here and how theories of media exposure and impact relate to the BP oil spill. As the title might indicate, this blog will be discussing theories of media exposure and impact when it comes to the BP oil spill that happened April 20, 2010. 140 million barrels of oil were leaked into the Gulf of Mexico during the 10 months prior to the leak being repaired. These two topics are related by how the media portrayed the oil spill, and how this, in turn, affected people's decisions to consume different types of media. Keep in mind that the purpose of theories of media exposure make attempts to explain the processes we use to make our daily media consumption decisions, and the way media is depicted. During the oil spill, news channels, magazines, newspapers, and radio stations were all covering the oil spill pretty heavily while is was happening because so many people were being affected. In the news, negative connotation was often used, and there was quite a bit of action being taken by the locals because the oil spill was effecting tourism rates. Because the news was covering such heaving hitting topics, people may have been more inclined to watch the news or to buy newspapers in order to keep up with what was happening with the oil spill. Also, if anyone was planning on vacationing somewhere on the Panhandle, Texas, or in Louisiana, they probably kept an especially close eye on the events taking place through varying sources of media, to weigh whether or not it was worth it to still vacation.

Whether or not all of the media covering the oil spill, which will be discussed in a later blog, was correct, it was still being put out there. And because it was still being discussed in the media, people all over were consuming this information and it was having an impact on people, companies, cities, and entire states. One example of this is how all the negative attention the media was giving the oil spill impacted less foreseeable jobs. The lack of tourism and decline of the economy in the states that were affected not only had an impact on the obvious jobs, like fishing companies and those looking to rent their houses on the coast, but it also had an detrimental impact on other individualsa and jobs, like cable companies who not longer need to instal cable in beach homes.