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.