Globalisation Questions

Is our news influenced by American cultural imperialism? What examples can you think of?

To begin with I believe that British news is influenced by American cultural imperialism to some extent.  American's are the ones who initially show celebrity news and have elements such as Show Biz, this has been adapted into British (our) news - showing some influence from the American cultural imperialism is present. In addition American news channel CNN  were the first news institutions that started 24 hour news show, and British news channels now also offer this, such as the BBC News. Not only this, but the news conventions of including photo and video journalism is also adapted by American news culture.

On the other hand, British news is said to be less biased than news in America, showing this element of the news content is not much influenced by Americans. Also, there is more information in British news, rather than just entertainment news, which is highly published and popular in American cultural imperialism.

This shows that British News has taken parts from American news culture as well as combined there own ideas in this.

Has the increased globalisation of news improved the audience experience? How? Why?
The increased globalisation of news has improved the audience's experience as now media is an essential part of many people's everyday life. Audiences are able to gather many different view points on news stories and different countries debates on certain issues due to globalisation. There are many news organisations who broadcast worldwide, this definitely improves the audiences experience as all the institutions can feed off each other sharing news stories and developing them. 

Has globalisation benefited or damaged major news institutions? How? Why?Globalisation has benefited major news organisations as the news enables each organisation to try and cover the news story better which pushes them to improve what they do. Globalisation also gives major news organisations more consumers who can access their news globally making it popular in different countries such as how Fox news is popular in the UK being an American news channel.

17/12/14 NDM Story #24

Instagram now has 300m users sharing 70m photos and videos a day

In this article the writer talks about how Instagram Facebook-owned app reveals plans to add verified badges for celebrities and brands, as well as crackdown on spam accounts. Instagram is now bigger than Twitter, which had 284 million active users the last time it revealed such figures publicly, although Instagram is still behind Facebook Messenger (500m), WhatsApp (600m) and Facebook itself (1.1bn mobile monthly active users), Insta' is certainly doing well.

This shows that new and digital media is becoming more and more popular, and image posting is becoming more popular via instagram. This also means a larger variety of user generated content is available, and this content can be seen by journalists and many UGC can influence the news agenda - making journalism easier, but being recognised easier too - so it's a win win.

• Twitter = 284 million active users
• Instagram - 300m users sharing 70m posts (pics/videos) each day.
• Facebook Messenger & Whatsapp largest amount of users (500-600m)

17/12/14 NDM Story #23

Turkish journalism arrests spark angry media divide

This article is on Turkey's media, igniting a war of words between pro-government and opposition press and TV outlets. This has lead to 20 arrests - of Ekrem Dumanli - cheif editor of Zaman (shown above on the left) along with other media executives.Turkish TV as well as hundreds of citizens of Turkey are criticising this. This has lead to protests, specially in Istanbul (captial city) against the arrests due to the fact that turks believe that this is restriction of 'freedom'. Protesters in front of Zaman's headquarters in Istanbul, holding posters saying, ''We all need free press'' and ''Free media cannot be silenced."

I believe that the Turkish citizens are correct, as this is not 1950's and the media should not be regulated in such ways where the press have little freedom to criticise political issues. This shows that this is clearly a Marxist society - as the press is being controlled. In addition, this shows that news is causing problems with politics.

10/12/14 NDM Story #22

Is a profit worth the price of the Times’s paywall?

This article is about The Times and Sunday Times - owned by Rupert Murdoch together reported an operating profit of £1.7m – the first profit in that quarter over 13 long years. The print circulation of the Times actually edged 1% up year-on-year. Digital subscriptions went up as well, by 8%. Something that almost everyone said couldn't happen confounded prophecy.

This shows that going behind the Paywall can be beneficial for many news company's such as The Times/Sunday Times. However this depends on the viewer-ship as well as the quality and type of news provided. In addition, I believe even if viewers are lost - if the news is of good quality, and free subscription trials such as the ones the Sun are offering being used can potentially mean many people do pay for the news, this will mean the institution can provide good journalism, including photos which is vital to provide quality news as it creates empathy. 

- 1.7 million profit, first time in over 13 years
- Times profit went up 1% each year
- Digital subscriptions up by 8% each year, although this was said to be unlikely

10/12/14 NDM Story #21

BBC director lashes out at "lazy" journalism after Christmas schedules criticised

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The BBC's director of television lost his temper on Twitter, ranting about "poor" and "shoddy" journalism after stories were published criticising the number of repeats in the Christmas television schedules.Danny Cohen engaged in a bitter exchange of words with Mark Jefferies, the Daily Mirror's showbusiness editor, after a front page report said 63 per cent of BBC television over the festive period had been seen before. Below are the exchanged tweets.

Cohen's Tweet:
@MirrorTom @mirrorjeffers Extraordinary front page Mark. Mirror should be better than that. Extraordinary talent on the BBC this Christmas.

Jefferies Reply:
@DannyCohen Great talent but extraordinary level of repeats. I love BBC but won't watch on Dec 24 when you show FOUR films that are repeats.

Cohen's Tweet:

@mirrorjeffers Poor show Mark. Standard, lazy, annually repeated newspaper stories about the BBC. Tens of millions will enjoy Xmas on BBC.


This shows how easily the news can try to manipulate large institutions in order to awaken the audience to the truth and give channels such as BBC a bad reputation. This is news that isn't dumbing down audience, as a marxist would argue this is what news is doing, clearly some news is factual and relevant to our lives - as BBC is a reliable and trusted channel with one of the largest viewer ships in the UK & internationally.

