W/C 7th November - Weekly News Article (18)

Opinion

Why do we still accept that governments collect and snoop on our data ?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/30/government-data-collection-citizens-acceptance-global-rights-privacy-free-speech

Summary

Talks of the Hollywood film about Edward Snowden and the movement to pardon the NSA whistleblower, which have renewed worldwide attention on the scope and substance of government surveillance programs. Though, the debate in the USA vs the debates in say the UK vary. The USA debate has been a very narrow one focusing on the rights of Americans under domestic law but blindsided to the privacy rights of millions of others affected by this surveillance. Whereas, the British debate solely focuses on those affected by the privacy rights. A British court held last week that British Intelligence agencies acted unlawfully by concealing bulk spying programs from the public for over a decade. In simple, this bulk surveillance by the Government is a violation of rights to privacy and freedom of expression. 

Key Statistics

• European Convention on Human Rights, treaty ratified by 47 nations
• International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the US ratified in 1992.

My Opinion

My opinion is simple; do we really know how much information the Government have and are collecting on us... NO! certainly not if we go on what this article says. The snooping that the Government does we did not even know about half of it... our privacy was being violated.  Why should they be allowed to do this? The Government snooping on our data has not got them very far but it just is not right. Their snooping has gone as far  as recording every single cell phone call into, out of and within at least two countries!!! and interception of data from Google and Yahoo user accounts. I do not know what else to say except this is not on!!!! We need to do something about it get some laws passed or something that stops them doing such things and sharing them with third parties. 

W/C 7th November - Weekly News Article (17)

Telegraph paywall initiative is an interesting strategic shift

Chris Evans: seeking deeper engagement

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/nov/03/telegraph-paywall-initiative-is-an-interesting-strategic-shift

Summary

 The Telegraph Media Group came to a decision to introduce a paywall for 'premium content' and this decision has been labelled as being an interesting strategic and philosophical shift. They believe that journalism is worth paying for despite the paywall only covering a small amount of the output that the Daily and Sunday Telegraph produce. This model is metered it allowed eight free items to be read a week which is relatively easy to circumvent (by clearing cookies). Though the hard paywall will prevent any free reading and therefore mean that TMG's audience will have to pay for subscription if they wish to receive stories from any of the group's content. The editor Chris Evans pictured above believes that the paywall will allow them to know more about their audience. Evans hopes that he can build a community with the restoration of the below the line comments as well kicking off the paywall to learn more about audience members and engage better with them. Evans says in time should subscription increase more and more content will slowly be moved into the premium section behind the paywall. 

  

Key Statistics

• Paywall will involve only 15% of the output from Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph initially.
• 85% of the online content will now be free to access
• Ambition to treble TMG's digital audience by the end of 2017
• 82% of its digital readers access content through mobile devices, huge increase on last year when it wasn't much more than 50%

My Opinion

Introducing the paywall is a way for TMG to better their profits which they will get through audience subscriptions, in a nut shell. However, I do not think that a paywall is going to work as a long-term solution for the problems that newspaper conglomerates are facing. The TMG group are saying that they are introducing a paywall because they want to get to know their audience better but I do not understand how that can happen through a paywall to the extend that they want. Yeah, sure a paywall will allow them to figure out if they have a majority AB audience or C1/2 audience but not much past that. However, some people are extremely loyal to the paper so therefore are more likely to pay the subscription in comparison to the occasional readers. I feel like TMG group need to find another way in which to get to know their audience better.     

Hyper - reality and the digital renaissance

1) Create a new blogpost called 'Hyper-reality and the digital renaissance' and make notes from the article under the following headings: 

• examples
• theories 
• positive aspects of new technology (or 'digital renaissance')
• negative aspects of new technology on audiences and society  
• wider issues and debates 

2) The article was written in 2009. Offer three examples of more recent social networking sites or uses of technology that support the idea of a 'digital renaissance'.

3) How do live streaming services such as Periscope or Facebook Live fit into the idea of a 'digital renaissance'? Are these a force for good or simply a further blurring of reality?

4) How can we link the 'digital renaissance' to our case study on news? Is citizen journalism a further example of hyper-reality or is it actually making news more accurate and closer to real life?

