Weekly New Digital Media - 09.11.16 (17)

Make Google and Facebook pay for public service reporting

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/nov/08/make-google-and-facebook-pay-for-public-service-reporting

Summary: Media Reform Coalition and National Union of Journalists are hoping to make Google and Facebook fund for the public service reporting in Britain. They want to persuade politicians to include a new amendment to the digital economy bill - this is currently going through parliament. Media Reform Coalition (MRC) argues that “digital intermediaries” such as Google and Facebook “are not only amassing eye-watering profits and paying minimal tax in the UK, they are also bleeding the newspaper industry dry by sucking up advertising revenue”. The digital economy bill addresses a range of policy issues related to the electronic communications infrastructure and services, including copyright infringement, restrictions on access to online pornography and Ofcom’s relationship with the BBC. 

- Politicians urged to amend digital economy bill to ensure digital giants pay a 1% levy in order to fund investigative public interest journalism
- It will propose a 1% levy on the operations of the digital giants in order to pay for independent and non-profit journalism.

In my opinion, i think it is fair for such big organisations to fund public service reporting as they are popular and such demanding organisations. In addition this is damaging the profession of journalists that it needs to be heard by the parliament and hopefully there can be something done by them. The new and digital media have a big impact due to their advancement and their accountability towards its audiences and users. 

Hyper-reality and the digital renaissance

1) Read the article from Media Magazine: Hyper-reality and the digital renaissance (Dec 2009). Use our Media Magazine archive, click on MM30 and go to page 59.

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

• examples

; The substation of face to face interaction with a hyper-real experience mediated by technology. 

; Alexander Grahman Bell launched the telephone in 1876 - wasn't revolution in communication systems but it was more of wide ranging transformation about the way which society thought about itself and culture. 

; Cinema,television, music videos and computer games all invite the audiences to suspend disbelief and inhabit of a paperless fantasy world.

; audience have traditionally been very accepting of the ways which media texts invites the viewer to confront their own perception of reality. 
; The proliferation of the internet from the late 1990's onwards has accelerated and heightened peoples routines use of technology in their day-to-day engagement with society and culture. 

• theories 

; Audience reception on how they decode the messages producers have put into their prodcut with dominant, negotiated and rejected reading. 

; simulacrum, hyer-reality, parody, and pastiche.  

; Two step flow model 

; state of hyperreality exists, where our reality is based upon the reality presented to us through the media. this was said by Baudrillard

• positive aspects of new technology (or 'digital renaissance' 

; People are becoming more edcated on international media and media issues/debates because of the things like social media. 
; Reinforcing the traditional surtaxes of society and culture to the audiences regardless of the hyperreality that has been shown. 
; The proliferation of the internet from the late 1990's onwards has accelerated and heightened peoples routines use of technology in their day-to-day engagement with society and culture.

• negative aspects of new technology on audiences and society  

; Both humanity and morality are losing their places in society, this is because of the increase prominence of the internet. 

; Soicety alienated from itself 

; The proliferation of the internet from the late 1990's onwards has accelerated and heightened peoples routines use of technology in their day-to-day engagement with society and culture.

• wider issues and debates 

; Alexander Grahman Bell launched the telephone in 1876 - wasn't revolution in communication systems but it was more of wide ranging transformation about the way which society thought about itself and culture.

3) 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'

- The recent social networking sites/use of technology that supports ' digital renaissance ' are:
; Instagram 
; Snapchat 
; Twitter
These 3 examples of social networking and use of technology are very modern and are very egaging towards it target audience. 

4) 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?

- In my opinion, i think both Facebook and Periscope fit into the idea of digital renaissance, be cause they give the chance for audiences to connect worldwide to each and can influence their social and cultural realities to each other. This can be a force for good because it allowing people to know what is happening at different parts of the world and they are informed, this is through the use of technology and how audiences are able to communicate online.

5) 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?

