Summary = In the age of media 2.0 - six questions about media and participation

Web 2.0 : audeinces producers & consumers
Blogs/ forums... people have voices / speak back to the elite in power
Wiki - share knowledge / challenge elites & experts
Youtube - distribute own media
(Free + Open) - not alot of money , dont depnd on gatekeepers , accessed anywhere/anytime


Web 2.0 : Rebrand the internet business
Is web 2.0 actuallt different to 1.0
Tim Berners Lee = Web 2.0 been arounsince the beginning of internt
"Power to people & undermine pollitical elites + co-operations"
less revolutionary -> more complicated
danger of (technological determinism) --> technology = social change in/of itself
technologies created in response to social,economic + cultural developments

Participation
Web 2.0 not always wholly reliable
Pew Foundation in USA -> high estimate of young people "share content" online
Hitwise = number of active participants is very low .... less that 0.5% of Youtubers actually upload material. + little is originally produced originally ->  mostly pirated clips from commercial media

Social Inequallities :
Young women = leading the way in blogging
Young men =  dominate video sharing
In US = young people from high income families = post/ share online
diadvantaged communities =  less likely to have multimedia capabilities / computering that are needed for sophisticated content creation

Divital divides = still apparent
Yound wealthy middle class families = more likely to have books at home  -> use web for education and to participate in creative or arts related  activities online.
The most active participants of world 2.0 are the 'usual suspects' -> people who are alread privleged in other areas of their lives
Young people = take up most social networking sites
Older people = fastest group of subscribers
Middle Aged People = micro - blogging service - Twitter
Young people = early adopters -> their the 'digital generation' and the technological gap is becoming outdated

Participation or "Creating Content"
difference between posting a comment on a social newtworking site / forum in comparison to filming,editing and posting a video
All these things are seen to be participation
Only a small proportion of users are generating original content => most are consuming it

Entusiasts for media celebrate the 'cool stuff' that can be found online e.g : fan mashups, videos about political activism etc
They ignore the domestic practises e/g : funny videos or pets/ children and domestic accidents that tend ot get the most views on Youtube

Amature video making -
dominated by home movies of family life, childresn parties or holidays at the beach
The material of amertures is rarely edited or shared
It is not entirely trivial/useless -> home video e.g the family photo album can play a role in memories and family relations
However people dont see it as anything to do with the mainstream media let alone able to challenge the Big Media

Celebrities = a democratic possibility due to Web 2.0
Rupert Murdoch:
Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media élite… now it’s the people who are taking control. (2006)

Two richest media corporations -> Google and FB are diversifying their businesses
Into a range of media products and services
Democratic participation = growing in some global companies
E.g : Youtube (now owned by Google) took 5 years before it came into profit and becoming the 2nd most used site online
Services like FB/Twitter have struggled to find ways of 'monetising' what they do
Services e.g Murdochs MySpace have had a rapid fall

Internet = niche marketing + targeting individual customers
As we surf info about our habits/ preferences being gathered by 'cookies'
Cookies ensure advertising & marketing is targeted at people that are intrested in it
This is called ''Data mining'' -> data  grouped together + sold onto companies

Who is doing the work ?
viral marketing = consumers recruited to distribute messages on behalf of companies
Companies such as (orange) have picked up on UGC by running competitions for consumers to create videos to promote their products
This is ''loser -generated content'' as Soren Peterson says
Unpaid labour goes into production of blogs e.g while most of their income goes to the corporations
Social networking participants spend adges working on their profile and networkd which they are unable to migrate to another site
Zukerburg owns the copyright of all the content on FB so he can do as he wish to it

Fan websites=celebrated by Media 2.0 enthusiastics
some argue fan websites take back control of the media -> makin own message of texts --> more democratic
Copyright owners e.g J.K Rowling + Warner Bros who own Harry Potter have tooken legal action against fans who reworked their material in making fan fiction/mashup vids
Fans could just be promoting the brand + using Harry Potter to express their ideas BUT their doing it in a way that conributes to the sucess of the big companies
They may be active participants but also the ulitmate consumers.

2.0 Rescue Democracy
is it liberating or enpowering ordinary people to start controlling the media
despite entusiastics the digital media isnt likely to result in a society of creative media producers
printing press led to = society of published authors
Just like old media -> new media = diven by commercial imperitives (some benifit from these developments more than others)
Certinly democracy in Web 2.0



 

Leveson Inquiry : MPs dont want a press reglation law ???