03/12/14 - NDM Story #19

Sun+ signs up 225,000 paying subscribers

This article is about The Sun having 225,000 paying subscribers to its £2-a-week digital service Sun+, almost double the number reported a year ago. A digital paywall on 1 August last year, was introduced and reported it had attracted 117,000 paying subscribers in December 2013.The publisher said that the figure has been stripped of any subscribers on a free trial, with the vast majority paying £7.99 a month. About 2%, or 5,000 subscribers, have a quarterly or annual package.

In my opinion, The Sun going behind a digital paywall is good, because it helps in the long term for their business and will help them provide consumers with a high quality of news, rather than ''dumbing down'' news on celebrities. The Sun + providing a trial for an entire month is a good idea, because since the audience now know news to be ''FREE'' - those who wish to sign up will surely want to be able to weigh out the difference between what they can get for free, from BBC news for example - and what they'll have to pay £2 a week for.

03/12/14 - NDM Story #20

Osborne: Autumn Statement cuts warnings 'hyperbolic'

Mr Osborne is is a British Conservative Party politician. He had told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I would have thought the BBC had learnt from the last four years that its totally hyperbolic coverage of spending cuts has not been matched by what's actually happened in our country." Labour has commented on the the government's deficit reduction targets were "all in tatters".

This image above shows the borrowing forecast - and clearly the figures predicted are too low, in order for the goverment to potentially look good and if expenditures are decreasing? However, these aren't realistic, thus have been challenged by other elite politicians. 

• the chancellor's statement, said public spending would fall from £5,650 per head in 2009-10 to £3,880 in 2019-20.

Alain de Botton on the News

To what extent do you agree with Alain de Bottom's views on the News?
How can you link Marxism and Hegemony to de Botton's criticisms of the News?
How could you use Pluralism and new technology to challenge de Botton's views on the News?

I agree to Alain de Bottom’s view to a large extent. I believe that there are many issues such as Global warming and incidents in other country’s that aren't being shown frequent enough for the audience to care about.

I believe that the ‘’hierarchy of news has collapsed’’ as Bottom stated, because the important news won’t be shown if it is not popular. Important and popular are separated – and most times popular news is chosen over important news. This could possibly be too dumb down the audience, and only show them as much as they should see to keep them in their place – a prime example of hegemony as a Marxist would say. Stupid and irrelevant news such as ‘’Taylor Swift’s’’ legs making the news covers all the time, make the fact that plenty dying somewhere in North Africa that is not an elite nation much less important since audiences are not shown this enough for them to care and develop empathy for such disadvantaged people. Alain de Bottom questions if we are ‘crazy’ to not care, but it is simply the Media that chooses to show what they feel is important, and according to the News Values it is Elite people and nations. Photo journalism from less developed country's is required in order to create relations with the people involved in disasters, rather than just a headline that runs for 3 seconds. I agree that professional photo journalism is required in order to get people more interested, for example what is happening in Ferguson, USA over the murder of Mike Brown. This is potentially the reason as to why ''world news, which is primarily disaster based gets the lowest figures''. Increase empathy will increase the viewer ship from audiences as well as give them quality news - and not dumb them down and help them see what is actually happening in the world.

On the other hand, this argument can be challenged and linked to Pluralism due to the fact that the audience want extensive information on irrelevant celebrities, rather than know about what directly affects them (for example Global warming), therefore the media and news publish and produce what the audience want – and if they want to be dumbed down, and not get high quality and relevant news they won’t get that.

Choose two news stories from the last six months - one that supports de Botton's views and one that challenges his belief that the News is used for social control.

Marxism & Pluralism ''To What Extent..''

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?
Sample answer: Audiences are empowered by being able to access a wide variety of news and opinion using a single device such as their phone or tablet. The ease with which someone can check the Guardian website and Mail Online – both for free – means that they can access a wide variety of views before forming their own opinions on the news.

I believe that audiences are dis empowered by the developments in new and digital media to a large extent. 

To begin with, audiences have been given an illusion of control, and whatever they are able to create using the internet, i.e. any user generated content such as YouTube videos, can be deleted by those in control.

On the other hand, audiences are empowered, as they can report/block other users of the same platform, for example on Instagram –this can lead to the user who’s reported having their account or the post reported being deleted. Although this is control, as offensive or ‘fake’ accounts/posts can be reported, this control is just an illusion of control for users, as they cannot directly ‘block’ or ‘report’ any of the actions made by these platforms.


Furthermore, terms and conditions are ‘ticked’ i.e. agreed by audiences when joining a social networking website such as Facebook or Twitter. This shows that hegemony is in place, as agreeing to the terms and conditions, is been made so ‘normal’ that audiences do this almost automatically when they wish to sign up. It is a procedure audiences must do, and they have no control over this, because if they want to be using this platform, and tweet for example – this is a requirement, in order to keep those who are elite in power. Elite people include owners of such social media sites, such as Mark Zuckerberg – this shows that the mass-audience are dis-powered, as they have to do as these elite people want – and due to hegemony, it is not often realized, thus seen as normal.


