Media News 24/10/12

Facebook shares rise about a 3rd as mobile growth revenue increases

Facebook saw advertising revenue increase 36% year-on-year to £684m 

 but revenue from its payments and other businesses increased just 13% to £110m

14% of ad revenues, about $150m, came from mobile, an area where the company and analysts have expressed concerns about making money.

"Gaming on Facebook isn't doing as well as I'd like," Zuckerberg said. Zynga's shares have collapsed over 76% since December 2011

 Zuckerberg said the number of Instagram users had grown to 100 million from 27 million since the purchase. He said that people spend more time on Instagram than on Twitter, according to Comscore's analysis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/23/facebook-socialnetworking

This shows how Facebook still has the ability to make money regardless of other losses such as FB games e.g : Zynga ,they now have more sales and growth through mobile adds etc.

NEWSPAPERS: The effect of online technology

Newspapers in competition with another to ensure they have enough consumers so they can make money from advertsing to survive.

However it is becoming difficult for papers to complete with e-media services

Over the last decade the Uk's daily newspapers have lost 2.25million readers . This means less money as advertising revenues have also fallen by about 20% over last 10 years.

Some in the nespaper industry say within the next 10years we could see 1-2 Britains biggest newspapers close

WHY ARE NEWSPAPERS IN CRISIS?

 

(Sull- Blog for Finanical Times )

1) Ignoring signs of change:
since 1980's institutions have been able to access news through networks and now through internet , newspapers ignored these early signs of change

2) Dismissing unconventional competitors:
They ignored new ways of access to their businesses : E.G distributing their news now through internet, tv,periodicals etc

3) Experimenting too narrowly
Some didn't spot the rise of digital tech and experimenting. E.G :Some just copy their news online rather than encouraging audiences to interact

4) Giving up on experiments too quickly
Promising business take time and even setbacks, some newspapers didnt give new ideas a chance to build

5) Embarking on a "Crash Course"
Many institutions felt they wern't embracing technology quickly so pushed for merges which didnt work.
Most institutions have been slow to embrace the web but now use it for their target audiences
But it is proving harder to make profits from online publising than it is in print .
So many free news sites= audiences not prepared to pat money to read news online .
So...web has to rely on adverts for income..
However online advertisers have many more spaces to choose from and alongside this there is less certinty of who will see adverts =
More Complex & Competitive

 

IMPACT OF ONLINE TECHNOLOGY ON NEWS

 

Traditional Paper Based Form                                    Online News Site

Has a purchace price-Not free                                   Has mostly free content
                                                                                  Can be accessed anywhere
Easily marked or destroyed                                    Content remaines even if portal of access destroyed
Usually targets a specific audience
Cost to produce paper,printing etc
Cost to distribute                                                         Cheap to distribute
                                                                                    Can offer countless news/archive stories
                                                                                    BUT may be re-workings -  coppied
Only print version of story available
Cannot be updated immediately/regualrly
Not interactive                                                               Can be interactive
No audience UGC/feedback/citizen journalism
Can offer depth analysis/comment BUT limited          Varied opinions for expansion of matter/
                                                                                        depth editorials / comment

 

AUDIENCE GRATIFICATIONS OF THE GUARDIAN WEBSITE

Feature                                                                                   Audience Gratification

Long running chat board
Network of web blogs
Leaving comments on articles                                             Audience feel powerfull- idea that they are
                                                                                             challenging the news institutions values
Readers can acces articles online,phone,RRS,Ebook
Varied categories in easy accessible genre areas
Images
Podcast
Access to paper-based content
Dating sites/Personals

SHOULD NEWS BE FREE?

 

James Murdoch of Newscorp= critical of free news online = He states that the BBC "expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision,”
and also stated news  by the BBC made it “incredibly difficult” for other news organisations to ask people to pay/suscribe
He stated that ".It is essential for the future of independent digital journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it.”

NewsCorp are driven by the need to make money whereas BBC, a PSB is less economically concerned as they are gov funded .
News Corporation has said it will start changing online customers for news across all its websites and generate money from subscription, but this doesntmean that people will pay.

ONLINE NEWS = THE DEMOCRATISATION OF NEWS ?

 

It is the changing lifestyles of audiences that pose the biggest problem for newspapers.