More than 80 MPs and peers have urged the man carrying out an inquiry not to recommend a press regulation law

• Lord Justice Leveson is due to publish his report on Thursday.
• Lord Justice Leveson was asked to produce a list of recommendations for a more effective policy and regime for the press, which would preserve its independence while encouraging higher professional standards
• Earlier this month, 42 Conservative MPs and peers wrote to the Guardian arguing in favour of some form of law underpinning for press regulation
• Politicians, led by former Labour home secretary David Blunkett and Conservative MP Conor Burns, argue in: "As parliamentarians, we believe in free speech and are opposed to the imposition of any form of statutory control even if it is dressed up as underpinning."

Overview :
It is seen that more liberal and Labour MP's are agains any sort of law or restriction on the press in comparision to Conservative MP's. The result will be given on Thursday which potentially could have a huge effect on on news, press and the media in general.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20517798

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?

Web 2.0: Participation or Hegemony Notes ?......  

producers to audiences, or audeinces just absorbed into the values of ‘old media’.

(+) Web 2.0 (Tim O’Reilly in 2005)  allows audiences to become producers of media  : E.G : blogs, where audiences can produce & share, their work.

Web 2.0, often referred to as ‘we media’, as it democratises the media, as anyone create and publish texts UGC we no longer have to rely upon professionals (traditional ‘old’ media) to act as the gatekeepers.

"it allows thousands of people and small producers to create products, access markets, and satisfy customers in ways that only large corporations could manage in the pastTapscott and Williams 2006"

(-) Some believe that less gatekeepers mean ---> ‘dumbing down’ and ‘the cult of the amateur’
as ....anyone, regardless of ability or expertise, can create texts/info .

IAN THOMLINSON :

(+)**A New York lawyer sent a video he’d made of the incident to The Guardian. This showed that the police version of events of the Ian Tomlinson death was not true.

Although the newspaper is an example of traditional media, the fact that it could put the user-generated video on its website, and make it available on YouTube, emphasises how audiences can more readily challenge the official version of events.

Examples of the ‘political’ impact of amateur video on the web was the death of Ian Tomlinson.....(who died after being hit by a policeman during the 2009 /G20 summit protests in London)

policeman Simon Harwood, seen on video attacking Tomlinson, is to be tried for manslaughter next year; without the ‘Web 2.0’ intervention it is unlikely thatthe case would ever have gone to court.

(-)  In April 1979 Blair Peach was killed in similar circumstances as Ian Thomlinson, and to this day no one has been charged with his death.

INTERNET

(+)  The argument that the internet has a liberating political function , because authorities cannot control it as it is a decentralised network

Technology empowers the people, who, oppressed by years of authoritarian rule, will inevitably rebel, mobilizing themselves through Facebook, Twitter…Morozov 2011: xiv

 Twitter is an information-distribution network,
not different from the telephone or email or text messaging, except that it is
real-time and massively distributed — a message posted by a blogger can be re-published thousands of times and transmitted halfway around the world instantly

The ability to go ‘viral’, is something that was not possible in pre-internet days.

the internet has given the people a potentially powerful tool to communicate with each other, and so to challenge their rulers social networking sites have made the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings which enabled protestors to bypass the centralised state media

Yahoo was prosecuted successfully in a French court for allowing Nazi memorabilia to be sold on a site it was hosting

Although Yahoo is based in USA, where such behaviour is not illegal, in France it is.

The case showed that the law of the nation state remained powerfull, even in the ‘boundary-less’ world of the internet.

(-) It is believed that cyberspace might challenge the authority of nation-states and move the world to a new, post-territorial era. Goldsmith and Wu 2006

E:G : authoritarian countries – those without a free press
The internet has loosened official control, but not eradicated it.  ‘We Media’ is not strong enough  to allow ‘people power’ to succeed.

countries like China and Iran have successfully controlled the general population’s access to the internet, and so have prevented the free circulation of information

YOUTUBE / Dummbed Down -// Trivial( of little value) (+) YouTube allows users to create their own ‘channels’. ‘My’ YouTube home page is currently plugging channels by artists such as Rhianna, Beyonce and Katy Perry. Clearly artists are using the site as a promotional vehicle.

