Revision plan

Revision plan

• Section A practice

Film language concepts e.g. cinematography, camera shots all need to have been looked at again. As well as this, practice needs to be done within timed conditions to simulate the actual exam environment.

• Media debates

Required for both Section A (in questions 2 and 3) and B to take my answers to the band that they need to be.

• Statistics/quotes

Particularly in terms of topics like Marxism & Pluralism and the impact of new and digital media, these are needed just to give my answers some backing to rely on.

• New and digital media stories

I'll need to look over the 75 stories I've done over the year, and pick out a handful of the ones which I believe will be worthy of being mentioned in the exam.

Number of essays: 3

22/05/17 - Up to 70 News Corp Australia photographers made redundant (75)

22/05/17 - Up to 70 News Corp Australia photographers made redundant (75)

Up to 70 (staff) photographers from News Corp Australia titles have been informed that their positions have been made redundant. This comes as Rupert Murdoch's Australian papers have adopted an outsourcing model. This new one entails more of a 'hybrid model, consisting of a core team of photographic specialists, complemented by freelance and agency talent.'  Fairfax Media, another Australian media company, has also taken the initiative to cut costs by cutting 125 journalists on both the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age newspapers. News Corp's attempts to cut costs are associated more so with its printed newspapers, which reportedly attract just a fraction of the advertising revenue that they once did. The papers that will be making this change are the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, the Courier-Mail and the Adelaide Advertiser. An example of represent this is how in a state like New South Wales, a total of just 20 photographers will continue to work across all the local newspapers as well as the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph while over 25 will be made redundant.

• News Corp Australia, which posted a second-quarter loss of $287m in February
• Sources told Guardian Australia that out of 20 photographers at Queensland Newspapers, only five will remain. Thirteen were forced to take redundancy and two took voluntary redundancy

Redundancies in traditional media organisations are just a reality of what's a dying medium today. People trained in areas like photography and just journalism in general are now finding themselves to be put out of their occupations for the simple fact that e-media has taken over. It'll be interesting to see whether or not this leads to a reduction in the quality of news stories over the next few years.

22/05/17 - Gina Miller targets voters with tailored Facebook ads (74)

22/05/17 - Gina Miller targets voters with tailored Facebook ads  (74)

Pro-Europe campaigner Gina Miller is implementing Facebook's advertising in targeting voters in both Labour and Conservative seats. Her campaign group, Best for Britain, is doing this through sending out different messages to different voters in different seats. This is part of what is considered to be a 'digital ground war' that is being fought by both of the main parties on social media. Information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, on Wednesday 17th launched an inquiry into the practice warning what if parties sent politically-charged information to people based on their individual data it could possibly be against the law. This isn't necessarily in suggestion that Miller's campaign is doing this, but her campaign does involve different ads being sent to different groups. For example in Darlington where Jenny Chapman is standing to retain her seat, a 50-year-old voter received an ad saying: 'Jeremy Corbyn is not going to be prime minister, so you can vote for your Labour candidate.' In Southampton Itchen, a Brexit-supporter got the message: 'Theresa May is going to win anyway, but it's important to limit her majority.' With just these two examples it's evident how the ads are tapping into the sentiments people have and utilising them from a political standpoint. Denham also followed up saying: 'If political campaigns or third-party companies are able to gather up very precise digital trails to then individually target people, that is an area [where] they are going to be outside the law.' However a spokesman for Best for Britain has responded in saying: 'We are fully aware of, and compliant with, the ICO’s concerns. We do not take anything for granted and want to ensure donors’ generosity is rewarded with the most efficient and effective activities we can undertake. We do not hold any personal information on individuals, unless they have specifically signed up as supporters of the Best for Britain campaign.'

 

The digital ground war has already seen the Conservatives and Labour spending an estimated £140,000 a week on targeting voters directly through their Facebook feeds

Labour and the Conservatives are expected to spend up to £1m each on advertising on social media in the general election

Gina Miller's usage of new and digital media to target advertising is a foresight into what we're more likely than not going to be seeing in terms of political campaigning in the future. People/institutions will implement social media which acts as fundamentally more effective advertising in order to mobilise votes for things like elections and referendums.

