30/01/17 - Lies can thrive in the social media world (42)

30/01/17 - Lies can thrive in the social media world (42)

The current era that we live in now is one of several media sources, spreading news not only rapidly but also to a large number of people. News about politics, instead of being entirely of a quite in-depth nature, is now more of more 'bitesized' format. This carries two particularly huge implications, especially when democracy is concerned. One of them is the huge amounts of inaccurate social media material that come with it. While it is now a lot easier to check what's a lie and what's not, the sheer amount of it makes it more difficult to correct at least the majority of it. Political charlatans use this as well as the 'alt-right,' often using the 'streaming tidal surges of lies and garbage' amongst the accurate information. The strategy has been used in a number of political campaigns too now, including the Brexiteers, Ukippers and also the dismantling of the Obama legacy. The second issue is that the 'historical record of truth is trampled over to provide "alternative facts".' This rewriting of history is something that has already been seen online with articles relating to the Holocaust never taking place among others. With this it's clear that a method of some sort is required to correct these inaccuracies that are now abound online.

With this article, I'm questioning how likely it is for a corrective mechanism that sorts out all fake information on social media to actually be implemented. Sites like wikis and social networks are full of fake news that has disseminated over quite a considerable amount of the population, influencing their views on a number of things. Correcting all of that over a space as wide as the web seems extremely unlikely.

30/01/17 - The reinvention of publishing: media firms diversify to survive (41)

30/01/17 - The reinvention of publishing: media firms diversify to survive (41)

There was once a time where the traditional model of media in which there were a team of journalists creating content and a commercial one selling it to the audience that consumes it, was the norm. However in more recent times this has been proving to be increasingly more ineffective as migration has moved to the digital platform. Advertising is being invested more into digital advertising, but this is in the face of it being more widely distributed and any growth attached with up being siphoned off by Google and Facebook And while methods like programmatic advertising have come through, the model tends to favour websites operating at a large scale which can arise a whole new set of issues for publishers like increasing costs while reducing quality. This has led to Google and Facebook being referred to as a 'duopoly in digital advertising' by heads of media businesses, making it extremely difficult for publishers to rely solely on advertising. For this, publishers like Dennis Publishing have taken it upon themselves to diversify into completely different arenas. For example, in 2014 they acquired BuyaCar through which they sell nearly 200 cars a month which helped to generate a reasonable amount of the company's total revenue that year. The challenges that publishers face in digital advertising can also be used to their advantage though, and this can be seen with Economist. Due to the power of giants like Google and Facebook, the company has been able to push down costs to recruit subscribers. So even though advertising revenue may be on a steep decrease, circulation revenue remains to go up. Factors contributing to a situation like this are the price increases of the magazine and also the company's investment into growing its global circulation. With the latter, it's said that social media has helped halve the cost of investment needed to recruit a subscriber. With this it's apparent that diversification should be a consideration amongst publishers.

• The Economist saw an advertising revenue drop from £83m to £76m last year, but its circulation revenues grew 8% to £176m
• Dennis Publishing is one example of a media company that has invested in product diversification, growing its revenue from £59m in 2009 to £93m in 2016.
• In November 2014, Dennis acquired online car dealer BuyaCar and integrated the e-commerce business with its portfolio of automotive websites. Dennis now sells nearly 200 cars a month and BuyaCar generates 16% of the company’s total revenue
• More than a third of last year’s revenue was derived from digital, but only half of it was advertising

This article represents something that we could be seeing a lot of news publishers undergoing in the next couple of years: product diversification. Relying solely on news to keep companies afloat is looking increasingly less prudent, so ranging into completely different areas may be the more sensible thing to do. What's particularly interesting here though is this idea that 'the same forces [social networks] that are causing these long-established models to crumble are enabling new opportunities for brands to evolve' and perhaps continue to thrive.

Media Magazine conference notes

Media Magazine conference notes

How to be Creative

• Volunteer - don't wait around for opportunities to spring up themselves
• No one comes from nowhere
• Put everything into everything - but life isn't a meritocracy
• Don't wait to be invited to the dance - beware the Doppler effect
• The day after you finish what do you do? - really planning for the future

Sports Journalism

• Kick It Out
• Usain Bolt feature - 'Fastest Man Who Ever Lived'
• Seek new info
• Be prepared
• Believe in yourself
• Be yourself
• Diversity - Black Collective of Media in Sport (BCOMS)

Young People, Media and Democracy

• Disaffection of the young
• Technological determinism/pessimism/optimism
• Digital generation?
• Increasing control of all media by a few corporations e.g. Warner Bros, Fox News...
• Right-wing racist rhetoric
• Social fragmentation
• Political socialisation
• Young people engage in political things like jobs, gender rights, violence...
• Exclusion/inclusion happens in the 'youth voice' process
• Social media provides info, but not how to act on it in the long run
• Traditional media still has a big role in young people's lives despite elements like its stereotypes abound

An Audience with Tony Garnett

• 'Humans live through stories' - narratives and meta-narratives
• Both sides of the referendum had no evidence - generation will have to be aware of the prejudices fake news can have
• 'If the editor of the news isn't omniscient, neither are you'
• BBC has been 'marketised' - its films are its commodities

