1. 9/12/13 - So Twitter is ruining journalism? Really?

2. 6/1/14 - Pirate Bay plans new 'anti-censorship' browser

3. 13/1/14 - UK entertainment spending increasing

4. 28/1/14 - Obama's funeral selfie is a fitting end to my Tumblr – Selfies at Funerals

5. 29/1/14 - Teenagers say goodbye to Facebook and hello to messenger apps

6. 29/1/14 - China blocks the Guardian, censorship-tracking website says

7. 29/1/14 - Yes, I sometimes Google my patients. Is this surprising?

8. 29/1/14 - Does technology pose a threat to our private life?

9. 29/1/14 - ITV to launch pay-TV drama channel on Sky

10. 29/1/14 - Pirate Bay ban lifted in Netherlands as blocking torrent sites ruled ‘ineffective’

11. 5/2/14 - Web advertising: still a small net in a very large pond

12. 5/2/14 - Sky's internet service mistakenly blocks web-critical plugin

13. 11/2/14 - Flappy Bird creator removes game from app stores

14. 12/2/14 - @Future of Journalism: Hans Rosling on the case for data

15. 10/3/14 - Jasmine Gardner: News travels fast in cyberspace but can we trust it?

16. 10/3/14 - Boy, 12, raped younger sister after viewing porn on games console

17. 19/3/14 - Daily Mail and Guardian digital 'minnows', says News UK chief

18. 19/3/14 - Thousands of Morrisons staff personal details leaked online

19. 19/3/14 -Flappy bird may return to app stores

20. 7/1/14 - (An additional NDM done in class) No, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are not to blame for the decline of the media industry

Marxism and Pluralism (I want to add more)

Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values.  To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?

I believe that audiences are empowered to some extent with these developments. Yes audiences do have more power over using UGC and becoming citizen journalist but the mass media have major control suggesting that we live in a marxist world instead of a pluralist world. Pluralists argue that we live in a classless society and media organisations are responsive to an audience and are economically determined while Marxists believe that the mass media are a tool used by ruling bodies to maintain hegemonic control over the masses and a class divided society. Hegemony is a word used to describe the dominance of one social class over others, this dominant class can decide what is accepted as normal or what is normal.

In modern day society we as audiences have been given more control and power due to new and digital technology. The internet is possibly the most "empowering tool" (as according to Al Gore) and is considered the "most important medium of the twentieth century" (Briggs and Burke). In some cases such as the K-Pop artist who had used parts of the Quaran in songs had led to many audiences being empowered as they were able to convince the singer to apologise through the use of comment sections on videos on sites such as Youtube, it did also lead to the hashtag being created and widely used known as #StayStrongCL which allowed audiences to show their support for the artist and come together in helping the artist stay positive against any negative comments. The internet along with smartphones, apps etc. have created an access to wider content and more variation of where to obtain their news from. e.g. from blogs, online organisations such as MailOnline or through twitter. This variety of views and content can allow the audience to formulate their own opinions and therefore empowered in that sense. New technology can also help create citizen journalist and capture something which media organisations wouldn't usually capture which therefore makes it possible for audiences to decide on what is news, the new technology can also lead to UGC and allow the truth to be revealed e.g. the Ian Tomlinson case. Audiences and UGC through the use of smartphone recordings had recorded the attack on Ian Tomlinson before his death, which is when he was pushed onto the ground during a G8 riot by police officers. At first the police weren't considered to be at fault for the death until the video was emerged and became news. Other ways in which the audience were empowered by new and digital technology would be through comments sections again, during the olympics after the opening ceremony a journalist had mocked the NHS and opening ceremony as well as been racist by saying that a white woman and black male cannot be living together in a house happily (as portrayed in the opening ceremony). As soon as this article was posted a herd of users had flooded the comments hating on the journalist and what the article had stated which led to the article being pulled down shortly after. Other than this online news organisations and sites such as twitter, youtube and Facebook had given  audiences power as they all gave valid reasons for the London Riots stating that the riots weren't positive but occurred due to the Government ignoring those in need. In a slightly more positive note, youtube and Facebook did create a viral video to assist a young asian male during the riots and a male who had been knocked off his bike which was then robbed, the asian male was a student who came into contact with a gang who robbed his backpack and then beat him and left him to stumble off. This video made many online organisations pick up on this and decide to choose the videos (UGC videos) as main/home page news as well as try to raise money and support for the asian student. Earlier on there was a small negative empowering of audiences through the riots and the K-Pop artist being hated and to add to the list wikipedia allows many people to publish anything on the site, it does get monitored and checked but doesn't mean every page can be 100% reliable and could lead to a "dumbing down of society." 