Although audiences are now able to set news agenda, and contribute to what news stories will be. There have been many examples of this such as tweets from the public during the London Riots being included in various publications from news institutions, such as the Guardian. Other than this, Nina Gross – who is the sister of recently murdered Alice Gross was able to gain news and social media (Twitter) attention by tweeting BBC Question Time (using hash tag #BBCQT) about their political criticism on the murder case. Gross had asked them to let the Gross family grieve, rather than opening the case for a political debate. Not only did this manage to get a number of re-tweets, i.e. sharing amongst twitter users. But BBC had replied to her tweet, to apologise to Nina and her family. This shows there is some element of pluralism in our society, as audiences have the ability to gain some control, as they are directly able to stand up to the elite institutions, and businesses - such as BBC.


Taking in consideration these points, there are many adverts we are shown that can’t be controlled. For example, in the news – audiences will have to see what is shown to them, these adverts may be ignored, however are there because the news editors, writers and advertising agency’s want them to be. Also, hegemony is used in order to show audiences what is right and what is socially wrong. This is done mainly by the news and programmes such as Benefit Street, that doesn’t only dumb the audience down, as a Marxist would say, but it also tries to make the audience believe that the minority who are on benefits due to being redundant, or on welfare are negatively affecting those who are richer, and
Similarly, the news had also exaggerated the story of a lady who had breast enlargements so that the audience are forced to believe that ‘people taking benefits are bad’ – when in reality, less than 1% of benefit claimers are not legit. This shows that the audience see what they are shown, evidently they don’t have much control, as institutions are choosing to dumb us as audiences down, so we don’t speak against decisions of the elite, i.e. politicians, when they wish to decrease welfare benefits for example.

In addition, there are many stories that aren't shown as much in the news as they possibly should be. These include stories in LEDC’s (such as Cambodia, Bangladesh and Pakistan) of acid attacks predominantly on females. Although this may be due to the news values (Rouge) i.e. news criteria wanting to provide for what the ''audience want'' showing mainly elite people/nations on the news, such as celebrity's and politicians, as this may be more interesting to the audiences. This links to our society being more pluralist, as according to the news values and what is shown, the audience are the ones who make it popular, thus ‘’sell’’. However, showing those who may need more help & attention than others stories, such as the royal baby being born will mean that society will be able to get a better view of the struggle of those in other countries. These people who are disadvantaged aren't shown due to the fact that many of them are females, and not in privileged countries. Being female and disadvantage but not being heard or in the news, can potentially due to the fact that institutions are dominated by males, such as Rupert Murdoch; therefore they may prefer to not include so much on feminism, and females in LEDCS, as they are neither elite people, nor in elite nations.

This is giving audiences the illusion of equality, and that they are getting ‘global news’ (as news channels such as Sky would title). Truthfully, audiences are only given the power and rights to seek equality for themselves, however not shown as much from the places where female rights don’t exist, therefore the audiences don’t have control over new and digital media, as many stories that can be assessed are hidden.

To conclude with although audiences are able to influence news agenda’s, and arise many issues and other stories through social media such as twitter, within society, for example Police in America killing a number of people, mistaking them for criminals or by accident.

26/11/14 NDM Story #17

BBC undermining local newspapers, says Theresa May

Home secretary Theresa May has warned the BBC that the "might" of its online news operation is undermining local newspapers.The Conservative MP, speaking at the Society of Editors conference in London on Monday, said the BBC claimed it was opening up markets with its activities, such as on-line, when in fact it was dominating them.She said."If the BBC can provide all the locally-significant news, what reason is left for local people to buy a newspaper? That's as dangerous for local politics as it is for local journalism.''

This article shows that newspapers being published online is the key reason for decline in selling of the local newspapers. I agree with this, because having dominating free news online can result in poor quality news, which can result in dumbing down the audience as resources aren't used to full potential in order to get a high quality of news.

* no other numberical facts available *

26/11/14 - NDM Story #18

Facebook hosted Lee Rigby death chat ahead of soldier's murder

Fusilier Lee Rigby was murdered in London on 22 May last year

Continue reading the main storyWatch

This story is about Facebook being the firm that hosted a conversation by one of Fusilier Lee Rigby's killers five months ahead of the attack, the BBC has learned.Michael Adebowale said he wanted to kill a soldier and discussed his plans in "the most graphic and emotive manner", according to the UK's Intelligence and Security Committee.

A Spokeswomen from Facebook had said:

"We don't comment on individual cases but Facebook's policies are clear, we do not allow terrorist content on the site and take steps to prevent people from using our service for these purposes." However, that ISC state that ''the company should do more''.

In my opinion, Facebook should be doing more in order to prevent such things happening. As institutions and elite people have control over the media, as a Marxist would say, it only makes sense if Facebook have better technology in order to control any extremist behaviour - rather than dealing with just smaller issues such as just reporting an inappropriate image. This shows that the negative impact Facebook and similar new and digital media platforms can lead to, and how murders can also be planned on these.  

• Michael Adebowale has been jailed for a minimum of 45 years
• Facebook had disabled seven of Adebowale's accounts ahead of the killing, five of which had been flagged for links with terrorism.

Feedback for first essay question

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?

WWW: Clearly acknowledged both sides of the argument, and offered some examples and a bit of theory.

EBI: Add more depth, more examples & media theories
Be clear with writing, plan essays beforehand.

19/11/14: NDM Story 16

Let’s get over the whole 'newspapers are dying' thing

In this article the writer talks about how dividing the digital publishing industry into legacy and new media, falsely undermines newspapers’ (traditional news) capacity for innovation. The speaker shown above, is Tien Tzuof(ounder and chief-executive of Zuora.