1)  Examples

• Graham Bell launched telephone in 1876 - Revolution in communication systems and sewed the seeds of a more wide ranging transformation about the way in which society thought about itself and culture.
• Substitution of face to face interaction interaction with a hyper real experience mediated by technology
• Skype dinner parties 
• Eadweard Muybridge's experiments with stereoscopic images in the 1870's - developed into a staple venue for romantic courtships in the 20th century
• Cinema,television, music videos and computer games all invite the audiences to suspend disbelief and inhabit of a paperless fantasy world.
• BAUER's Kerrang! - Successful brand that exists in a post digital age across multiple platforms (website, TV and radio station)   
• Bebo, Facebook and MySpace embody postmodern culture
• September 11th - Terrorist attacks on America in 2001  

Theories

• Jean Baudrillard - Simulacrum and Simulacra
• Frankfurt School theorists like Theodore Adorno: Viewed the gramophone record and cinema as a means of distracting the working class from their disadvantaged social positions.  
• Mark Zuckerburg  - Bullying
• Albert Bandura - The Bobo Doll Experiment 

Positive Aspects of new technology (or 'digital renaissance')

• The way in which technologies are embedded into our lives reinforces traditional structures of society and culture
• Interactivity
• Prejudice no longer matters
• Re birth in the way that we think about society and culture in the developed world from the proliferation of creative digital hardware to social networking
• More innovation and social interaction

Negative Aspects of new technology on audiences and society

• Impossible to take a moral stance on media technologies
• Body image issues
• The use of telephones/television and the internet are all symptomatic of societies decay

Wide issues and debates

• Is the advancements in the digital world a positive impact on today's society or a negative impact?
• Have the advancements in technology come to fast? Are we struggling to keep up with the developments?  
• What do these advancements that keep coming in technology mean for society in terms of work? (Print media industry - Journalists lost/loosing jobs with the takeover of User Generated Content) 

2) Instagram - Providing live videos and the ability to create stories in a matter of minutes that can be shared with thousands of people at the click of a button. 

Skype - The ability to have a live video stream going and share one moment or experience with millions of family and friends - Skype dinner parties

Facebook - Live streaming service

3) Live streaming services like Periscope and Facebook fit into the idea of the digital renaissance as these services are an advancement in technology. Users of the services can easily record their surroundings or something they are doing in the moment and share it with millions of people within a matter of minutes with a few simple clicks. These types of live streaming services are a force for good because they encourage better audience interaction and discussion of views and values etc. However, these services are a further blurring from reality because some people begin to hide behind the camera and deceive others from what is the truth (Reality); they live every second of their lives behind the lens of a camera. 

4) I think that the digital renaissance can be linked to our case study on news because it allows us to see how the advancements in technology over the years has changed the way in which we consume and distribute news and how our views of the media and other things have changed because of the way in which technology has changed. I feel like citizen journalism is both a further example of hyper reality and also making news more accurate and closer to real life. Citizen journalism provides us with first hand accounts of uncensored news which is real life and it could be more accurate because it is shared in the moment with thousands of people. However, citizen journalism could also be an example of hyper reality because is what we are fed through citizen journalism an imitation of real world processes or is it an actual representation of someone or something. 

NDM News: Citizen journalism and hyper-reality - THE RISE AND RISE OF UGC

1) Create a blogpost where you make notes from the article under the following headings: 

• examples
• theory (audience reception etc.) 
• benefits to institutions 
• benefits to audience 
• wider issues and debates 
• SHEP

2) What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?

3) What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?

4) List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organizations.

5) What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?

6) What is a gatekeeper?

7) How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?

8) What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?

9) Offer your own opinion (critical autonomy) on the following:

What impact is new/digital media having on:

• news stories
• the news agenda (the choice of stories that make up the news)
• the role of professionals in news

1)  Examples

• High-speed chase by police to catch Rodney King, an African-American who was eventually surrounded, tasered and beat with clubs all filmed by onlooker from apartment window. Made prime time news internationally, it was a focus for complaints about police racism towards African Americans. RESULT : 4 COPS WERE CHARGED WITH ASSAULT AND USE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE BUT WERE LATER ACQUITTED OF CHARGES SPARKING HUGE CIVIL UNREST . 
• London Bombings - July 2005
•  Asian Tsunami - 26th December 2004
• Mumbai, India: Bombings - late November 2008
• Hudson River Plane Crash - 15th January 2009
• Seung-Hui Cho - Undergraduate 23-year-old who regularly sent photos, written pieces and videos to NBC news

As a result, of these first-hand accounts the reaction they got had everyone springing into action and looking into what had just broken. 