Some believe that the 80/20 rule (Pareto's law) can be applied to new and digital technology and that 80% of the news consumed by audiences come from 20% of the major mass producers, however that is just a theory unlike Lin and Webster's data which suggest that the top 5% of all websites accounted for almost have 75% of user volume. This therefore suggests differently to the pluralist perspective and leads on into marxism. People such as Rupert Murdoch has hegemonic control and chooses what does on to Sky and what can go into the Sun etc. This suggests that even though audiences have empowering tools they can never choose what is considered news. We don't have gatekeeper control an example of this would be when Rupert Murdoch chooses to say that the Times man of the year award goes to George Osbourne. Other ways in which the media is empowered instead of audiences was when Nek Nom challenges were going on which is when friends challenge others to do a certain task which usually is drinking a certain number of shots etc. and these have at some points led to deaths of those participating. Once the media organisations had told people about the dangers and deaths the Nek Noms had decreased which therefore decreased the number of deaths that may occur. 
  

Globalisation and news

Is our news influenced by American cultural imperialism?

The majority of our news I believe has been influenced by American cultural imperialism. Most of the news we consume is usually relating to American life or celebrities, we have similar ways of presenting the news to Americans and we also do have 24-hour news channels which I believe was first introduced by CNN. However, some of the news we consume isn't influenced heavily by American cultural imperialism, we consume news that usually is important to British people and concern British people.

Has the increased globalisation of news improved the audience experience? How? Why?

The rise of globalisation of news has improved audience experience as it allows audiences to now receive quick, live up-to-date feeds of global news. News can travel much more faster and can generate conversation between billions of people globally. However, not all the news received can be completely reliable as sometimes news spreads too quickly and is false and therefore has not benefited of improved the audience experience as they would have been believing and spreading false news which once found out would seem embarrassing, especially if it is a news institution who reports the fake news believing it was real.   

Has globalisation benefited or damaged major news institutions?

Globalisation has both benefited and damaged major news institutions, a major benefit is that they now do not need to pay to have a lot of staff as globalisation makes quick easy links between countries and journalist and also encourages citizen journalism to help cover news that journalist may not have seen or been able to report. But the damaging effects of globalisation is that the news that is sent in from citizen journalist may not be as reliable or professionally done as the news institution would have done themselves. Also globalisation has increased news institutions competition as globalisation makes them compete with other news institutions globally which therefore makes it harder for the major institution to be seen or heard on a global scale, which means they could potentially lose some of their audience.

NDM article 19: Flappy bird may return to app stores

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/12/flappy-bird-may-return-to-app-stores

The popular Flappy Bird game which was removed over the creator receiving threats and hate mail may return. Some users did assume it was taken down due to  copyright issues as it has a similar background and pipe design to super mario.

Since its absence from smartphone app stores, a cottage industry in Flappy Bird clones has grown up, with dozens of games sporting titles like Hoppy Frog and Splashy Fish dominating the charts. There are also versions that run on PC and Mac, including one massively multiplayer take on the recipe. So whatever happens with the original title, we are assured of many flappy returns.

NDM Article 18: Thousands of Morrisons staff personal details leaked online

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/14/morrisons-staff-personal-details-stolen-published-online

This article talks about how a breach in internet and new digital media has led to the theft of Morrisons staff's details such as salaries, bank accounts which had also been published online. This issue had caused the shares fall by 12%

NDM 17: Daily Mail and Guardian digital 'minnows', says News UK chief

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/05/daily-mail-guardian-digital-minnows-news-uk-mike-darcey4

This article talks about the issue of whether advertising or paywalls are better in generating revenues. Mike Darcey believes that the Daily Mail and the Guardian as "digital minnows" Because, they focus on advertising to generate revenue which could lead to problems in the future and is a dangerous strategy. As a result, Darcey favours paywalls as free online "undermines the incentive for people to pay for print editions". Relying on adverting revenue is putting themselves in competition with global conglomerates such as Google and Facebook which may put them at a disadvantage. Significantly, he states: "If this is your only revenue source, then you need to think about the fact that you are head-to-head with the global internet titans". 

To conclude, I disagree with the Darcey's view that the Guardian and Daily Mail are digital minnow, because if companies included paywalls this could decrease their readership. Although there would be problems if the companies reply on online advertising as their revenue streaming, this may not effect their readership if they do not include paywalls.

