Monday 22 May 2017

Weekly New Digital Media - 22.05.17 (75)

Netflix is hiring a new VP of global policy as part of its big expansion in Europe



                                   



As part of its fast-growing Amsterdam hub, Netflix is seeking a new vice president of global public policy, a major regulatory role that will focus on media ownership, net neutrality, competition, tax law and other issues percolating throughout the European Union and beyond. A spokeswoman for Netflix also confirmed Libertelli’s departure, adding in a statement: “[G]iven the role's global profile and our global expansion, the idea is to find a replacement more centrally located to oversee teams in Asia, Europe and US.” many in the tech industry, Netflix has had its run-ins with local European privacy regulators. It’s also watched as the European Commission’s leading competition cop, Margrethe Vestager, has scrutinized local pay-TV deals, probed U.S. tech giants’ tax practices and investigated online platformsEU regulators have weighed in recent years whether to force video-streaming companies to dedicate 20% of their offerings to Europe-made content. Some in the industry, including Netflix, have raised red flags with such strict quotasAnd the region itself only this year eased some rules so that EU citizens can access their favourite TV shows and movies when they travel to neighbouring European countries. Before the change, licensing restrictions rendered it impossible to view the same content across EU borders.

In my Opinion: Netflix is growing, it is becoming a well known streaming service that offers pure entertainment to its users. By Netflix expanding can only mean more opportunities for them in terms of the shows that are created but it could also mean that regulations that Netflix would have to follow because of which country they might be. Although a lot more international markets are becoming interested in Netflix, the amount of Netflix has paid subscribers has also increased, which supports that the shows/entertainment that Netflix provides, it pay worthy. 






Weekly New Digital Media - 22.05.17 (74)

Facebook fined £94m for 'misleading' EU over WhatsApp takeover

                         Facebook took over the WhatsApp messaging service in 2014
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/18/facebook-fined-eu-whatsapp-european-commission 

Facebook has been fined €110m (£94m) by the EU for providing misleading information about its 2014 takeover of WhatsAppWhen Facebook took over the WhatsApp messaging service in 2014, it told the commission it would not be able to match user accounts on both platforms. Facebook staff knew in 2014 that it was technically possible to link WhatsApp phone numbers with Facebook users’ identities, contrary to their public statements about the merger.

[] fine could have been more than twice the size, as competition authorities are able to fine rule-breaking companies 1% of annual turnover, which for Facebook was $276m (£211m) in 2016
[] French data watchdog fined Facebook €150,000 on Tuesday for failing to prevent users’ data being accessed by advertisers

In my opinion: I think that Facebook can not be trusted nor can the audience believe what is says, Facebook can be seen as a company that is profit driven and do not really care about their social responsibility. Although Facebook have tried to control the problems they are facing, they just need to keep it consistent and look at all the alternatives when introducing a new update to users. 

Weekly New Digital Media - 22.05.17 (73)

Facebook and Twitter 'harm young people's mental health'


                     girls on their phones

The four platforms have a negative effect because they can exacerbate children’s and young people’s body image worries, and worsen bullying, sleep problems and feelings of anxiety, depression and loneliness, the participants said. Instagram has the most negative impact on young people’s mental wellbeing, a survey of almost 1,500 14- to 24-year-old found, and the health groups accused it of deepening young people’s feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. Social media such as Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter are also harmful. Among the five only YouTube was judged to have a positive impact. These reasons are a growing concern among politicians, health bodies, doctors, charities and parents about young people suffering harm as a result of sexting, cyber-bullying and social media reinforcing feelings of self-loathing and even the risk of them committing suicide.

[] YouTube scored very badly for its impact on sleep but positively in nine of the 14 categories, notably awareness and understanding of other people’s health experience, self-expression, loneliness, depression and emotional support

In my opinion: Social media is becoming a concern for the individuals that are consistently on those sites as it can make them conscience about themselves because of the how the people on the Internet represent themselves can be seen as something that is not true. I feel though as this is something that can be controlled as for example how many times young people consume on the social media platforms to decrease their  exposure to mental illness 

Tuesday 16 May 2017

Weekly New Digital Media - 17.05.17 (72)

Twitter swings for the streaming fences with new 24/7 live sports and news TV service 


                                     20170113 twitter car sticker stock image


Twitter has announced a new 24/7 free streaming video service that will broadcast an array of sports, news, and entertainment programming to its users as it looks to expand beyond 140-character comments. BuzzFeed, Bloomberg, The Verge, Live Nation, and IMG Fashion are among the dozen partners Twitter announced for the new around-the-clock service, which will provide exclusive content, live games and events, and breaking news. This could be a way to solve Twitters issue to grow its user base and revenue streams, Twitter is already a platform of choice for "as it happens" for anything this enhances the advantages it has over Facebook when reacting to a live event. 