Theory (audience reception etc.)

• Crowd Sourcing - Eventually leaving the media unmediated

Benefits to institutions

• They are buying into the world of UGC - Buying up social networking sites.  e.g) News Corp brought Myspace. 

Benefits to audience

• First-hand accounts
• Less censored
• No longer passive receivers of news
• Can access the news from wherever they are

Wider issues and debates

• The riots that followed the acquittal, killed and injured many was it really necessary to prove a point?
• Would the four police officers even have been charged in the first place, if it wasn't for onlooker George Holliday grabbing his video camera? - " King's beating would be just another hidden incident with no consequences" - Sara Mills (Article writer)

SHEP 

1. Social: Greater accessibility - Shareable through the internet on sites such as Twitter, Myspace, YouTube and Facebook
2. Historical: Audience were passive receivers of news in the past, with news being only produced by big news conglomerates. Now... we are creators and receivers
3. Economical: Big organisations are suffering with the rise of UGC, Less profit for large organisations. e.g. Nobody is buying printed newspapers anymore. News companies have needed to become more inventive with the way in which they make their profit. e.g. advertising.
4. Political: What is going to happen to the media if eventually it is a unmediated world? How are we going to know what to believe and what not to believe?

2) What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?

The term citizen journalist refers to regular people like you and me who over the years have had greater access to filming capabilities through our phones and other devices which has allowed us to play an active role in the creation of news. We can rapidly collect and distribute footage we collect via the internet for all to see which then gets shared and can end up becoming a viral news story, just the story of Rodney King. 

3) What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?

The case of Rodney King, that was captured and shared by an ordinary person in a matter of minutes and before long went viral with all the major news conglomerates in a wide variety of countries broadcasting the news about Rodney King and the police brutality towards him.

4) List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Snapchat
• Instagram

5) What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?

First hand UGC, is different from professionally shot footage because it is unedited in the moment witness accounts; the video quality is likely to be quite low in comparison to that of professionally shot footage as first hand UGC is typically shot off of people's camera phones whereas professional shots are done with high quality cameras and a complete camera crew. 

6) What is a gatekeeper?

The people who decide what is and what isn't the news. They decide what should and should not be broadcast. We can send in as much UGC as we want but it is the gatekeepers decision as to what gets onto the daily news bulletins. 

7) How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?

With the rise of UGC, the role of a gatekeeper has changed from being the people who filter what is and what is not news. To the people who just manage the UGC content that they get sent day to day and deciding what parts of it if any at all can be used in their news bulletins. 

8) What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?

Journalists primary concern is losing their jobs, with the rise of UGC it is a concern that there will be fewer and fewer permanent trained staff at news organisations; leaving less and less people to deal with the rise of UGC and managing all the content.that people send in. 

Another concern would be that without moderation sites could be overrun by bigots and fools. By those who shout the loudest and have little else to do but make posts. The fear of being dominated by defamatory, racist and other hate fuelled content raises questions about unmoderated content.

9) Offer your own opinion (critical autonomy) on the following:

What impact is new/digital media having on:

• news stories

NDM will mean that news stories are probably going to have a lot more UGC content within in them. As a opposed to the company using content that their own journalists have collected and editied.  However, the increased use of UGC does leave the question will these first-hand accounts still be run through gatekeepers and censored. Because if not it could lead to more hard-hitting news being shown to what is already a desensitised audience as a result of what they are shown in the news. 

• the news agenda (the choice of stories that make up the news)

UGC, will impact the news agenda I think quite a lot, this is because rather than journalists sending through urgent emails that should be broken straight away it will be citizen journalists replacing this. If journalists send it in it still has to run by the gatekeepers which sometimes can result in certain news conglomerates being last to break the news that they were originally the first to obtain. However, with citizen journalism it likely to be broadcast straight away. However, as I mentioned it could lead to more hard hitting and unmediated potentially low-brow news.