NDM article 16: Boy, 12, raped younger sister after viewing porn on games console

This article explains how a naive/curious child was at a friends house playing the xbox and was shown pornography on the xbox by his friend. The child was then intrigued and felt stimulated by what he saw and therefore decided to attempt sexual actions on his seven year old sister. The child was taken away into social services care and is on the sex offenders list for 2 and a half years. He will not return back until the whole situation is sorted, even though he did attempt sexual actions on his younger sister she does state how much she misses her brother and wishes he comes home soon.

This article I had chosen to talk about because it links to my critical investigation and well in my opinion it is quite a shocking and disturbing thing to read. It goes to show how easily accessible porn is for a young child and how it may affect them. It could link to the bobo doll/ copy cat theory as the child saw sexual actions portrayed on screen and therefore reenacted those sexual actions on his younger sister.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/03/boy-rape-younger-sister-porn-games-console

NDM Article 15: Jasmine Gardner: News travels fast in cyberspace but can we trust it?

The article states how news over social media spreads quite rapid making stories become viral in a matter of seconds e.g. Morgan Freeman dying three times: once on twitter and twice on Facebook. Another example being tigers were let loose during London 2011 riots and most recently David Moyes (ManU boss) was apparently sacked. These all were of course rumours and lies which was what inspired the article to be written. We cannot believe everything we read on the internet which is why King's College Lonodn are creating a project called Pheme which over the next 18 months will be a built web app that will determine the likeliness of a statement being true or false.

In the US a third of all adults under 30 are said to get their news from social media, with half of all Twitter users receiving their newsflashes in 140 characters. 

According to FastCompany, social media has overtaken porn consumption as the number one activity on the web. 

More significantly, a survey late last year by market researcher Populus showed that in Britain, Twitter is now an everyday news source for 55 per cent of opinion formers. In other words, a majority of influential people get their information from a potentially unreliable source.

I do agree that the article by Jasmine Gardner is correct, we do get news quite fast and it does spread quite fast especially due to twitter and not every piece of the news sent and spread around is going to be true. But I don't believe an app will be enough to prevent rumours from spreading. It'll most likely help in some way e.g. if Morgan Freeman tweeted a few mins before his fake death or after his fake death then it'll most likely pick that up and state the statement is a lie.

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/jasmine-gardner-news-travels-fast-in-cyberspace-but-can-we-trust-it-9159845.html

Learner Response: Answer to Question 3

I would say that the websites allow some success for films in box office ratings however films such as Inception didn't focus too much on their main website but focused on viral marketing through the use of technology. Inception had posters all over the streets as well as on buildings and billboards to give some idea of the narrative but the enigma and audience participation as well as user generated content encouraged audiences to view the film. Christopher Nolan, the director, placed QR codes on t-shirts and posters. The posters would say "Mind crime is real, protect your thoughts." This was an enigma as the posters didn't give much about the movie away apart for the fact it may involve mind crime. The fact that the poster states "Mind crime is real" and is a physical item people could hold and touch, it made an opposite effect of suturing. The audience are still sutured into the film however it's the film that is becoming more real, instead of the person being placed into the world the world of the movie is coming out to the audience which interacts with their daily lives. Some other ways in which marketing was successful for Inception was through some unofficial sites such as forums, Christopher Nolan delivered a storyboard like guidebook with parts of the pages missing or being torn off and crossed over with black ink to a popular newspaper and online reviewers site which added to the enigma. This booklet was in a fragile state but parts of it was released to the general public which lead to forums discussing the possible storyline. Even after the film, many members of the audience were confused by the ending because it was an enigma and was sort of leaving the audience on a cliffhanger so they ended up talking and planning the best possible ending on forums.

The Dark Knight Rises is another film that did well due to marketing and a bit of its official website. However unlike Inception which was a brand new idea, there was already an established fan base for The Dark Knight Rises which already helped its success, previous films as well as DC Comics fans would watch the film as they are apart of that fan base. The director, Christopher Nolan, therefore decided to engage with audiences through a giant scavenger hunt in the cities of the U.S. He'll send out gifts and goody bags containing items such as a phone which plays the jokers recording saying to go to a certain store or to put on face paint and dress up like the joker. Each instruction led to a new clue and allowed the audience to feel sutured into the world of the film and feel escapism as they were involved more. One of the clues would lead to a link to the main site of the film which had the trailer however when the audience got to the site it'll say that the joker had beaten them there and had written/drawn over the trailer and they'll have to continue the hunt to gain the rest of the free goodies and a view of the trailer, which was later revealed and projected on the side of a building.