Identities: Post-colonial theory & blog tasks

Identities: Post-colonial theory & blog tasks

1) 

Films:

• Slumdog Millionaire 
• Kidulthood
• Adulthood
• Attack The Block
• Shank

TV programmes:

• Top Boy
• Citizen Khan
• Casualty
• Luther
• Line of Duty

Online-only productions:

• Brothers With No Game
• Venus vs Mars
• The Ryan Sisters
• All About The McKenzies
• Meet the Adebanjos

2)

Looking firstly at Gone Too Far, and we see that a number of different aspects of the theories can be applied to the film that predominantly reinforce typical black stereotypes. In terms of Alvarado’s theory, the very Nigerian roots of the film is something that can undoubtedly be viewed as exotic  and foreign to (white) British audiences. This is displayed through things such as the traditional West African attire worn by Yemi’s mum and not least through the use of the Yoruba language by her and Ikudayisi. This goes hand in hand with Fanon’s primitivizing element of black stereotypes, simply because the characters in the film are something that the audience is not. Danger is also something present here, with Razer’s showing this particularly. The connotations he gives off whether it’s in terms of behaviour or (more arguably) clothing are ones that can be likened to that of a gangster. This would also link in to the decivilizing that the black community is often victim to through portrayals in the media. To some extent, pity can be said to be a theme within the film. Although not an issue directly explored by any means in it, the environment it mostly takes place in, a council estate, has most of its associations being with poverty and just general adversity. Tight Jeans doesn’t work to subvert any of these stereotypes either and actually, it could be said that it does more than Gone Too Far to reinforce them. For example, the theme of humour is something shown with all 3 of the boys in it with the quite comical discussions they’re having. As well as this, the clothing that they’re wearing which is hoodies and jeans across the board, could be said to work to essentialize them to audiences which robs them of any elements of uniqueness whatsoever. Just like in Gone Too Far, clothing of this nature also has links to gangs and social dysfunction, so even without the boys actually doing anything wrong at all, they’re viewed as dangerous by audiences viewing them. Again similarly to the other film, the setting also assists in doing this. Primitivizing too has to be mentioned here in relation to the discussion that they’re having, in saying that black people have something that others simply don’t.

23/01/17 - Popular newspapers suffer greater circulation falls than qualities (40)

23/01/17 -  Popular newspapers suffer greater circulation falls than qualities (40)

Based on ABC figures, national sales for newspapers have continued to fall whether they're in the popular or mid-market. Sunday editions such as the The Sunday Times and the Mail On Sunday have exemplified this, with these falling by particularly significant numbers. Barely any success can be seen, with the Times being one of the only papers bucking this trend. It also has to be noted though, that these drops in circulation have generally been offset by increases in online readership.

• The Daily Express, for example, sold an average of 391,626 copies a day in December 2016, down by 2.3% on the same month the year before
• Daily Star was down by 2.5% to 440,471
• Daily Mirror was the largest year-on-year faller, down by 11.7% to an average daily sale of just 716,923 copies
• The Sun was down by 10.5% to 1,611,464
• Daily Mail will hardly celebrate the fact that its own year-on-year decrease, at 6.7%, is running ahead of the Express’s decline. Its headline total, 1,491,264, relied on 66,000 bulks
• The Times, had a 9.2% rise over the year to record a total sale of 446,164 (including bulks)
• Guardian fell by 3% on the year (to 161,191)
• Daily Telegraph was down by 3.4% (to 460,054)
• National newspapers jointly enjoyed a 16% year-on-year uplift across digital platforms, giving them a total of 31.5m unique browsers daily across the month of December 2016
• An extra 70m unique browsers accessed online content on the titles, compared with December 2015

Articles this show that soon, we're likely to see a lot more desperate measures being taken by newspaper institutions to offset falls in print readers. They could seek to do this through a variety of different methods, with one of them being offering content alien to both the e-media platform and other newspaper rivals. Either this or what would seem to be a more sensible move is to take an online-only approach just like the Independent.

23/01/17- Winning back advertisers is key to saving the newspaper industry (39)

23/01/17- Winning back advertisers is key to saving the newspaper industry (39)

In recent years, national newspapers have continuously been involved in somewhat of a 'near death experience', with advertising revenue being a key contributor to this. The internet has been the main disruptor here, with it essentially nullifying what were some of the uses of newspapers initially. An example of this is the use of databases which let advertisers target their main audiences, contacting them directly about offers. This of course, proves to be a lot more effective than the newspaper counterpart of just place ads in the paper. It doesn't seem to be all bad though when 'national titles, combining print sales with online numbers, are actually reaching a higher proportion of the UK market than ever before.' What's particularly interesting here is how 18-34 year olds are the group with highest monthly reach, albeit through mobile devices. However it can be understood that this isn't as beneficial as it seems, particularly when all of the national paper's digital audiences can be found through the 'retargeting' cookie-based technology. This means that unique access as well as control of pricing, is completely out of the hands of the paper. Something that has to be noted while this is being discussed, is the way in which advertising revenue is earned. Media intermediaries, the so-called 'guardians of their client's marketing/media budget,' are the people who guide money into relatively small proportions of Internet-provided opportunities. What ends up happening with these intermediaries though, is that over half of the money in the 'marketing pot' doesn't reach the publisher from an advertiser using 'programmatic' advertising on the internet. Where the money ends up going is in the actual hands of media buyers, through the client company's marketing department. Issues of transparency creep up here with both clients and media owners. All this is said though, without the mention of the fact that papers have to compete with other institutions like Facebook and Google, with them accounting for a huge share of the increase in mobile revenue.