I agree with this. Infact I believe that having news innovating, and being published on new and digital allows the younger generation to be targeted better. as everyone now makes used of technology within this age demographic, it only makes sense for this technology to be utilized in beneficial ways, so audiences pleasures can be met as well as them being aware of what may affect them, such as road accidents/weather ect - this links to Surveillance.  

• Generation Y actually spends 38% more time reading newspapers (online and off) than my own, Generation X.

• Forrester Research, which keeps tabs on roughly 85% of the global GDP, thinks we’re at the beginning of a new 20 year business that they call “The Age of the Customer.”

19/11/14: NDM Story 15

Local papers cautious as BBC courts them with free content

This story mainly focuses on James Harding, the BBC’s director of news and current affair's speech at the Society of Editors conference on Tuesday followed the home secretary Theresa May’s accusation that the BBC was “destroying” local papers with the might of its on-line news operation.Harding described such criticism as “wrong-headed” but admitted that this latest initiative might look like the BBC trying to “cosy up” to the papers just as it is looking for support for the renewal of its royal charter and the licence fee.A lack of resources means the staple of local newspapers, court and council reporting, has inevitably faded away, the so-called “democratic deficit”.
-Sales have been in long-term decline and were down by an average of 13.5% year on year in the first half of 2014
-The sort of undertaking beyond a single local newspaper’s budget, it was shared in advance with other news organisations and used by more than 100 newspapers and websites.

-Just over 100 local and regional titles have closed since the economic downturn in 2008, out of a total free and paid-for market of around 1,300.

Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony

Read the Media Magazine article ‘Web 2.0: Participation or Hegemony?'. Go to our archive of Media Magazine issues and click on MM39 - the article you need is on page 58. Answer the following questions:


1) Research the Ian Tomlinson case. What would the traditional, hegemonic view of the police be in a case like this?

The hegemonic view of the police would be to say that Ian Tomlinson was a protester, and was part of throwing missiles, thus collapsed (due to this), they wouldn't mention anything about the police hitting him - meaning that the police had tried to lie their way out of the situation they were in. However, receiving this footage from a person in New York shows that the death was a result of harassment by PC Harwood, as he had a heart-attack after having injuries to his liver.

The police officer's aquittal even after such evidence, shows that new and digital media, and user-generated content isn't taken as serious as other evidence may have. I believe the power is still in the hands of those who are elite, as a Marxist would say, because although new and digital media i..e social networking from a reliable source was used to show that PC harwood may have been the key reason for Tomlinson's collapsing and passing away -  he was acquitted.


2) What does the author argue regarding whether hegemony is being challenged by Web 2.0?

The author argues that how much control is down to who in this case is really down to the hegemony, in this case police and the politics. Web 2.0 is definitely shown to be challenging hegemony, as the author believes that user-generated content is like ''traditional media''


3) In your opinion, does new and digital media reinforce dominant hegemonic views or give the audience a platform to challenge them?
New and digital media gives the audience a platform to challenge dominant hegemonic views, as their opinions can be put on the internet, for example through Twitter, or directly under news articles on news company's such as The Guardian's website, so they can give their own opinion.
However this is to some extent, because more platforms are available to those who are elite, i.e. politicians and media institutions to reinforce dominant hegemonic views, in addition, the views of the audience can easily be blocked out, most of the negative comments/reactions that stay on the internet are used to create news agenda a lot of the times, for example -  ISIS related members tweeting about their 'martyred' leader, which made the news. Or this case, in which Ian Tomlisons' harassment video, has been used to gain attention - and not been acted upon as much as it possibly could have been.

12/11/14: NDM Story 14

How social networking is changing journalism

This article focuses on the impact of social media on journalism. The director of BBC Global news division says that social media was overestimated in the short term, but underestimated in the long-term. He says how although Twitter being a social media platform may include loads of 'information', it is not all journalism, and shouldn't be seen as this.

I believe this is good for users, but bad for those who make news originally i.e. journalists, and editors, as they can easily be made redundant. I believe in this society now. user generated comments are just as important as ''journalism'' as journalists are not being paid as much, and don't believe they can always reach 100% capability. Thus user generated content (social media) changing journalism hasn't got that much of a massive impact to me personally.

• Mainstream media are exploring the use of social media to drive traffic; already 8% of the Daily Telegraph web traffic comes from social media.

12/11/14: NDM Story 13

Channel 4 to launch eBay-style market for advertisers on cloud TV service

This story is about Channel-4 wanting to launch a eBay-style digital marketplace for advertisers to buy commercials on its video-on-demand service.The TV industry is starting to see the rewards of video-on-demand ads on services such as 4oD, ITV Player and Demand Five, with theAdvertising Association forecasting growth of almost a third next year to £210m.
Channel 4 being able to now look at their users and what they like and don't like using the customer information they have on their customers/users based from their on-line content. They will do this so that they can target their audiences more effectively, and provide them with this through all their platforms, this will benefit them greatly, as there are now many institutions and channels, and this can make Channel 4 more innovative, as their remit states.

• Channel 4 has a database of 11.5 million viewers 
• Channel 4 says viewing of 4oD has grown 28% year-on-year so far in 2014.

NDM Summary 1

1. 10/09/14 'Could Ali Baba be bigger than Amazon?'