 - I believe that in some way or another news can be an example of hyper-reality because the powerful do change a lot of the real news to fit their views and values and can persuade this on their audiences, the reality of news is not really shown all the time by new channels as they edit it a lot which then change a lot. But citizen journalism can be different, if audiences put it themselves, they like to put the truth to people, to make sure that the powerful people are being exposefor the things they are doing; examples are like police brutality, the public audiences have been exposing the police not news channels because they wouldn't want to question the powerful but just cover for them. 

NDM News: Citizen journalism and hyper-reality

Citizen journalism and UGC (user-generated content)

1) Read the article from Media Magazine: The Rise and Rise of UGC (Dec   2009). Use our Media Magazine archive, click on MM30 and go to page 55.

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

• examples

; big institution created the news and broadcasted it to passive and receptive dunce - now new technology mean that the audience are no longer passive receivers of news - audience have become users - & users have become publishers. 

; The event was filmed by an onlooker from his apartment window - home video then broadcasted on prime mews and became an internation media sensation ~ UGC example..

; After the footage came out - there were 6 days of roits; 53 people died & around 4,000 people were injured. 

; Citizen journalists have come to the forefront - UGC plays a huge role in the media. 

; Many news originations include formatted of participation: message braids, chat rooms, Q&A, polls, have your says, and blogs with comments enabled. 

; Social media networking sites are build around UGC - people also turn to UGC sites to access news. 

; Asian Tsumani on December 26th 2004 - another major UGC

; & London bombing on July 5th 2005 - another opportunity for citizen journalist to influence the mainstream news 

; Users took to twitter and Flickr with the Mumbai bombings 

• theory (audience reception etc.)

- the change in the landscape of the news means that forums who have little access to self-representation before such as; youth groups, low income groups, and various minority groups may, through citizen journalism, begin to they have a voice too. 

• benefits to institutions 

- Institutions are able to get raw footage from audiences and don't actually have to go to the place themselves to film it themselves. - this allows the footage to be realistic and convincing to the viewers. 

• benefits to audience 

- It allows the audiences to believe that they have a voice and it shown through their UGC content shown on tv or online. 

- Other audiences are able to connect with the story because they see if from another audiences point of view and not the way the media is wanting to show.

• wider issues and debates 

- fewer and fewer permanent trained staff at news organisation, leaving a smaller core staff who will manage and process UGC from citizen journalists. 

- If there will be fewer jobs for trained journalists, will there also be less profit for big institutions? 

• SHEP; 

- Social : Social media sites are build around UGC - Bebo, MySpace, Youtube & Facebook. People also turn to UGC sites to access news: Wikipedia news, Google news and Youtube. 

- Historical : Big institutions created the news and broadcast it to a variously passive and receptive audiences. First effects of the new technology was felt on 1991 with the incident with Rodny King. 

- Economical :  fewer jobs for trained journalists, will there also be less profit for big institutions?  

- Political : - 

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

When "ordinary people" generate the news by themselves through the use of technology. 

4) What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?
A home-video footage caught of  4 LA police officers catching Rodney King; an African American after a high speed case. The police officers surrounded, tasered and beat him with clubs. This was then broadcasted on prime time news and become an international media sensation, this also focused for complaints about police racism towards African American.

5) List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.
Many news originations include formatted of participation:
 - message braids
 - chat rooms, 
 - Q&A,
 - polls,
 - have your says, 
 - blogs with comments enabled. 

6) What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?
Professionally shot footage can have much better quality and visuals and possibly better news conveyors for it be better chances of it being shown to the wider audiences on tv or online. Whilst UGC would seem more real and realistic through the format/layout it is shown in, it can have much more movement and emotional impact.

7) What is a gatekeeper?
A gatekeeper is someone or people which go through a process through information which is 'filtered' so it right to be published or broadcasted for the viewers. 

8) How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?
Gatekeeper role has changed because audience don't have to send their story on the news for the story to be heard, audiences are using the social media and the internet in their advantage, this automatically allows the audiences to have control to what they send. However, if audience do send their UGC content to the news, news origination do have a choice if they air it or not. In addition, the way around gatekeepers is with independent media on the web - the blogosphere, provides an opportunity for independent, often minority niche views and news to reach a wide audience. 