22/05/17 - Spotify now officially has more UK listeners than BBC Radio 1 (73)

22/05/17 - Spotify now officially has more UK listeners than BBC Radio 1 (73)

With Rajar's release of Quarter 1 radio numbers, BBC Radio 1 posted what is its worst quarterly result in history. This can be seen through its average weekly audience falling by over 2 million people in comparison to what was the case in 2012. What makes these figures even more notable though, are how Spotify according to MBW's sources boast over 9.1 million active users in the UK market. This marks the first time where the Spotify UK audience have surpassed Radio 1. The radio network has been what seems like quite a specific target for Spotify UK, 'poaching' key Radio 1 staff such as ex-Head of Music George Ergatoudis to become Head of Content Programming and Austin Daboh who is currently the Senior Editor, Content Programming. Controller of Radio 1, Ben Cooper, in defence of the performance stated that: 'You can't judge a newspaper solely on physical sales - you have to take into account our digital innovations as well.'

• The station's average weekly audience fell to just 9.1m in the period - representing around 14% of the total UK population, and down by more than 2m people compared to five years ago
• Year-on-year, Radio 1's audience dropped by 804,000 compared to the three months to end of March 2016
• Quarter-on-quarter, Radio 1's Q1 audience fell by 459,000 in the first three months of 2017
• In Q4 last year, the station's Rajar number stood at 9.56m people - its lowest last-quarter tally since 2003
• BBC 6 Music posted its biggest ever weekly audience in the period with 2.35m
• Average UK weekly radio listenership grew slightly in Q1, up to 48.23m people - up by 409k on the equivalent period of 2016

This article displays another platform of traditional media being victim to what is a new and digital media development. Streaming services like Spotify now have the capability of exceeding audience listenerships attained by flagship networks like BBC Radio 1. The occurrence of this is something that perhaps a few years back would have come under heavy doubt for as much of its suggestion.

15/05/17 - Spotify takes a step into social media territory with its latest feature (72)

15/05/17 - Spotify takes a step into social media territory with its latest feature (72)

Spotify have revealed a new method of sharing with others. Going by the name of Spotify Codes, it involves one taking a picture of a code using their smartphone camera to get a playlist onto their device. This as the company puts it, allows for 'quick social sharing' with others, also capable of being saved to one's Camera Roll for more easier access. It has also been put forward that these codes will be 'included' into more real world situations, appearing on things like flyers and posters to provide artists and bands an opportunity to spread their music. The service described this as 'an innovative and exciting new way for artists, labels and brands to instantly engage with fans through Spotify.' This comes after Spotify being regarded as the all-out market leader in terms of the paid streaming/pay-to-stream business.

• Spotify disclosed in March 2017 that it had hit the 50 million paying subscribers milestone

The decision of Spotify to go ahead with this new initiative is just reflective of the growth that they seek to obtain as a company. With a feature like this, audiences will be able to be referred a lot more easier to songs to stream by people like friends. Not only this, but it's something that producers in terms of musicians themselves will likely find to be of huge benefit in directing people to their music and expanding their fanbase through the utilisation of real life objects e.g. posters.

15/05/17 - Fake news or not, the future belongs to Facebook (71)

15/05/17 - Fake news or not, the future belongs to Facebook (71)