2.10/09/14 'EU tells Google to do more to settle search row with rivals'

3.10/09/14'Microsoft wants Minecraft for Windows Phone'

4. 17/09/14 'How video games like Destiny are making a huge profit'

5. 24/09/14'Royal baby story helps Press Association profits rise to £9.8m'

6. 01/10/14 'Fox News presenters mock female pilot who took part in campaign against Isis'

7. 08/10/14'News of the World’s Ian Edmondson pleads guilty'

8.15/10/14 'British police’s use of Ripa powers to snoop on journalists to be reined in'

9. 22/10/14 'Twitter teams up with SoundCloud and iTunes to play audio within tweets'

10. 29/10/14

11. 05/11/14 UK joins world's fastest mobile internet club with next generation 4G+ rollout

12. 05/11/14 High sales. Big profits. Rising user numbers. So why the turmoil at the Telegraph?

05/11/14: NDM Story 12

High sales. Big profits. Rising user numbers. So why the turmoil at the Telegraph?

05/11/14 - NDM Story 11

UK joins world's fastest mobile internet club with next generation 4G+ rollout


In this story Guardian inform us on how ''more people in the UK are going to get mobile internet speeds comparable with South Korea and US with the launch of EE’s next generation 4G+ network.'' A new technology named LTE-A (carrier aggregation), allows users to connect to ''two different 4G mobile signals'' at any one time. This doubles the capacity, even in populated areas, such as 'frustrating' trains.

This is an excellent achievement in new and digital media, as users will be able to access the internet at all times. Using the internet is like a necessity for most people now, as communication using social media, or 'Apps' using their smartphone(''61% of adults'' have one) can be accessed, making life much more convenient and enjoyable.  It is very frustrating not being able to recieve mobile signals, in this day and age, as texting and calling are seen as the key way of communication, as even business conferences now take place using a mobile.

• The new network is capable of delivering theoretical data speeds of up to 300Mbps, although real-world speeds will peak at approximately 150Mbps.
• Regular speeds will be around 90Mbps, five times faster the average UK broadband speed, which is 17.8Mbps according to data from Ofcom.
• 83.1 million mobile phone subscribers in the UK, according to data from Ofcom, 
• 61% of adults have a smartphone.

29/10/14 - NDM Story 10

Untangling the web: privacy

This article is about the leveson inquiry, and how phone hacking was done by authorities.  

News Values Theory

Galtung and Ruge (1981) - defined a set of news values to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain stories and photographs were accepted as newsworthy, while others were not. The following list is adapted from their work:
Task :- How has new and digital media technology changed Galtung and Ruge’s news values? How would you update them for 2014?

Immediacy: has it happened recently?
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 so different angles might be required. Newspapers now contain more comment or opinion rather than the breaking story.

Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
Familiarity is still very important, but has become less important, because global news is more popular than before, and more heard and known about due to social media, and user generated content being used to inform others of situations - the world has become 'smaller' - like a 'global village' - for example the news on Arab Spring & Syria/Palestine conflicts spreading. News may need to find ways to link global news to the ' Elite country's' - such as linking America/UK to the ISIS, or how Elite country's are 'aiding' country's that require assistance.

Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
Amplitude is still an important factor, because if the news doesn't involve a lot of people then it won''t be seen as an issue so big, for example - recently the Riots, which was a big event in an Elite nation, was seen as a 'bigger' event, due to the number of people who were involved and how fast the rebelling was spreading.

Frequency: did the event happen fairly quickly?

Ambiguity: is it clear and definite?
Ambiguity is not as important, as News now do rely on user generated content to gain information, for example follow fans of celebrity's to gain information - see what they are tweeting about or images they are posting on instagram ect, so it's not always clear and definite. The agenda is influenced a lot on what the users have to say, and global situations such as Palestine and Syrian conflict, can't always be defined clearly by the news, it can also be seen biased if anything thats not certain is said.

Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
This is still something that is used in news, as editors and journalists ensure that they include subtly stereotypical comments and irrelevant information (such as the education level, ethnic background or religion of suspects), in order to make the audience feel like this is what is expected from such a group, and then see them as moral panics, for example youths during the riots & emphasis on any negative behaviour from Muslims

Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?


Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?


Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
This still applies to a large extent, because if something relatively unimportant happens amongst celebrities, politicians who are 'elite people', within 'elite nations' such as North/South America, Canada, UK ect. It will have much more coverage perhaps than it needs to have. As opposed to the fact that news from countries and people who aren't elite does feature MORE now (2014), however hardly makes the front cover of news, as opposed to news that's 'elite' such as the royal baby.

Negativity: is it bad news?



Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.
This still happens

22/10/14 - NDM Weekly Story 9

Twitter teams up with SoundCloud and iTunes to play audio within tweets

Twitter product manager Richard Slatter explains that 'With a single tap, the Twitter Audio Card lets you discover and listen to audio directly in your timeline on both iOS and Android devices'. the new card is Twitter’s latest attempt to make it easier for users to listen to songs.

I believe this is a good idea, as it allows digital media to be used in positive and more beneficial ways. So rather than going on YouTube, they can just listen to music on the timeline as the people they follow post. Twitter is beneficial in this way to new coming artists, and even big artists, as it's a new  method on a popular media platform, and website to promote on.

- Twitter also works behind the scenes with a number of artists and labels, helping them make the most of its social network.

-Twitter launched their “Trending 140” chart with music industry magazine Billboard in May.