In my opinion: I think that streaming is becoming so popular, social media sits are finding it so important to add this new convention to their site to keep updated with their audience but offer exactly what they want so they would be always loyal to the social media site. Streaming services are becoming popular because it is interactive with the audience, it is a live feed and updates audiences of what things "as it is happening" which audience find pleasure in as they get their information on the go and insistently. 

Weekly New Digital Media - 17.05.18 (71)

iPlayer catchup service will require user login within weeks, says BBC


                           iPlayer app


BBC have announced that IPlayer users would need to enter a password to access the online catchup service within the few weeks or so that are coming up. The BBC have also denied the move their part of the crackdown on TV licences evasion but they have said that with having users access the IPlayer with a email addresses registered to an account it may help identity those using service without paying. The on the demand service will notify users with a message saying "will soon need to sign in to watch" encouraging them to do so already before the deadline in few weeks but also making their users aware before hand. The purpose of doing so was said that the service will become more "more personal and relevant to you (the users/audience)." The BBC also hope to tailor programmes suggesting to users based on their pervious choices and allow the users to watch a programme on one device before picking up where they left off on their tv. This  changes come after rules introduced last year made watching or downloading BBC programmes through the iPlayer illegal without a TV licence.

[] "By matching email addresses we may be able to identify someone who has told us they don’t need a TV licence while at the same time having signed in and watched iPlayer,”

[] BBC was still considering whether a verification system was required for the iPlayer so licence fee non-payers could access content for free.

In my opinion: I think that what BBC on demand service have considered to identify users that either do or don't have a TV licence with an email address account makes thinks much easier because it causes a lot more stress for both audiences and the broadcast to find out things and since other on demand services like ITV also require users to sign in, users wouldn't take things so different or find it any less different from other on demand services. I also do think that this can help audiences to put trust into the demand service as they are proving personal information, but it also help them to be "more personal and relevent" to its users. BBC's technique of personalising and tailoring programmes for users can help them meet the audiences needs/preferences, encouraging them to maybe use BBC Iplayer a lot more and have positive image about the broadcaster. 

Tuesday 9 May 2017

Section B practise question

"Does your case study suggest that new and digital media have had a positive impact by offering audiences a more diverse range of values and ideology?" [48 marks]

The internet or new and digital media itself can be a big platform for users to share and contribute to the values and ideologies they believe or challenge, this allows the internet platform to offer a diverse range as this can come from any person from anywhere, whether this has a positive or negative impact, this will be something that I will be discussing. 

A Marxists would argue that as they believe that even though audiences are in power in terms of users sharing different and diverse range of values and ideology; the impact is nothing and yet to be seen as a negative thing. Marist tend to to reinforce the role of media in the reproduction of the status quo. Gramsci’s theory of hegemony would reinforce this as it states that dominant ‘media conglomerates’ feed audiences the necessary information.  It suggests that audiences are not empowered through the development of new and digital media as the dominate and higher class "rule and control" the media. An example of this, is the Arab Spring revolution in 2011, this was a protest for democratisation that that agreed with the pluralists views, as audiences took to Twitter to voice their opinions about this. However, an Marxists would argue that even though audiences had done a protest and took to social media to voice their opinion, no changed happen, the result of all the audiences taking part, nothing changed in the media. So even though new and digital media have given audiences a platform to share their values and ideologies that they really feel something strong about, the new and digital media would allow a change to happen because of the elite being in control. 

pluralists would argue that institutions would allow us as audiences be more involved in the media and news especially, the option of online comments under some news issues allow the audiences to have their point and opinion across to the professionals but other viewers to engaged themselves with and have a discussion with, if they agree or disagree, this allows more diverse debates and issues to comment and discuss about. This supports the pluralists view about how the new and digital media is a positive platform that encourages audience to share their own values and ideologies. Audiences are seen as capable of manipulating the media in variety of ways according to their proper need and dispositions, it will be enabling them to 'conform, accommodate, challenge or reject' (Gurevich et al) this theory suggest that the classless society can do this. An example of this is through UGC. Through the use of new and digital media, audiences are becoming more active, they are willing to challenge the powerful, in terms of UGC, audiences are using social media sites such as Twitter, and using trends and hashtags to raise awareness about issues to a wider audiences; audiences are taking control and being powerful to how they are questioning the powerful. The audiences are using new and digital media to their advantage, speaking about ideologies and values that wouldn't be challenged or spoken about till new and digital media was developed, examples such as police brutality. 