9) What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC? 
 By having new technology mean that the audience are no longer passive receivers of news - audience have become users - & users have become publishers. This can cause an concern because changing the landscape of the news as they were the source of the otherwise little access to self representation but now micro areas on the internet allow for everyone of that group such as young teenagers, to come together there and represent themselves, they find through citizen journalists that they too have a voice. 

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

What impact is new/digital media having on:

• news stories : News stories can attract and intrigue audiences in many different ways, for example, in news article there are pictures and videos and other conventions that allows audiences to see news in a different way possibly, this could be possibly done to distract audiences to notice if the news is legitimate or not. By having so many conventions on news, it can be a way that audiences are making their own views and opinions about the stories that are shown and on news itself.
• the news agenda (the choice of stories that make up the news) : Visuals to a story is very important, it can either allow audiences to  understand the story much better or it be a distraction to audiences from the news story. 
• the role of professionals in news : Since new and digital media are taking over the tradition media it could possibly be a risk for professionals in news. This is because audience do realise and acknowledge their power they have with UGC and what effect or impact it has on news but on the empowerment on audiences generally. In the early years, news was being broadcasted to passive and receptive audiences, but now with the technology, audiences themselves have become users and the users have become publishers can cause a problem and be a danger to the professionals in news as in the future they may be a major decline in them. 

Weekly New Digital Media - 02.11.16 (16)

Canada's Postmedia Network announces new round of staff cuts

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/oct/21/canadas-postmedia-network-announces-new-round-of-staff-cuts

Summary: Postmedia Network is a Canadian newspaper publisher who have anounced that they are seeking to reduce the salary cost of their words by 20% through voluntary redundancies - if their target sit met then mandatory redundancy will happen. In January, they cut job 90 jobs and merged newsrooms in four cities. Over the full 12 months, the company have said they have made a huge loss - £217.4m and in the previous year they lost £162.4m. The chief executive said; "We must accelerate the transformation of our business operations to align our cost structure with our revenue outlook”.

[] It seeks 20% salary reduction after reporting £61.3m loss for the fourth quarter 

[]Postmedia’s digital revenue rose by 0.8%. 

[] The fourth-quarter loss totalled £61.3m compared with a loss of £33.3m in the same period a year ago

My opinion: More newspaper are declining each and every day, not just locally but globally too as seen in this article. New and digital has slowly taken over traditional news and they are being effected by it but so are peoples jobs.

Weekly New Digital Media - 02.11.16 (15)

Facebook fact-check: all the fake news, from the Obamas to miracle cannabis

                         https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/30/facebook-fake-news-fact-check

Summary: This article explains the bogus stories, click-baits and disinformation framed as trending 'news; by one the most powerful companies; Facebook. Since last month, Facebook had said they would join Twiiter and more than 20 news organisation to ramp down the proliferation of fake news on the social network, conspiracy theories and fake news has continued since. For example, one of the stores being that  last month Facebook promoted a link titled “Michelle Obama was born a man” – perhaps the most blatantly false claim so far boosted on the site – that leads to a 2014 YouTube video alleging the false conspiracy. The video’s entire premise is that Barack Obama once said the name Michael at a rally. In the two years this has been online, the video has got more than 1m views.. 

[]  Adam Mosseri, the company’s News Feed product vice-president, insisted earlier this month that Facebook is not a publisher or media company. 

My opinion: Every site on the internet need to get revenue somehow, if this is through getting advertisements on your site or through click-baits it will eventually get them get paid. Since Facebook isn't get much attention nor not many people that they ideally wanted to target are using this site, by bogus stores and click-baits could be something that keep people talking and gets Facebook current. Even though last month they had said that they wanted to stop these fake news that are the social network, it could just lead people on or as a company they didn't really mean it -  the reason why i think this is because too many people post fake news, it would be a long process to stop them and throughout the time they said they will stop this more conspiracy theories and fake news has still continued, a month later nothing much has been done so i don't think they will actually live up to what they said. 