-In May this year, there was speculation that Twitter might even buy SoundCloud, although the rumours died down, with conflicting reports that the barrier was either SoundCloud’s lack of licensing deals with music labels and publisher

15/10/2014 - NDM Weekly story 8

British police’s use of Ripa powers to snoop on journalists to be reined in

UK government will reform the law to prevent the police using surveillance powers to discover journalistic sources. Simon Hughes - the justice minister has confirmed this is misuse of powers.

He said that the police’s use of powers had been “entirely inappropriate” and in future it would require the authorisation of a judge for police forces to be given approval to access journalists’ phone records, for any criminal investigation.

I believe that it's wrong for phone records of journalists to be accessed, since that's their private life - and it should be asked about if people want to do that. Laws should definitely be put in place in order to protect the privacy of the journalists, there are other ways of finding out information - rather than hacking into phone records. 

Build The Wall analysis

The article, Build The Wall, is available here on the Columbia Journalism Review

Summarise each section in one sentence:

Section 1 (To all of the bystanders reading this…)

Simon states that news content should be paid for (on-line too), as millions are spent creating it, value news going behind a pay-wall is apparent to destroy, since it'll bring lifesaving revenues for institutions currently losing money.

Section 2 (Truth is, a halting movement toward...) 

Certain newspapers, such as the Washington Post require their readership to pay, and their reach is much wider now (10 million web visits/month), also stresses readers who require a specific source of news, will stick to it - even if that means paying for it - especially because Americans started paying for cable in a similar way. The full potential of professional journalism isn't yet reached since people aren't paid ''to do such''.

Section 3 (Beyond Mr. Sulzberger and Ms. Weymouth…)

The value of free web news was to entice a younger audience, so they get hooked and then start paying for news. If online subscriptions were much less than news delivery rates, it'll still be a 'profitable revenue stream'. Readers would be lost, but even 10% of the current members (Baltimore Sun) would represent $2.5m a year, if they pay just $10 (half the price of delivery)


Section 4 (For the industry, it is later than it should be…) 

The Times & W,Post going behind the paywall will allow good revenue,and high profits for news (as they are popular) this means they'll make news better, everything - culture, music, finance in news ect can be made to quality and can be included online, with less of the price and it not being on paper - no printing and circulation costs. In addition, money will be made by online adverts too, higher readership will result in higher advert rate.


Summarise David Simon’s overall argument in 250 words:

Simon states that news content should be paid for (on-line too), as millions are spent creating it, value news going behind a pay-wall is apparent to destroy, since it'll bring lifesaving revenues for institutions currently losing money. Certain newspapers, such as the Washington Post require their readership to pay, and their reach is much wider now (10 million web visits/month), also stresses readers who require a specific source of news, will stick to it - even if that means paying for it - especially because Americans started paying for cable in a similar way. The full potential of professional journalism isn't yet reached since people aren't paid ''to do such''. The value of free web news was to entice a younger audience, so they get hooked and then start paying for news. If online subscriptions were much less than news delivery rates, it'll still be a 'profitable revenue stream'. Readers would be lost, but even 10% of the current members (Baltimore Sun) would represent $2.5m a year, if they pay just $10 (half the price of delivery). News will be better, and more inclusive including culture, music, finance in news ect. It can be made to quality and can be included online, with less of the price and it not being on paper - no printing and circulation costs. In addition, money will be made by online adverts too; higher readership will result in higher advert rate. David highly recommends going behind a paywall, for leading newspapers. 

Choose three comments from below the article, copy them in to your blogpost and explain whether they agree or disagree with David Simon’s argument:

1. I understand the frustration, and there is a lot in this piece, but subscription is not the way to go. What the Times and the Post report is not inherently valuable, value is relative and subjective. News is free and a portion of the times is simply news. Journalism - Business, Arts, Books, Movies, Travel, Sports, etc, - is not free, but its value is hard to pinpoint making a site wide subscription fallacious.
Lionel Barber, Editor, FT, indicated at a media even last night that the FT is seeing growing revenue from frequency model pricing, meaning readers get a certain number of articles free and then must begin to pay. This strategy is not as granular as what many people espousing micro payments are pushing for, but its got its head in the right place. 

Your argument that for example, The Baltimore Sun push readers online by charging more for the physical newspaper and its delivery, either ignores or misses that strength of the internet - profits from fragmentation. I can go to iTunes and buy a variety of genres of music in the smallest possible form - a song - and get a discount for buying in bulk - an album. Journalism can work in the same way. I can buy one technology article or I can buy the whole section for the day or the week at a discount.

Now is not the time for ultimatums and traditional thinking. There is a solution that makes people pay, we both agree that needs to happen. Let's do it in a way that will make people really love and appreciate journalism again instead of bullying them into subscriptions and turning off a new generation of Americans to the pleasure of reading the Times Sunday Arts section.
{#2 Posted by Aankit on Thu 16 Jul 2009 at 12:15 PM}

 - disagree with Simon's argument

2. I will never pay for “news” again. Most news is not truly news - it is sensationalism, hype and deception. Most news is not balanced - every editor is biased. And it is not just that - I truly can not afford to pay for news. Academics, especially with tenure, got it made in the shade and may be able to afford to follow the “news” as they are funded and it does not come out of their pockets. The question comes down to this - do we want an informed public or not. The answer, at least right now, is no. If the public were truly properly informed the American people would not allow Wall Street to gut Main Street, would not believe the lies of “the terrorists are going to destroy our way of life” and would understand that it really makes no difference - except in perception - of who holds the title of chief cheerleader - oops I mean Commander in Chief, President, which should be renamed CEO of America Incorporated.
{#9 Posted by Lawrence Turner on Fri 17 Jul 2009 at 11:55 AM}

- Disagree, since this person is used to  news being free, thus won't pay for it.