 

Murdoch; “The internet has given readers much more power.  .... people are taking charge of their own lives and they read what they want to read or what they are interested in and young people today are living on their computers. The world is changing and newspapers have to adapt to that.”

Media producers go further in how audiences are shaping the news.

 Editor of  Reuters, Chris Cramer said:

“These days journalists rarely break the story, most compelling pictures come from eyewitnesses, and not from journalists. ...

citizen journalism is not a fab or an intriguing addition to traditional journalism, but here to stay...
Passive audiences are gone forever...
...media owners need to embrace the ‘digital conversations’ with their new, activist, audiences.”

 

Cramer’s comments upove highlight several things:

1. Advanced technology mean that audiences can record news and offer it to news institutions
2. New institutions have to recognise the fact of eye-witness audience accounts if they want to be successful
3. The journalist’s role has to be about the checking and verifying content of an active audience rather than researching and relating the news themselves.  This shows precisely what the role of a journalist should be in the future.

The nature of news production is changing so media organisations are having to adapt to a ‘news revolution’ =  the switch from mediation of info by a professional / elite : TO :  active citizens that are generating news stories themselves.

Newspaper institutions E.G:  The New York Times have recognised that the news-gathering in the future = a partnership between professional and citizen journalists.  New York Times is helping community websites = a way to get news from local sources. 

BUT 

 bloggers of news are usually middle-class, young adults who are not exactly covering the kind of news that adults/  (other demographics) are interested in. so... a group of people may not have their opinions voiced in the news, or may not find anything of interest to them.

 

AUDIENCE POWER??

 

Audiences are more active in the way they consume news. E.G:  online communities =access to info & not restricted by the legal rules that apply to news institutions.

E.G : active participation when the Twitterverse (the new name for the world of ‘Twitter’) + Wikileaks who supported The Guardian against a company who had legally ‘gagged’ the newspaper from revealing their illegal actions on the Ivory Coast.

The audience uncovered links and applied some pressure by writing about the company and soon the information was made available.

Another E;G = of audiences challenging editorial decisions = The Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir’s article about the death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gateley led to protests over its homophobic tone.http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2009/oct/19/power-of-social-networks)

This went worldwide + audience flooded the Daily Mail’s website with negative comments about the article and its author.

The P.C.C. (Press Complaints Commission) has had 21,000 complaints about this story.

This highlights that a editorial judgement can create web outrage even affecting the advertising revenue as Marks and Spencer removed their ads from the Daily Mail website.

  So far, nothing has been done to sort out this issue with the newspaper itself, or the journalist.

“Perhaps what it does highlight is that Moir, or her editors, or both, misjudged the speed of the web and social media in their power to highlight and pressurise"

 

 

 https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1cHq3uMTwSmPK-HUVTi9yYVHpmkK53NHD3Dgu0H5_yCQ

 

Media News 18/10/12

18/10/12

Twitter uses its censorship policy for the 1st time for a Pro-Nazi account ....

• Besseres Hannover - Better Hanover - is a Hitler-worshipping group that called for a Fourth Reich, the expulsion of immigrants and new round-ups of Jews. Members of the group have been charged with racial hatred and creating a criminal organisation

German police/goverment, requested the account be closed.

The tweets will no longer be visible to users in Germany although the rest of the world will be able to view them.The account was blocked an account in a whole country for the first time when it stopped Germans receiving or viewing past tweets from a banned neo-Nazi group.

Twitter is the first example worldwide micro-blogging site that prides itself on free speech and which helped to fuel the Arab Spring uprisings and used to organise themselves. Is now using  its "country withheld content" function to block accounts that violatelocal laws , this came into force in January.

SUMMARY :

This shows that now social networking at internet in general is taking a more harder approach on the uses of sites and the content that goes onto them however because the German goverment requested for the accounts closure can show that perhaps Twitter do not pay as much attention to the content of tweets etc which can be an example of why the Arab Spring was able to organise themselves through Twitter.
Moreover it can be seen as a way of limiting the freedom of speech and pluralism of people.

New & Digital Essay Feedback

L4 )

WWW: Very good understanding of the question and detailed well planned answers, using examples effectivly

EBI: Try to start with a more impressive introduction : Rewrite referencing a theorist/commentator, including examples and more keywords.