The month of April saw Facebook buying out full-page print ads in national dailies providing 10 tips to readers for spotting fake news. On top of this the BBC produced a Panorama episode warning people of the dangers that fake news could have. This comes as other media platforms have increasingly more reason to fear Facebook as an institution. It is essentially eating up the advertising growth of newspaper publications, and helping contribute to the falling viewership on TV. As Trump has risen though, fake news has descended into 'a litany media lousiness' with it being an area of operation that is 'totally unregulated' as said by the head of the Commons culture committee. So say if in 2042, we progress to a place where there's no more print papers, TV becomes the dying medium, the BBC becomes a 'much-diminished force' and social media fully capitalises on what are its current footholds, feeding 'on itself as it grows.' How exactly will regulation be able to be administered? A country like Russia will utilise social media to where its another means of propaganda warfare. A country like Turkey remove media communities in their entirety by legislative methods. Ones like China though have devised their own alternatives which go through the process of careful supervision. Without even mentioning what may be the case with other countries, the lack of remote consistency here between countries is clear. There's not an established consensus to combat against 'the giants,' and this depends completely on the system of government and perspective taken on by each nation. The lack of international law over going over digital expansion helps to intensify this situation. This is all without mention of what will likely be the waning pressures on giants from rival media and international organisations. But there remains the possibility that technology won't be the same at all. Perhaps it'll ascend the boundaries that currently hold it back only to find new ones.

• Newspapers see Facebook and Google eating what’s left of their future as the digital giants devour 90% of advertising growth

This article speculates what is a quite interesting view on what Facebook could be like in the future. With the situation that has followed it in the past few months, regarding things like fake news and also the 'devouring' of ad revenue, the prediction put forward for the future of Facebook is not unfeasible by any means. The lack of a global consensus for example is an extension of what we see now in terms of how the misinformation is dealt with.

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 ideologies? (48 marks)

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 ideologies? (48 marks)

New and digital media (NDM) with all its developments in terms of things like user-generated content (UGC) particularly, has had quite a positive impact on audiences. E-media's reference to as the 'the most important medium of the twentieth century' (Briggs and Burke) is testament to this, with there being an estimated 672 billion gigabytes of information in circulation on the internet today. This has undoubtedly given us a diverse range of values and ideologies to embrace, but this could be perceived as as much of a bad thing as a good thing for a number of different reasons.

Blogs and forums are two NDM developments which give us access to a diverse range of values and ideologies. As examples of 'we-media,' they are avenues where audiences themselves are able to actively participate in the production and dissemination of media texts. With blogs for one as online journals/diaries, they can end up actually being more 'detached' and objective in comparison to what we're presented with in mainstream media. This allows those that tend to disagree with the content that they're provided with in the mainstream, a chance to express their dissenting views which is something that's also quite positive from a democracy standpoint. This was demonstrated in 2004 when after Dan Rather, a presenter of the American television programme 60 Minutes on CBS, discussed documents calling into question George W. Bush’s military service record, bloggers worked to speak out against this. An example of one of the blogs used to do this was The Little Green Footballs. With its known right-wing orientation, bloggers on it used the site as a place to present evidence that the documents were forgeries. This resulted not only in an apology from CBS, but more fundamentally an acceptance of blogs as source of both opinions and news by the mainstream media. With this, they help from a surveillance (Blumler and Katz) standpoint since they act as a source of information for audiences whether it be from an alternative viewpoint or not. Forums can be briefly discussed as helping offer this diverse range of values and ideologies with the many-to-many communication that they stipulate. With this it's guaranteed that one will see views that don't necessarily reflect their own, and this helps promote a level of accommodation of different beliefs.

Social networks can also be said to give us this wide range of values and ideologies, but this time through how they've allowed for socially-constructed communities. As stated by Henry Jenkins, social media is an 'arena wherein participatory cultures can be established.' Black Twitter is the best representation of this, where the voicing of perspectives that usually go unheard from get a platform to thrive on, working to challenge some of the negative representations that exist of black people in mass media such as that they're dangerous (Alvarado). Hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, #OscarsSoWhite and #ICantBreathe are representative of the conversations that can be brought up because of socially-constructed communities like Black Twitter, with some even reaching the popularity where opinion leaders (two-step) begin to adopt them too e.g. LeBron James. The alternative viewpoint that can be seen perpetuated by communities like this are representative of the positive impact that a diverse range of values and ideologies can have on audiences, as they become more objective to what they're presented with in mass media which is subject to mediation by producers.

Pluralists would align themselves with the points laid out above in that NDM has only had a positive impact by offering audiences a diverse range of values and ideologies. This is all shown by the ever-so popular we-media technologies which have allowed for a 'technological blossoming of the culture of freedom' (Castells, 1996). They encourage increased objectivity from audiences to what they're shown in mainstream media, which is subject to the process of mediation, and this defiance of mainstream is representative of how 'rebellion is encapsulated in the internet' (Keen).