3. Newspapers don't make profit nor do they pay journalists with subscription revenue. Subscription revenues pay for printing and distribution. Online advertising generates less revenue than print advertising because the ad sales folks don't know how to sell it. Or price it.Revenue generated by cable television is itty-bitty peanuts for cable networks. The real revenue for cable networks is advertising.Local television news programs realize no meaningful revenue from cable subscribers. Local news programs generate revenue with advertising. Local news programs are delivered free to our televisions. This is stunning in its similarity to the current internet news model.

Folks using the internet pay for access, just like cable viewers.
Here's one item that troubles me: The proposal that newspaper subscription revenue pays for journalism. This is false. Advertising pays salaries. What is it about journalism, and journalists, that makes their words more valuable when printed on a piece of paper than displayed on a screen?

The ideas presented are interesting in their naivete. Go ahead, try the ideas. In time those pay-only news organizations will realize someone has been drinking their milkshake.
{#18 Posted by Just Thinking on Sat 18 2009 at 03:33 PM}

 - Disagree, because they are saying we are already (indirectly) paying for news, to some extent since the internet is paid for - and so is cable.

What is your own opinion? Do you agree that newspapers need to put on-line content behind a pay-wall in order for the journalism industry to survive? Would you be willing to pay for news online? 

I believe that some newspapers, that are most popular, e.g. New York Times - should go behind the pay-wall to some extent. This should be really cheap online subscription. This will mean that many viewers will be lost, but at least the news company will be able to survive, pay their staff good money, so they are motivated and can reach full potential of journalism, rather than waffling. I personally won't be willing to pay for online news, purely because Social Media such as Twitter have loads of Citizen Journalism, and the most important stories usually make the 'Trends'. This brings me on to another issue, since UGC and CJ, is only growing - meaning less people may rely on News channels/institutes to receive news, and go to 'secondary sources'. These secondary source, i.e.. the public, may actually have more information than journalists themselves, for example the London  Riots, were thousands of pictures were being posted on Twitter, to update their 'followers'. This is a prime reason why News may been seen as something that SHOULD be free, rather than it being free - and having to pay for it all of a sudden.

08/10/2014 - NDM Weekly story 7

News of the World’s Ian Edmondson pleads guilty

Ian Edmondson, above admitted to and was charged for phone hacking between 3 October 2000 and 9 August 2006. With the paper’s former editor Andy Coulson and with hacker Glen Mulcaire, the paper’s former royal editor Clive Goodman, its former news desk executives Greg Miskiw, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup, the paper’s former feature writer Dan Evans, and other persons known and unknown.

My opinion on this news story is that it's ridiculous that someone would want to hack into someone's phones and messages, as this is private information. It is an issue that can be raised about internet/mobile safety. How much control really is given to us as users of the media, and how easily our privacy can be taken away by phone hackers such as Edmondson, and his helpers makes me feel like nothing personal can be shared over the internet, and maybe sticking to word of mouth is the best way to share information with one another! As opposed to texting/IM and calling - which is now getting more popular by the minute 

• Between July 2005 and August 2006 records showed there were 800 calls and texts, or 90 a month
• £2,019 a week for “special investigations”
• 16 months after pleading not guilty, Edmondson pleads guilty.

01/10/14 NDM story 6

'Fox News presenters mock female pilot who took part in campaign against Isis'

This news is about a female pilot - Major Mariam al Mansouri - who was made fun of by male presenters on Fox News. She is described by the Emirati ambassador called her "a fully qualified, highly trained, combat-ready pilot." However, in America her success was questioned sexist and sarcastically as“Would that be considered boobs on the ground or no?”, with another comment saying ''“The problem is after she bombed it she couldn't park it,”

I believe this is a really unprofessional way to react, since sexist jokes shouldn't be made if representations and stereotypes of a 'male-dominated' field, such as piloting -  are being challenged by females. I think Major Mariam has made a very proud-to be of accomplishment, and she is definitely someone to look up to for any females who want equality, or wish to enter a ''male-dominated'' field.  


• She is 35 years old and graduated from flight school in 2007.
• She was one of the first of three females to join the Emirati air force after it started admitting women.
• She flew an F-16 Desert Falcon during the airstrikes against ISIS over Syria.

24/09/14 Weekly NDM Story - 5

'Royal baby story helps Press Association profits rise to £9.8m'

Birth of Prince George was said to be the largest story of 2013. The parent company of the Press Association reported a rise in operating profits of a quarter to £9.8m last year.
Thousands of words and hundreds of pictures were published. Live pictures were streamed from outside the hospital and they were watched more than million times. 

This shows that the birth of Baby George was significant not only to the royal family, but also the residents of Britain and globally. Profits of the press association dropping after the royal baby, shows them that they need to be finding ways to make more, such as them introducing weather forecast to General Atlantic, they need to continue to introduce new services and stay on top in order to maintain high profits. 

Question

''The last 20 years have been more significant in terms of media & its role in society, than the whole previous 200 years. '' 

I agree to this statement, to some extent - because although the past 20 years have been very significant in terms of media, as there has been a massive revolution of being able to listen, read, and print  - i.e. use all three media platforms to access news and media, however in the whole previous 200 years there was not. 