• the role of professionals in news

The role of professionals has already changed dramatically and stands to change further in my opinion. Professional journalists in permanant roles will be reducing in numbers but of who is left they will no longer be in the position of sitting by a computer and writing the articles for the print issue or surfing the net and keeping and eye on a number of sources for the news to break. Instead they will simply be there to manage the UGC that gets sent into news conglomerates by citizen journalists. They will be deciding what is what and what is good to broadcast. But soon I think even that will be no longer eventually I think the media will end up unmediated, but if and when this happens what are we supposed to believe?

W/C - 31st October: Weekly Article (16)

Senior News of the World staff 'misled' Parliament over phone-hacking, committee finds

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/news-of-the-world-phone-hacking-staff-misled-parliament-a7298251.html

Summary

As we all know the demise of News of the World was in the news heavily a year or two ago due to the phone hacking scandal and its links to the disappearance of Milly Dowler. Now this article has come to light that executives at News Of The World misled parliment in their investigations on purpose when giving evidence as witnesses in 2011. Two men Mr Myler and Mr Crone were found to be in contempt of the house and later were jailed for giving false evidence.After news of the world closed in 2011 after it emerged the newspaper had intercepted voicemail of the missing teenager Milly Dowler. 

Key Statistics

• Around 5,500 people were likely or potential victims of News Of The World phone hacking scandal.

My Opinion

I do not see why executives at News Of The World lied, the demise of the newspaper had already begun when they were accused of phone hacking and further investigated for it. It would have been very hard to hide and salvage the newspaper after that so I think that the executives should have just told the truth. It is a slim possibility but telling the truth may have meant that Mr Crone and Mr Myler could have avoided jail time. However, I personally still have questions as to what we were told and what we were not told about the scandal because we know that some celebrities such as Shane Richie and Shobna Gulati were hacked and won payouts for damages as a result but people that are likely to have been involved in some way such as Rebecca Brooks editor at News UK were found not guilty. Was certain information still kept out of the public eye?

Website Reference

http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2014/06/25/phone-hacking-trial-why-was-rebekah-brooks-found-not-guilty-0

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32825751

 

 

W/C - 31st October: Weekly Article (15)

BuzzFeed prepares to split into news and entertainment units

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/aug/25/buzzfeed-split-news-entertainment-jonah-peretti

Summary

Buzzfeed is a private internet media company in America and the article talks of how they are splitting themselves into two distinct units - news and entertainment. Buzzfeed feels that having a separate video department holds no substance anymore, what they can produce is just the same as having a mobile based department. The reorganization will see the creation of Buzzfeed entertainment run by president Ze Frank and will act as an umbrella to encompass all of its entertainment content. While the news side of Buzzfeed will be separate and run by co-founder Ben Smith. Buzzfeed make these changes in the hope to become the number #1 news brand for the new and changing generations that consume the news in a different way to their parents, it's the traditional VS the online. The news of the reorganization came as reports arose of Buzzfeed missing their revenue targets in 2015. 

Key Statistics - From separate Guardian Article

• Forced to cut 2016 revenue targets from $500m to $250m after missing 2015 target by more than $80m. 
• Buzzfeed  reportedly projected revenues of $250m in 2015 but generated less than $170m
• Combined worldwide mobile and desktop traffic to Buzzfeed.com fell by 14% from 330m to 287m between April last year and March this year. 

My opinion

I that the changes to the way in which Buzzfeed is operating by dividing into news and entertainment is an extremely good idea. This is because the clear distinctions will give BuzzFeed a clear target audience to aim towards as parents from the previous generations and kids of the current generation consume things in totally different ways. They are creating themselves a company, that young people can take an interest in and meet the ways in which we want to receive the news. They are taking what we are more likely to be interested in and separating it from what say our parents are more likely to be interested in. However, this separation could cause confusion as to what the aim of the company is and they may loose sight of what they are trying to provide their audiences with as they have widen their market way to much.  