However Marxists would argue that in reality, NDM has actually had a more negative impact by offering audiences a diverse range of beliefs firstly since they can be supported by inaccurate information. NDM's glaring lack of gatekeepers is already a suggestion as the type of information that can be obtained from it. For example on wikias like Wikipedia, false information such as the statement that John Seigenthaler had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and that Tony Blair as a teenager kept posters of Adolf Hitler in his bedroom can be running around. This relates to Andrew Keen in saying that 'web pages and blogs are like a million monkeys typing nonsense.' Twitter in particular is able to exhibit this with the hate groups that can be seen to reside within it. Its structure as a ‘free platform’ has meant that groups like the EDL utilise the platform as a place to communicate hate speech towards particular sections of society. This is all without even mentioning what is the current online phenomenon of 'fake news.' Disseminating on social networks like Facebook, stories such as Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump and Trump offering free one-way tickets to Africa and Mexico to those wanting to leave the U.S have managed to circulate, with those two stories being among the top hits in terms of fake news stories on the site. With this, NDM can be seen to be more at the detriment of audiences for how it’s helping to spread information of both an undemocratic and untrue nature.

Marxists may also say that with all the developments in NDM, its impact in giving audiences a range of values and ideologies will be limited due to the dominance of news institutions. With how the 'top 5% of all websites accounting for almost 75% of user volume' (Lin & Webster, 2002) it's evident that 'a minority of (media) produces always serve a majority of consumers' (Pareto's Law). Spotify, although not a website, is a service that exemplifies this with its 'Superstar Economy.' In 2013 for example it occurred that the 'top 1% of artists accounted for 77% of recorded music income.' The statistic that ‘most digital services have catalogues of more than 20m tracks are not listened to,’ is something that only proves this further. So even if NDM does provide us with a range of values and ideologies, it's more likely than not the case that audiences won't really embrace them.

On top of this with Spotify in mind, the argument can be put forward that in reality we don't actually receive the range of values and ideologies we think we do and really we're just exposed to the same one. While we do get a sense of a 'runaway world' (Giddens) with the choice of music we have to listen to, the majority of it tends to be solely 'in the interests of profit [...] interchangeable music for a passive childlike and manipulated audience' (Adorno and Horkheimer (1986). This has led to a homogenisation of culture and communication with mainly the US content being at the forefront of this all, lending to the what we see as the cultural imperialism/Americanisation of content. So seeing parallels between both music made in the UK and music made in the US, is something shouldn’t necessarily take one by surprise. With this, it's evident that while we are offered a diverse range of values and ideologies, we're not necessarily embracing different ones and they tend to just be coming from one place [U.S].

In conclusion, NDM can be said to at least offer audiences a diverse range of values and ideologies, but how much of a positive impact it'll have on audiences is limited since it can revolve around misinformation and in reality audiences will end up sticking to the more dominant institutions as a source for this.

UWL visiting lecturer notes

UWL visiting lecturer notes

• London 7/7: Adam Stacey - 'rise of the cameraphone'

• Neda Aghal-Sultan: death captured by recording bystander

• Black Lives Matter movement

• Paris attacks 2015: Facebook's safety check

• Arab uprisings - 2011

• Ethical considerations e.g. intrusion of privacy

• Drop in quality of news - particularly local organisations e.g. seagull news in the Newcastle Chronicle

• 80% of news circulation regarding Brexit was pro-Brexit in terms of newspapers

• Facebook - 1 billion active users per day
• YouTube - 1 billion

• 2015 - first year people spent more time online than on TV

08/05/17 - Spotify and Deezer call on Europe to end Apple and Google's app store abuse (70)

08/05/17 - Spotify and Deezer call on Europe to end Apple and Google's app store abuse (70)