Learner Response :
New and Digital media has transformed the media landscape hugely in comparison to Gutenburgs printing press revolution. The internet is seen to be "The most important medium in the 20th century" Briggs and Burke (2005) due to it allowing plurality, diminishing gatekeepers and a new advanced form of communication. However this new and advanced technologys impact on society and bringing about positive impact may be questioned to due its "Killing [of] our culture" Andrew Keen and its flaws such as privacy and accuracy. 

Questions to the Rise & Rise of UGC

1. What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?
   It is news that is generated from ordinary people
   
2. What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?
   1991 "What started the LA Riots" -> Rodney King getting beaten up by police
   
3. List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.
   Chat rooms , Message boards, Blogs with comments enabled, Q &A
   
4. What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?
   UGC= raw, grainy low footage quality in comparison to clearer footage and from different angles
   
5. What is a gatekeeper?
   They decide what is/isnt published/broadcasted to audiences
   
6. How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?
   Yes as groups that had little self- representation, low income, minority groups now also have a voice through citizen journalism, blogosphere and other internet forms.
   
7. What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?
   If the media is left to the people and unmediated, there is a fear of it being handed over to fools/ people unexperianced , defamatory or even racist people

Find and watch a YouTube citizen journalism clip for each of the examples listed in the article (the Rodney King beating,the Asian Tsunami,the 7/7 bombings, the Virginia Tech shootings, the Mumbai bombings, the Hudson River plane crash) and embed them on your blog

RODNEY KING BEATING :


ASIA TSUNAMI



7/7 BOMBING



VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTING



MUMBAI BOMBINGS



HUDSON RIVER PLANE CRASH

Rise and Rise of UGC NOTES

2009 - Sara Mills  / AQA Examiner

• New technologies = audiences are no longer passive recievers of news
• Audience = create their own content
• Audience have become users and users become producers
• The old divide between institution and audeience has been eroded due to UGC
• UGC e.g: Phones and internet alter the growth of technology + the risser of the "citizen journalist"      
         
• 1991 Video Camera example -> "What started the LA Riots" first example of news being generated from "ordinary people" -> rodney king beat up etc- recorded from onlooker from a window -> led to being on the news and focusing on police reacism etc- >   
               
• News generated by ordinary people = "citizen journalists" ,"accidental journalists" ,"grassroot journalists"
• Most news organisations include formats on participation e.g: message boards,polls, chat rooms, comments etc
• Social networking sites built around UGC e.g : Bebo, MySpace, Youtube and FB
• Youtube = highest in terms of where people get their news
• Natural Disaster of the -> Asian Tsunami Dec 26th 2004 another turning point for UGC as early fottage of the event was from "citizen journalists or accidental journalists" who were eye witnesses of the event. e.g: tourists ...... social networking sites provided witness accounts for worldwide audeinces and even helped survivors and family to keep in touch
•  London bombings 5th July 2005 provided another opportunity for citizen jounalists to influence the mainstram. --> footage provided from mobile phones and first hand view rather than behind police lines.
• 23Year old Seung Hui Chon mailed into NBC news showing him shooting two people and further 30 people. The events affective citizen jounalism and the person who recorded the events Jamal Albarghoutinear recording  the firing-  rather than saving himself is also available on youtube and CNN  as we now expect witnesses/ victums to take out there camera and record events .
  
  The news seems old fashionesd if it lacks the raw low footage quality by citizen journalists
• Mumbai bombings 2008 Nov -> media got uptop date with reports on Twitter and Flikr ... This rasied Q's that by broadcasting tweers people may be putting their own and other lives at risk
• Twitter again used -> during story of Hudson River plane crash Jan 15 2009 with the picture of the plane and a tweet by Janis Krun

• WHO'S KEEPING THE GATE ????

are old gatekeepers still deciding what is / isnt the news?
Yes ....? --->

• You can send as much UGC to news organisations with no guarantee that any of it will ever be aired
• Blogosphere --> provides an opportunity for independent often niche views and news to reach a worlsdwide audeince
  uniting dispaate people in "micro communities" is one of the webs greatest abilities
  groups that had little access to self reprentation such as youth groups , low income groups and various minority groups now are able to have a voice through things such as citizen journalism, blogospehere and other internet forms.