In the previous 200 years there was either radio, which not everyone was able to use, TV News, which only came in the 1930's and again, not everyone had access to this - word of mouth was the only main way. 

On the other hand, now that news is available on all three platforms, and media is available more - users are likely to not make use of the development, such as making use of all three radio, TV, and social media for example. Maybe one or two of these means are used, whereas in the previous 200 years - any opportunity to get media coverage, such as word of mouth, tv ect was seen as more of a privilege thus it's arguable that the previous 200 years in terms of media had a larger impact on society. 

17/09/14 Weekly New & Digital Media (NDM) Stories (4)

4 'How video games like Destiny are making a huge profit'

Video game, Destiny on-line poster^.

Destiny is on track to become the most successful video game in history, with $500m (approximately £310) worth of pre-orders made on the first day of its release. This is similar to last year’s Grand Theft Auto V generated $(app800m approximately £49m) worldwide for Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. on its first day last September, making it the biggest video game debut.


I believe this is happening because more and more people are into consoles now, technology is getting better making games much more realistic! in addition, children who are under age are buying these games globally - thus increase the audience.

10/09/14 - Weekly New & Digital Media (NDM) Stories (1,2,3)

1 - 'Could Ali Baba be bigger than Amazon?' 

Above is Jack Ma, the founder of Ali Baba.


Ali Baba is currently making more revenue than eBay and Amazon combined, there are 279 million active buyers and 8.5 million active sellers on its on-line platform, has a number of competitive advantages over Amazon. It has become one of the largest technology companies.

In my opinion Ali baba will need to maintain making more revenue and profits than eBay, and being popular globally too - rather than just the USA - leading to higher potential to take-over Amazon.  

-Valuation: £122bn 

2 'EU tells Google to do more to settle search row with rivals'

Google, could be fined £3.7bn if it fails to reach an agreement with the European Commission, must improve its proposal after “very negative” feedback from rivals.Google has so far improved its offer three times in response to claims from Microsoft, European publishers and competitors across the continent that it dominates the online search market and blocks advertisers from moving to competing platforms.

I believe Google will not want further negative feedback & publicity thus will decide to resolve issues with EU, and will come to an agreement, eventually.

3 'Microsoft wants Minecraft for Windows Phone'

The Swedish developer with 100 million players of its open world Minecraft game, is more aimed at pulling users onto the software company's obscure mobile platform than its better known PC system or Xbox game console.
The software company's Windows Phone system has only 2.5 per cent of the world's smartphone market, and its Surface tablet barely more, according to tech research firm

Minecraft^

Minecraft, which is the top paid app both on Apple's iOS and Google's Android systems. Microsoft will unveil a $US2.5 billion deal to buy its owner on Monday, this is most liklely to go through in my opinion - as this amount is approximately '8 times sales last year' of Mine craft.

Self Evaluation on internet video production homework

Here is the average score out of 4 for the video, based on mine and Farina's personal assessment as well as Mr. Bush and the class's. Below each level descriptor is the overall reason for the ranking. 

A - Aesthetics : 2/4 
included a summary of key ideas, however couldn't be credited for any effects due to too much secondary work being used.

C - Creativity : 1+/4 
Little creativity was shown due to the fact that just research was carried out on the internet - about the internet, rather than primarily filming or typing up information ourselves.

T - Technology : 2/4
I successfully managed to upload to YouTube and embed the video on my blog, was of high quality most times and had good music. Showed experience of using movie editor (Sony vegas)

U - Understanding : 3/4
This was the strongest part of the video, as we managed to identified what the class needs to know and managed to put together successfully an informative video on the changes the internet has caused,

P - Production Values : 2/4 Was well edited, however not proven to be very ambitious as it was secondary work; managed to edit clips in well to present a good standard - with some good transitions on screen and audio.

Total: 10/20 = 50%

Overall summary of results

WWW: There was a pretty strong understanding of what needed to be gathered and presented.
The music was appropriate, the clip was longer than 1 minute.
The secondary research was relevant and informative.

EBI: More of an original approach was used - i.e. not to copy and paste and then edit chunks, be more creative with it, and use more of our own work.
Use a camera to record by ourselves.

Youtube Video: Internet uses & benefits

I had created the video below using Sony Vegas Pro and have included video snaps from the relevant informative videos found on the internet. 

The Impact of New/Digital Media (Tasks from slide)

What is the internet?
Media forms in the internet:— (List THREE sites for each media form)
-text documents: 
-—photographs
—-video
—-movies
-video games
—-audio recordings 
-computer programs

Penetration 
18.3 million households in the UK (70 per cent) had Internet access in 2009*. This is an increase of just under 2 million households (11 per cent) over the last year and 4 million households (28 per cent) since 2006. (National Statistics 2009) *This had risen to 87% in 2013.

The ‘Information Revolution
 The internet has been called:

— “the most important medium of the twentieth century” (Briggs and Burke 2005, 244)

 and:

— “an application that will usher in The Information Age” (Castells 1996, 328)

The Gutenberg Revolution

550 years ago, the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg meant that the number of books in existence rose from a few thousand to 20 million in just 25 years

This led to the Reformation, the Renaissance and the scientific revolution in which centuries-old modes of thinking were radically questioned

The Internet Revolution

—changed by the internet?

-—nature of information

—-communication

—-privacy

—-community

—-online safety

—-business

—-culture 

—-copyright