A report by the Financial Times has stated that technology firms such as Spotify have called on Europe via the European Commission (EC) to 'crack down' on Apple and Google's app store practices. As seen in a letter signed by the CEOs of Deezer, Spotify and Rocket Internet to the EC, there's been a request to probe the way both Google and Apple 'abuse their privileged position.' Some of this complaint derives from this concept that mobile OSs, app stores and search engines have made the evolution from 'gateways' into 'gatekeepers,' stopping third-party software from being able to effectively compete with their own services. On top of this, the companies are unable to access customer data when they sign up through an app store like the Google Play Store.  This makes it the second time that Spotify has hit out against Apple, the first being against the 'Apple tax' which the company had which involved the charge of a 30% fee towards any sales through its App Store including subscription services.

• Apple and Google combined, account for 90 per cent of the mobile market

This article could be used to display the way in which online/e-media, with all its good things has also got a more negative side attached to it. Here we see two digital giants attempting to assert their power over other companies in an attempt to prevent them from growing in the way that they should be. Google especially has been notorious for this, particularly in terms of its 'siphoning off' of ad revenue from news publications. It'll be interesting to see whether or not the EC follow through with the request to probe the two giants or not, seeing that they're doing something that could be regarded as preventing competition.

08/05/17 - Facebook Live: Zuckerberg adds 3,000 moderators in wake of murders (69)

08/05/17 - Facebook Live: Zuckerberg adds 3,000 moderators in wake of murders (69)

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has put forward a pledge to gather 3,000 additional content reviewers and also invest in tools to help remove content going against community standards more swiftly for the social network. This comes after the streaming of shootings, rapes, murders and assaults that have gone on on the network over the last couple of months, with these live broadcasts still being viewable to users after being streamed. This is able to happen because what's actually relied on to scrutinise content is the 1.86 billion users and a team of people at Facebook which review reported posts, retroactively removing taking them down from the site. So with this, on top of the 4,500 deep team that is already there, Zuckerberg aims to add 3,000 over the next year 'to review the millions of reports we get every week, and improve the process for doing it quickly.' This year has seen the network come under fire for its inexpediency in taking down objectionable content. Videos such as the one of a Thai man killing his 11-month-old daughter and also the Cleveland murder of Robert Godwin are cases that brought around this criticism, with the former of which being available for 24 hours before being removed and the latter disseminating on other social networks like Twitter. This criticism has even extended as far as the Commons home affairs committee, with it complaining that 'social media companies currently face almost no penalties for failing to remove illegal content' and that sanctions should start to be developed against them for this.

• Facebook relies on reporting tools used by the social network’s 1.86 billion users and a team of people at Facebook to review reported posts and content and retroactively remove them from the site
• Two videos of a Thai man killing his 11-month-old daughter in April were available for 24 hours before being removed, and were viewed over 370,000 times

It appears that in the future, Facebook will see itself be a receiver of quite a hefty load of criticism whether it's from the people or even governments. First it was censorship, then it was fake news and now it's the speed at which they remove objectionable content. While Zuckerberg has made the pledge of introducing another 3,000 content reviewers to the network, he'll probably want to get this done quickly as the content just doesn't seem to stop rolling in. The more cases that come in that aren't put a stop to promptly, the more they'll come under this same fire that they have been throughout the year. Not only will they have to worry about the reaction of the general public to this, but also possible sanctions by governments which the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committees are aiming to put in place against them, as these will add to costs they incur - harming profit levels foe the company. 

MEST3 PPE - Learner Response

MEST3 PPE - Learner Response

1)

WWW: Clearly expressed, with a range of good examples

EBI: Section A answers need to be more developed

2)

I was able to meet my target grade.

3)

Question 1 - 3/8

Question 2 - 3/7

Question 3 - 3/7

4)

My strongest question in Section A was question 3. This was likely due to the fact that I was able to bring in current occurrences in the news industry today such as fake news and its impact on events like the US presidential election 2016 and also the Brexit campaign.

5)

My weakest question in Section A was question 2. I believe this was because I didn't write as much as I possibly could have for it, having only written 2 paragraphs. Just one more paragraph exploring another point could have possibly pushed me to a better mark.