Burgess and Green conclude that there are two YouTubes; they argue it is

‘a space where these two categories [traditional media and home video] co-exist and collide, but do not really converge’ (41).

YouTube is now used more frequently as a commercial network for promotional and catch-up purposes that runs alongside, and probably dominates, the original, usually trivial, user-generated content.

Carmody 2011: even as we become used to watching television programmes on computers, mobile phones or music players, we still experience it as television.

 (-) 

The first ever video posted on youtube was ‘Me at the zoo’ (April 23, 2005): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw

It was typical of the original ‘home video’ , Although it has been watched 6,131,062 times as of 13th December 2011, it is entirely trivial; so too is the ‘Laughing baby ripping paper’, although this is much more watchable (over 41m views): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXXm696UbKY).

Jean Burgess and Joshua Green (2009) found that 42% of the sampled clips were uploaded by fans rather than the traditional media companies themselves.

In the last two years this percentage will have increased, as YouTube has become a medium of ‘catch up’ distribution in the UK, for Channels 4 and 5.

The Amateur / Celebrity

(+)   This co-option of the ‘amateur’ is seen in the way meaning is structured by the dominant ideological discourse.

 E.G :  YouTube has allowed ‘ordinary’ people to become celebrities, such as ‘Charlie is so cool like!!!’ (http://www.youtube.com/user/charlieissocoollike?blend=1&ob=4),

 they do not have the same status as celebrities created by traditional media.

 

However, before we conclude that television has simply ‘co-opted’ (incorporated) YouTube, it has been argued that the internet offers a diversity of viewpoints, both ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’, it is much more difficult to structure how meaning is created, and so it irr4s less hegemonic (Driscoll and Gregg, 2008).

(-)  Graeme Turner (2004) argues: Even when ordinary people become celebrities through their own creative efforts, there is no necessary transfer of media power: they remain within the system of celebrity native to, and controlled by, the mass media. (Burgess and Green 2009: 23)

Without the help of traditional media Charlie McDonnell cannot exercise ‘celebrity power’; he is defined as a celebrity in the terms of traditional media only.Who has the power?

Has Web 2.0 switched power from producers to the audience? .

(+) the audience – no longer have to rely upon the token ‘access’ traditional media offered us E.G : newspapers’ letter pages or radio phone-ins.

 we can easily produce texts ourselves, even if we seem to be more interested in mimicking traditional media by becoming YouTube celebrities, or watching music videos and/or television programmes by favourite artists.

(-) still early days in the development of user-generated content.

 Over the next few years, net-based audience-produced texts may start having a more distinctive impact upon the internet.

 user-generated content may develop its own codes and conventions different to those of the traditional media.

 injustices can be challenged more easily; but the problem of political, and legal, controls will be harder to overcome

PLAN OF ESSAY Q:

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?

It can be said that audiences now have access to greater variety of values and views due to Web 2.0 (social media) as it allows  we media’ which  democratises the media and society , for example user generated content shows that we no longer have to rely upon professionals ) to act as the gatekeepers.This highlights that more values are now given to the ordinary people. One example of this is the Ian Tomlinson scandal where a  New York lawyer sent a video of the incident to The Guardian. Showing the police version were false
the UGC video was put up on the guardian .This emphasises how audiences can challenge the official version of events and now play a bigger part in society

Web 2.0 also allows audiences to become producers of media for example blogs, where audiences can produce & share, + express their views this shows that internet now has a liberating political function , as authorities cannot control it anymore as it is a decentralised network meaning it gives the people a powerful tool to communicate with each other, and challenge their rulers . An example of this liberating function is seen through the ‘Arab Spring’ which led to bypass the centralised state media and shows that the state and goverment now has less control over the internet and society.

However audiences are also limited as there are now less gatekeepers due to UGC and other factors supports the view that the information on the web and of society is‘dumbing down’ and ‘the cult of the amateur’ is now emerging (Andrew Keen)  . This is because anyone, regardless of ability can create texts/info therefore there could be false views, lowering the value of news/ info on the internet. An ezample of this is

 The first ever video posted on YouTube was ‘Me at the zoo’ (April 23, 2005) which has no critical or factual information and emphasises the dumbing down of the net

Furthermore ‘We Media’ (Web 2.0)  is not strong enough to allow ‘people power’ to succeed as countries like China have successfully controlled the general population’s access to the internet, and so have prevented the free circulation of information. For example in china there are 30 thousand people secretly police the web -> "great firewall of china". This emphasises that regardless of the power of the web and the values and power it gioves to society it is still able to be controled.