Those were two examples of how marketing mainly helped the success with a tiny bit of help from both official and unofficial sites. Now there are some films which can determine a films success or failure. Sites which are unofficial such as IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Forums, Youtube, Twitter etc. can make or break a movie. IMDB is a site many audiences will go to before viewing or buying a film to check ratings however some critics state that IMDB is quite biased and favour the films and portray them positively. While sites such as Rotten Tomatoes gives a less unbiased review of films, they give both critic and audience reviews and give overall ratings for films. However not everyone will go to these sites first to check out a film these sites are typically used as research or if looking for a good film etc.

Sites such as Twitter is where most people view their reviews first especially incases where twitter bombing happens. Twitter bombing can either be quite positive or quite negative and can hugely affect a films success. Films such as Bruno or The Lone Ranger both had hugely successful fan bases and A-list stars but once a few people went to go watch it, especially young teenagers, they'd use their twitter apps to tweet and start hashtags and get them trending e.g. #Rubbish or #Don'tWatchIt this word of mouth over twitter had destroyed the potential success of the films.

Mock Exam Teacher Comments

17 marks
Q1 = 4/8
Q2 = 7/12
Q3 = 6/12
Grade C

WWW: There is the basis of an excellent response here and you've clearly engaged with the questions but we need to work on time management

EBI/LR: The balance is wrong - You've written the most for Q1 despite it being worth fewer marks

where is Todorov for Q1?!

Organisation is an area to look at as Q2 and Q3 are one paragraph each. Perhaps a brief plan would help?


Q2 you drift from representation to audience it's part of the Question but I think you lose the Rep. focus

Re-write Q2 or Q3 on your blog, adding a lot more and organising

News Values

How has new and digital media technology changed Galtung and Ruge’s news values?

How would you update them for 2014?

In a blog post, write how each news value has been affected by the growth of new and digital technology.

E.g. Immediacy is more important than ever due to news breaking on Twitter or elsewhere online. However, this in turn changes the approach of other news sources such as newspapers as the news will probably already be broken by the time the paper is published so different angles might be required.

Immediacy: has it happened recently? -> This has become crucially important due to new and digital technology such as Twitter, phones, apps etc. News can break on Twitter and become old news within a few days. While the news breaks on Twitter newspapers will be writing their articles which obviously will end up being published the day after and by then the story would have already had several different angles covered leaving newspapers to recap other views or to rewrite a view similar to theirs.

Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain? -> I guess with new and digital technology we have become more globally aware of news stories which affect other countries both big and small, U.K. users of the internet could also go to U.S. news sites. I believe that nowadays due to technology we are only interested in stories which are big in the U.S. or has some sort of British individual being affected, the more British people affected then the more it'll be covered by from several online sites aimed at the U.K.

Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people? -> Amplitude has been affected by the growth of new and digital media because if it is a big event then more people are most likely going to be concerned and affected which therefore leads to more UGC and the UGC is typically raw footage quite shaky which seems more realistic and therefore grabs more attention than professionally edited footage.

Frequency:  did the event happen fairly quickly? -> Events which happen quite quickly are typically recorded on phones and UGC and the scene of the incident tends to have already been cleared up or blocked off before new reporters can get on scene.

Unambiguity: is it clear and definite? -> If it isn't clear and definite then new and digital technology now allows many confused people to group together ideas on forums and end up forming several possible clear ideas

Predictability: did we expect it to happen? -> If the event was expected to happen then ideas would have already been formed about the event occurring through social media and forums therefore possibly affecting immediacy as the news is already old to those who spoke about the news on forums

Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event? -> Usually a rare or unexpected event would go viral through social media

Continuity: has this story already been defined as news? -> Before gatekeepers were able to say what is and isn't news but now thanks to the internet, apps, social media and technology audiences feel more empowered and are more able to create news or choose what is news

Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people? -> If the event occurred in a foreign country then the news is most likely going to break over social media and if it concerns well-known people the story will go viral

Negativity: is it bad news? -> If the news is bad then it typically causes a lot of talk on blogs, forums etc and involves a lot of user comments in the comment sections online, it could also spark debates between commenters

Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death -> New and digital media has caused balance to potentially become unbalanced as one story may spread more virally than another and audiences are therefore some sort of gatekeeper and have chosen one story to be more important than another.