6)

3/5

In covering 3 out of the 5 points laid down in the suggested essay content, I believe I answered the question reasonably successfully. Perhaps a discussion of the millennial audience's tendencies could have taken the essay further though, along with the inclusion of my independent case study (Spotify).

7) 

Question 1: I believe that my answer here was quite middling. While I did discuss things like the editing, cinematography and sound of the products helping to contribute to a authoritative/trustworthy tone, I think I could've talked about how some techniques provide an authoritative appearance but not necessarily a trustworthy one.

Question 2: The same goes for my response to question 2. While I was able to take a theoretical standpoint to things, I simply wasn't able to take it to that next level because I didn't write enough about it. For example, mention of the two-step flow could've definitely been something that could have been explored here with Russell Brand as an opinion leader.

Question 3: My response to question 3 could be classified as one of the stronger answers. This is due to the fact that as well as answering the case that the media should provide accessible platforms for alternative/oppositional voices, I brought about a sense of evaluation saying that actually, there are cases when actually these voices shouldn't be heard.

Question 6: I think that my answer to this essay question was approaching some of the better ones, but something that held it back was my focus on print media/the newspaper industry as traditional media. Talking about my independent case study and how NDM has affected the music industry is an example of something that would be needed to really push my answer up to where it potentially could be.

8)

Media producers can encourage audiences to agree with a certain set of values and beliefs through placing representations of 'ourselves' in those products. Product 1 helps in doing this as the lifestyle that we see with the man 'climbing up the ranks through' is something that perhaps we as audiences aspire to. Lines like 'nothing comes easy,' all help in contributing to this line of appeal of successful careers (Dyer), and so could help provide some personal identification (Blumler and Katz) with sections of the audience.

Producers can also encourage audiences to agree with a set of values and beliefs if they have a celebrity/popular figure upholding them. Product 2 helps represent this, as what we see is Russell Brand behind these discussions attempting to engage particular sections of society with current affairs and political events. By seeing a figure/opinion leader like this behind a series of its nature, it's more likely than not going to be the case that audiences adopt the views that the leader is stating. With this, the sheer influence that opinion leaders have is something that can be exploited by media producers to help encourage agreement with a certain set of values and beliefs, which is something that could also be seen with Plan B and his oppositional view towards the government with Ill Manors. 

Ill Manors is something that did the same thing with its anti-establishment ideology, visible on a number of its different products. For example with the Tag London campaign, what we saw perpetuated throughout were views that were quite anti-government. The fact that this was done on social media by other ordinary people may help members of the audience cultivate views that align with this same outlook on government.  From an ideology standpoint, this could help audiences in adopting more of a Marxist perspective in that we as the masses are dominated by the upper class/elites who impose ideals upon us and this is something which Product Two arguably does in the same fashion.

Independent case study bulletpoints

Independent case study bulletpoints

Social media: Twitter

• Elections (Trump and Clinton)
• Use as a form of surveillance on people
• Globalisation
• Social media movements/revolution e.g. BLM, Arab Spring
• Community formation e.g. 'Black Twitter'

Social media: Instagram

• Facebook buyout
• UGC - 'everything you post is yours'
• Hyperreality
• Two-step flow model
• Male gaze + female gaze

Social media: democracy and elections

• Increased focus on narrative
• UGC (New Zealand - Powerhouse)
• Pluralism - allows for democratic views and freedom
• Two-step flow model
• Echo chambers
• Use of social media by young people

Gaming industry: Activision and Blizzard

• Gaming audience particularly active - Call of Duty Infinite Warfare trailer most disliked on YouTube
• UGC - petitions, mod tools
• Globalisation
• Social media - promotion of games
• Uses and Gratifications - diversion
• Hypodermic needle

Documentary genre

• Cinema being skipped
• UGC contributing to documentaries
• Globalisation - Americanisation
• Social media - trending to get a wider audience
• Docu-drama
• NDM hasn't killed documentaries