1. WHAT ABOUT PROFESSIONALS  ????

It is likely that in the future there will be fewer permanant trained staff at new organisations leaving a small crowd who will manage and process UGC (citizen jounalists / crowd sourcing)
some fear mediators and moderaters also will disapeare
Raises Concern:
If the media is left to the people and unmediated, there is a fear of it being handed over to fools/ people unexperianced , defamatory or even racist people

Flikr owned by Yahoo
Youtube bough Google
Microsoft invested into Facebook
News Corp (Murdochs) bought MySpace

Potential to expand !

Media News 11/10/12

11/10/12

European commissioner Neelie Kroes has accused members of the online industry of watering down a standard designed to protect consumers' privacy on the web.

• Websites are under pressure to allow consumers much greater control over how they are tracked online.
• Much online tracking happens via cookies, small files that are used to recognise consumers when they revisit a site and to track activity across the web.

• European laws that define how cookies are used came into force on 26 May. It requires websites to explain what cookies are and to get users' permission before using them.

• In the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) recently said that it would launch a crackdown on those not complying.

 

This shows the negatives of the internet and that their is still concerns of privacy and tracking , it lays the question on wheter we really are protected or safe .
Regardless of EU laws there still is the ability to track down people using cookies.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19908880 

Media News 4/08/12

4th October 2012

Facebook now has more than one billion people using it every month, the company has said

 

 A record breaking 1billion people worldwide are now using Facebook every month.

Zuckerberg announced it as the thing he is "most proud of in his life."They reched the "milestone" meaning Zuckerberg has achieved his stated ambition 

600 million users accessing the site via a mobile device - which is up 48 million from 552 millionin June this year.

Although the service is by far the world's biggest social network, there are key areas, such as China and Russia, where local competitors still remain as the main online networking choice.

Reference : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19816709
And also http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/04/facebook-hits-billion-users-a-month

The Virtual Revolution Notes

PART 1

• Tim Burners Lee - Created the web -> He was blamed to create web adicts + open relmes of knowledge
• There is a Digital Divide of : } Digital haves + Digital have nots
• All Gore - Vice President of US  = interent is a "empowering tool"
• Nearly 35million people are online everyday
• 1/4 of the planet use the web
• A billion £ is sepent on the web
• 5million people use dating websites a month
• 40% of men use the web for porn
• 18 million read blogs in West London
• Internet Revolution is compared to the Industrial revolution
• More than 65 million use wikipedia a month
• Ordinary people can author and edit wiki -> this challenges authority and leady to pluralism and people power.
• Andrew Keen -> Internet is reducing culture
• The Well by Stewart Brand -> where everything came about e.g FB,twitter ->Libertarianism
• Jhon Perry Barlow believes the self expression should have no limits -> " control what people believe by controlling what they have access to"
• Ushahidi allows people in kenya to have voices
• 1991 -> was the first website
• Accuracy of wikipedia ?
• Libertarianism VS. counter culturalism -> reject authority, state control , reject censorship
• Blogging allows -> Self expression
• All Gore -> the internet is "exciting and revolutionary"
• Internet [Paradiym shift] -> that the internet reshaped our thinking just like the printing press

PART 2

• Shawn Fanning -> owner and founder of Napster
• Music privacy gone global and people breaking the law for the 1st time
• He though that it wouldnt change the music industry
• 2001 -> napster was shut down
• A way that web threatened tradional business
• Metallica -> biggest threat at the time and had great contempt for illegaling downloading
• Chad Hurley -> Co-founder and CEO of Youtube says that it gives "everyone a chance too be seen"
• Over 2 billion videos are uploaded a day
• Youtubes 1st video uploaded 2005
• Old hierarchys are still their but eventually when you get big you have to join up with traditional media e.g: youtube->music companies
• The Huffington Post by Ariana Puffington -> 1st news paper type  website
• Jimmy Wales = co founded of wikipedia
• Youtube allows -> plurality-> freedom of voices

Summary- (pros + cons)  :

   (+)                                                             (--)     

Democratication -> voice                              Control

Enpowerment                                              Elites and Hierarchy

Creative Freedom                                        New Gate Keepers -> editors,producers who control  Innovation                                                   the media/ control the "gate"      

Equality                                                      Colonisation -> The taking over of businesses/elites  

UGC e.g: Youtube                                       Piracy

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