The decline in Newspapers: MM case studies

The New Day
The New Day was a brand new newspaper launched by institution Trinity Mirror earlier this year and folded after just two months. Complete the following tasks on your blog:

2) What was the New Day trying to achieve?
New Day was created to allow the customers insight to people's modern lifestyle. They were trying  to gain back peoples interest in newspapers and trying to make them buy newspaper instead of reading online. They had thought that with New Day it could bring that back. 

3) 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 the newspaper in Britain every day. 
 []Over a million people have stopped buying a newspaper in the past 2 years.

4) What audience were the New Day trying to attract?
New day was going to be pitched at middle and higher audience - 35 - 55 years old people, the audience who want a more modern approach to news. 

5) 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 reason why I think New Day failed is because they were putting up content that wasn't going to meet their specific age group needs and wants to what they look for in a news paper. New Day were putting rather "soft - non news features" this style of news wouldn't be suitable to the older age group but younger, possibly young adults or teenagers. The fact that this newspaper was created to allow customers get an insight to people's modern lifestyle could have been successful but not for a newspaper, but i think it would be better for a magazine to put down these sort of content - Newspaper role is to give news to people, that what people look for in news; soft or hard hitting news stories but not any other content. 

The Guardian
The Guardian is another British newspaper struggling with a steep decline in print sales. However, the Guardian's survival strategy has been built around a global online approach to digital content. Complete the following tasks on your blog:

2) List the key statistics on page 10: 
[] How many unique digital browsers used the Guardian website in June 2016? Almost 9 million unique browsers - 1/3 were from the UK. 
[] What are The Guardian's latest print sales figures? 161,000 print circulation for the Guardian.
[] How does this compare to the Telegraph? They were way behind - Telegraph had 472,000
[] In terms of finances, how much did the Guardian lose in 2015? The Guardian reportedly lost around £70 million, with slower than expected digital and sales failing in revenue from print.

3) What has been The Guardian's strategy for reversing this decline?
To have there news be provided for a global audience. Over the past 2 years, the Guardian has devolved themselves to deliver 24 hour rolling coverage of major world news event. 

4) What global event did The Guardian's digital coverage win awards for?
The Guardian's repotting on the Paris attacks won praises from readers and the from the society of Editors at their Press Award for 2015. The Guardian was the winner of the "Website of the year". 
5) In your opinion, will the global website strategy be enough to save The Guardian?
In my opinion, i think the global website strategy can help save the guardian, this is because they will be providing and attracting much more of a bigger mass audience who are willing to read/click on the biggest and well know newspaper brand. As stated that "around the world more than 12- million unique browsers visit the Guardian every month" if these statistics continue to grow, the Guardian can be saved. 

Weekly New Digital Media - 26.10.16 (14)

Netflix 'too slow off the mark' in Bake Off bidding war

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/25/netflix-bake-off-ted-sarandos-bbc 

Summary: Netflix were too slow for to buy the Bake Off programme as they thought the show wouldn't leve BBC. Netflix's chief; Ted Sarandos said that  previous series of Bake Off have proved very popular on its US service, as have other BBC shows including Top Gear.Netflix has also shown an appetite for buying UK shows, picking up the likes of BBC shows Happy Valley and Peaky Blinders, as well as Charlie Brooker’s Channel 4 show Black Mirror.

[] Netflix’s content chief Ted Sarandos, who commands a £4.9bn annual budget with commissions including House of Cards, Stranger Things and Orange is the New Black. 

Opinion: In my opinion,  I'm glad that Netflix were too slow to bid on getting Bake off, this is because Netflix is an American streaming service, it wouldn't be the same if Bake off was on Netflix because Bake Off has a very strong association with the British culture and if a american streaming service bought it, bake off would loose that and it can disappoint a vast majority of the audience. In addition, it is better that bake off streams on television instead because many of the people do watch bake off live for when it is schedule instead of catch up and if Netflix had bought it, the effect of bake off wouldn't be the same.