Film viewing/distribution

• Major film studio/mini film studio
• Older audiences don't mind spending money
• VoD has more demand from young people
• 2014 - 5.1% decrease in cinema admittance
• VoD - individualised experience (stuff like internet connection is still significant though)
• Pluralists will say it has allowed for more competition

Netflix streaming

• Individualised personalisation
• Technological convergence
• Globalisation - cultural imperialism
• Promotes content via social media
• Approaching 100m subscribers

01/05/17 - Revealed: Spotify poised to expand in London with new UK HQ (68)

01/05/17 - Revealed: Spotify poised to expand in London with new UK HQ (68)

Digital (music) service business Spotify is about to reach a deal in agreement of a lease with property investor Blackstone, to take almost 60,000 square feat at the Adelphi Building overlooking the Thames. Property sources from the West End stated that the move from Argyll Street, currently occupying around 20,000 square feet, to the art deco would give the business space for 'significantly' more employees. This would help complement the increase in staff numbers in the UK which the company has been seeing. As stated in the report: 'The company’s primary focus is to continue its rapid growth and increase the number of users and subscribers in the UK.'

• Spotify was valued at $8.5 billion (£6.6 billion) in a recent funding round, and has 18 offices globally
• Spotify's most recent UK accounts show that staff numbers in Britain rose to 180 in 2015, up from 167 a year earlier.

This article is representative of the ever-so quickly increasing growth of Spotify. To help accommodate the increase in employees that they've been having in the UK, the poised move would help in boosting this even further. This story comes at a time when Spotify has been said to be currently eyeing a listing with them being valued at a whopping £6.6 billion with 18 global offices.

01/05/17 - Google and Facebook bring in one-fifth of global ad revenue (67)

01/05/17 - Google and Facebook bring in one-fifth of global ad revenue (67)

In the year 2016, both Google and Facebook managed to accumulate one-fifth of global advertising spending, which is almost two times what the figure was five years ago. With this, online advertising has overtaken television making it the world's largest ad medium according to data and analysis agency Zenith. Within this online sector, Twitter has been found to be the fastest-growing media owner, seeing ad revenue increase by 734% from 2012 to 2016. An interesting finding here is how internet-only media companies appear to be 'grabbing the biggest slices' of the online advertising market. This has occurred while traditional news publishers have fallen far behind having to undergo things like cutbacks. Google and Facebook on the other hand alone, accounted for almost 20% of global advertising spending with the next runner-up being Comcast who are of course a traditional media owner. This comes as the market leader Google has been facing boycotts from advertisers such as McDonald's and even the UK government itself due to them discovering their advertising spending was being used to place banner ads on top of YouTube videos from groups like Britain First. Regardless though, digital platforms funded by internet ads dominated the top 30 and funnily enough out of this top 30, 20 of the firms are based in the US. This signifies the fact that the nation has the biggest ad market and also has companies that have invested the most in expanding their reach abroad with Silicon Valley innovation powering this growth.

• Twitter is the fastest-growing media owner, increasing ad revenue by 734% between 2012 and 2016
• Google attracted $79.4bn (£61.5bn) in ad revenues in 2016, three times more than the second-largest, Facebook, which pulled in $26.9bn, according to Zenith
• The two companies accounted for nearly 20% of global advertising spending last year, up from 16.3% in 2015 and 10.6% in 2012
• The largest traditional media owner is US broadcasting and cable television company Comcast, which was third with $12.9bn in ad revenues in 2016, up from $11.5bn the year before
• The seven digital platforms (Facebook, Google, Baidu, Microsoft, Yahoo, Verizon and Twitter) generated $132.8bn of internet ad revenues in 2016, accounting for nearly 3/4s of all internet ad spend, and nearly 1/4 of total ad spending

With this article, we see that Google and Facebook still remain as the digital giants they have been known as. Their topmost positions on the Zenith rankings represent this, also showing traditional media owners are increasingly losing their hold within the advertising market. Something that was also quite notable with the rankings was how 20 out of the top 30 media owners were from the US. It could be said that this is representative of the cultural imperialism that we tend to see within today's media. Either way though, it'll be quite interesting if we see other countries becoming more dominant in this ranking across the coming years.