• Total readership across print and digital news brands is 35% of the total UK population daily, 63% weekly and 90% monthly, with the highest monthly reach among the youngest groups (18-34) who tend to access via mobile devices
• 75% of the money in the marketing pot does not actually reach the publisher from an advertiser 
• In the first quarter of 2016, Facebook’s net income increased 300% and its margins jumped from 26% to 37%
• 90% of the increase in mobile revenue is going to Facebook and Google

This article represents the pure complexity involved in what exactly is contributing to the loss of advertising revenue for newspapers. They not only have to worry about digital giants like Facebook and Google coming through and taking what should be their revenue, but also a lack of transparency in terms of media intermediaries. The role of these 'guardians' is something which I'll need to observe in future to really view the impact that they have.

January assessment: Learner response

January assessment: Learner response

1)

WWW:

Sharp focus on the question and detailed understanding

EBI:

Lacks much specific discussion of the case study - the press/newspaper industry. Write an additional paragraph on this. Also, a paragraph linking it to Marxism/hegemony.

2)

• Level 4 - a sophisticated and comprehensive essay, showing very good critical autonomy 
• Level 3 - proficient understanding of new and digital media. Need to make mention of the impact that this has had on elements of the newspaper industry - decline in the print platform 
• Level 4 - a sharp focus on the question.
• Level 3 - good application of range of media debates, issues and theories and wider contexts. Need to discuss the impact that current things like fake news can have on this democratic space e.g. reference to Facebook's issues  
• Level 3 - a comprehensive individual case study, with a range of examples. Have to implement the examples of the weekly new and digital media stories on my blog
• Level 4 - well structured, articulate and engaged

3)

I included quite a good number of the higher level points in my essay, such as the digital divide and also Pareto's Law in relation to the control media organisations still have. However I could've added:

• Marxism and Pluralism
• Decline of newspaper industry
• Proper examples from a case study

4)

• Quotes from media theorists/experts
• Statistical evidence
• Discussion about ideology (Marxism and Pluralism/dominant and alternative)

5)

The impact of new and digital media can be said to have been democratic, although this has come at the expense of too much information being 'pushed' to the public. The internet has brought about what Castells referred to as 'The Information Age,' with an estimated 672 billion gigabytes of information circulating around it currently. While this has been good in acting as another source that people can choose to use for information, it has also meant that a proportion of people in society have felt overwhelmed by its gargantuan nature. The Pew Research Center's report into the issue this year showed that some 20% of American adults feel the burden of information overload. This issue seems to be particularly worse in households that are less economically well off, with 47% of those whose household income is less than $30,000 sometimes feeling stressed by the information they have to keep track of compared with 39% of those earning more than $75,000. However, something that can also be looked at is how the truckload of information that comes through the internet, isn't always reflective of the truth. Fake news and just generally inaccurate information, is something that has posed a threat to the very foundations of democracy. In a world where 66% of 9-19 year olds who went online regularly had not been given any guidance about how to judge the accuracy of online information (S. Livingstone), fake news has been able to have influence in significant elements of democracy such as voting. The recent 2016 US election is representative of this, where stories containing misinformation about the presidential candidates were said to have had an impact on people's votes. So when this is factored in, it's bad enough that people get too much information that they have to take in regularly, but they also have to sift through what's fake and what's not. These are some of the more negative impacts that new and digital media has had on the 'democratic space.'

It could also be said that new and digital media is having a negative impact on the democratic space as it's helping contribute to the death of newspaper institutions which actually help underpin democracy. One thing newspapers, particularly local ones, have been notable for is their investigative journalism. This involves newspaper journalists carrying out investigations to help keep the concept of accountability within society. Examples of it go from the 2002 Catholic Church crisis discovered by the Boston Globe, to the Panama Papers by The Guardian among others, to even the 2016 English football scandal by the Daily Telegraph. Journalism like this has ensured that corruption has been kept to as low of a level as possible, with it being exposed when found. However with the 'siphoning off' of ad revenue that digital giants like Google and Facebook have been responsible for, it's been increasingly more difficult for newspaper institutions to continue funding journalism of this nature. This can be seen with The Sun for example, a leader in the UK newspaper market, who in 2016 saw a £10m fall in revenue, with this being able to be attributed to things like the increased usage of new and digital media platforms like social networks e.g. Facebook and Twitter. With this, it could be argued that actually what new and digital media is doing is 'reducing' the level of democracy we get in this democratic space, as it's helping contribute to the death of one of if not the iron core of journalism itself [investigative].