Citizen journalism has become an importance from the developments in new and digital media; posts and hashtags trends have allowed issues to become popular and raised to wider audiences. For example, one of many powerful movements online was the “Blacklivesmatter” this was one of the social media campaigns that engaged a lot of diverse communities especially the black community to come together to raise awareness about police brutality, people had all shared their opinions about this issue through a lot of different ways, the hashtag allowed this matter to come heard off, protests had started, but people also posted up their own videos sharing police brutality happening in their areas, despite however many diverse and different values and ideologies are shared on the intent, on an issue that is important, users of the internet do try to make it so it has a impact at least of the internet but also hoping it makes a change in the world too.

However, there is also a side when new and digital media has offered audiences to share their values and ideologies and that is through Youtube. Within Youtube, “vlogers” and “youtubers” have been growing since the developments of the digital media, of course, youtubers create and share their own content, which is UGC, to their millions of viewers, they are expressing their own values and ideologies. This can have a negative impact at times because those values and ideologies can be harmful and can send out a wrong message. A Youtuber called “Sam Pieper” was blocked and alerted that he couldn’t use his youtube account because of all the negative reports that had been filled out against him, he had very sexual content that didn’t treat females’ right, very disturbing to watch. Thankfully new and digital media has enough control to take over when something has a negative impact on the audiences. However, within the Internet, users of the Internet are exposed too a lot of things, a lot of audiences are using the internet for their own advantage, in particular within news, or even new related stories as well as videos of such vital but extreme behaviour can be shown on the internet without it being censored, graphic images and posts are visual for a lot of the audiences, this can have such a negative impact because it desensitises audiences, especially the younger audiences as they are the main  audiences of the internet, there is less censorship and fewer gate keeping than traditional media, digital media does offer audiences a platform for diverse range of values and ideologies but some people do take advantage of it as use it negatively which then impacts the internet overall.

However, new and digital media can have a positive impact by offering audiences a more diverse range of values and ideology is because of globalisation. The internet is like a “global village” shows like The Simpsons or even Keeping Up With The Kardashian are being watched and spoken about globally, developments of the interment such as “memes” have also caught the attention of a lot of users on the internet globally, where users are getting on the same trends or talk about the same things because users can get influenced very easily online as well as believe things every easily, this can make audiences seem like they are more passive than active. The new and digital media may offer a lot of diverse and alternative values and ideologies, but uses catch on very quickly and therefore can share a lot of similarities with each other but can be diverse due to the cultures some audiences share or where they are in the part of the world. Passive audiences believe things very quickly without double-checking the facts and the resources, which can have a negative impact, fake news is rising and becoming an issue on the internet especially on social media sites; Facebook is in pressure of controlling their users to not post any fake news because that’s where it has started from. This has given the internet such a negative impact because it shows that yes audience’s may be in control in certain things and other things is the elite but are they really protecting the audiences and offering a positive platform for audiences to share their values and ideologies no matter how diverse they are? I don’t really think so. The control is to wide and can be with anyone to be fair.


Overall I think that there are some case where the new and digital media can I have positive impact by offering audiences a more diverse range of values ideologies as a lot of users of the internet can understand and learn new things online about things but I think there is more negatives and then the positives of new and digital media offering audiences a more diverse range of values and ideologies, and the main reason is because of the control that has been spread out and can’t be limited as the internet is so advanced, users are knowledge enough to know how they can use the power to their advantage.

Weekly New Digital Media - 10.05.17 (70)

'The Crown Effect' could see British tourist boom


                                  Claire Foy stars in The Crown



Britain can be see a growth of tourists coming into the country now more often because of "The Crown" on Netflix, fans have said that they are inspired to visit their home in real life, a study has suggested. “Those holidaymakers who are more likely to visit today than 12 months ago are doing so for a range of reasons including the effect of UK operators’ advertising campaigns, the attraction of British TV programmes that have gone global and a case of simply having more money available to spend on holidays from which the UK is set to benefit.”

[] More than one fifth of tourists  planning to come to the UK said television programmes such as The Crown had helped persuade them - 10,000 holidaymakers were included in this research.
[] 63 per cent of international tourists claim to be more interested in the UK than in previous years.
[] 22 per cent of them cited television shows, which appeared to have a particular effect on Chinese and American tourists.

In my opinion, I think that due to the British television programmes, they portray certain values and ideologies that represent only a very few of the population of those who actually live in Britain. (high class) The fact that we have the Royal Family, could be why so many tourists are inspired to come in and see as it seems so highly and gives the look of Britain being so expense and the "perfect" because of the dominant representations that are showed.