    

The decline in newspapers: MM case studies

The New Day

1) What was the New Day trying to achieve?

New Day were trying to buck the trend over the ever downward newspaper sales. The New Day published with the intention of meeting the needs of those who could not find what they wanted on the regular newsstands.  

2) List the key statistics on the first page: how many people buy newspapers in the UK? How has this declined in the last year?

• About 6 million people buy a newspaper in Britain every day, Which is down even further from 2015, last year it was reported that it may as well have been a recession year for the newspaper industry. Weekly circulation fell 7% and weekend circulation fell 4%. Both showing the greatest declines since 2010.  
• Over 1 million people have stopped buying a newspaper in the past two years 
• The New Day intended to produce something that readers could digest within 30 minutes

3) What audience were the New Day trying to attract?

The newspaper was designed to appeal to both males and females and those of the 35 - 55 year old age bracket. New Day wanted to cater for their modern lifestyles and modern approach  to receiving the news being through online means nowadays.

4) Why do you think the New Day failed so spectacularly? There are several possible reasons listed in the article but do develop your own opinion here as well.

The newspaper failed for a variety of reasons in my opinion, one being that the newspaper was introduced into a already heavily failing newspaper industry which would make you question how successful it can actually be. As it says in the article, in the quote from Joe Rundle, head of trading at ETX Capital:

"In a world where print is declining there was never a place for another title that had no real USP. It is ill conceived, badly executed and completely foolish - it's hard to fathom what Trinity Mirror was trying to achieve".  


I also think that the newspaper failed so spectacularly because of the price hike that they had from charging 25p for two weeks after launch to 50p thereafter. This is because I wouldn't and I do not see why others would either pay such money for news that you can almost definitely find elsewhere. This is due to the heaviness of republication in the modern world, we often hear in the news something reported to us by Sky news but sometimes they say "According to BBC News....".  Sky therefore republished what the BBC found and broke first potentially.  

A third reason, why New Day failed was probably because from what I've read in the article they did not have a concretely set. They say in the article that they are targeting a 35- 55 year old age bracket of both women and men but as it says a few of the editions published were brought to question whether they were actually targeted at such an age bracket. People believed that the actual audience was younger for example young women with children.      

Website Reference:
http://www.journalism.org/2016/06/15/newspapers-fact-sheet/


 The Guardian

1) List the key statistics on page 10: How many unique digital browsers used the Guardian website in June 2016? What are The Guardian's latest print sales figures? How does this compare to the Telegraph? In terms of finances, how much did the Guardian lose in 2015? 

• Guardian - Third most read website: 120m unique digital browsers, around 9m browsers daily of which approx only a third are from UK.
• Latest print sales figures show the Guardian to have a circulation of only 161,000 
• Guardian print figures well behind telegraph with 472,000
• In 2015, despite efficient cost reductions Guardian lost around £70m  

2) What has been The Guardian's strategy for reversing this decline?

Move themselves online in the majority and strengthen the backbones of The Guardian company in Australia and USA.  There was also The Guardian's ability to cover major stories live, shaping the way Guardian used on mobile devices. There strategy to reverse the decline or help themselves to survive was by being consistently innovative. For example, through live blogging and and comments sections of articles being more heavily used.  

3) What global event did The Guardian's digital coverage win awards for?

Guardian coverage of the Paris attacks won awards from the Society of Editors it got Website of the Year. The citation read: the winner’s site offers a comprehensive news service and boasts consistent innovation. It is notable for its superb live blogging, its long reads,the comment section and, in particular, fantastic coverage of the Paris shootings.

4) In your opinion, will the global website strategy be enough to save The Guardian?

It might be... it depends how The Guardian use the interest that the global website gets to their advantage. With the interest they are getting they need to innovate themselves and not just sit on their hands because they are getting a decent level of interest from readers. If they do not utilize the interest they are getting they will lose the readership that they have to other websites,which is not hard as most if not all previously print based newspaper conglomerates are now online or partially online. For readers to be able to access all the different editions of the paper is good as they can be informed of things in other countries but The Guardian need to be innovative in the content that they publish, they need to ensure that they stay clear of republished content from other news conglomerates.