Virtual Revolution 2 (NOTES)

Jeff Bezos - co founder of Amazon:
"we change tools and tools change us"

Wikileaks - Annonomous links with the gov, links with BNP members - they exposed all BNP members such as teachers etc...protecting the public
over 1.2 documents online and has military protection
2008 = court injunction after wikileaks tax invasion
Allows annonomous publication of info that will challenge the goverment
Wikileaks owned by Julian Assange

"Impossible to stop something spreading" - Bill Gates

Internet (-) =
No central conrtol (Decentralised)
Cannot be shut down
Threat to gov
No regime can control it
Cant supress information

Mich Kapoor "censorship is damaged"

No longer limited in politics -> we can express own pollitical views through the internet (+)

State can entrench people identities
China 1 party state ..Web acts as a oppostition to this
over 250 million users online in china - (more than anyone in the world)
Web is a threat to the China govement (the state)

30 thousand people secretly police the web -> "GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA"
censorship of web e.g: NY Times, Wikipedia , BBC

2008 China Earthquake = news uploaded through the web (Bloggers) phones , images of dead childrens names in school -> Challenge to the goverment

300,000 (fiftycenters) in china
fiftycenters... write articles - each article written the writer gets 50 cent
way of promoting goverment (communism) Hegemonic/ dominant ideologies from the gov

Al Gore : Presidents respond to bloggs on the web and respomg  to political conciousness on the web

if you are on social netwroking = surveillance

Whistleblowing (telling on someone) -> censorship not allowed to (?) or go against organisations

Peter Thiel - Founder of Pay Pal - 1990's
THE.. " NEW WORLD CURRENCY"
moves across the nation within cyberspace
"Globalisation= a breakdown of barriers" / Transfer money internationally
change of transactions = People have soverignty over their money

Web (-)
Linked up exremists
Al Qa'da + Taliban = propganda videos "shock taktics"
(Graphic images) for people to sign up to their ideologies
Their material throught net -> they can control how the message is portraid

Their " PORATBLE HOMELAND" -> people from different countries link through web - if they have the same views --> seems as if they all live in one place -> people connected through the web
"Web collapses distances"
...
But also can lead to (CYBER BALKANISATION) =small groups against each other
e.g :

2007 Assult through web in Estonia (Russia)
97% of their money transactions doe through the web - was under "cyber attack"
was a cyber attack due to a cyber warrior
their was a "DENIAL OF SERVICE" - no one able to access websites
This had an effect on the economy, banks and businesses

Cyber War = the state dont know who/where it is coming from due to the fact it is in "cyberspace"(the web)

If more poeople go online :
Have a voice/ purality .... BUT .... New Dangers ??




 

Summary of BBC Newsnight story :

SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS:

• A BBC Newsnight report in which an abuse victim accused an ex-Tory politician of sex abuse should not have been broadcast, says the BBC director general George Entwistle
• Entwistle has resigned due to the Newsnight affair
•  Jeremy Paxman (the reporter) dismisses rumours he's leaving BBC show ....But The Daily Mail notes that Paxman refused to confirm whether he would remain in the long term
• Director General of BBC apologised to Lord McAlpine (MP Accused) after the report led to him being wrongly implicated .
• BBC paied  £185,000 to Lord McAlpine for running a poorly sourced story linking him to a paedophile ring
• MPs questioning BBC offered of a £450,000 payoff for former BBC director general George Entwistle, who resigned this month after the Newsnight affair
• Media watchdog Ofcom has confirmed it is investigating both Newsnight and ITV's This Morning programme over the allegation
• Steven Messham (victum) told  the media that the accusation was false and told The Telegraph  the allegations were “totally untrue” and hopes that it does not stop other abuse victims coming forward.

OPINION
This is significant in showing how unthinkingliy BBC report news and how they rush into assumptions over rumors on the internet, it shows that you should check twice about the reliability and justification behind rumors and stories online. It shows how fast any broadcaster or service can be a victum of new and digital media as it has become so mainstream and big that it is now difficult to define what is true and false on the internet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20278885
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2227548/Tory-rapist-told-hed-kill-I-told-police-Sex-abuse-victim-claims-warned-die-breathed-word-attacker.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9652824/BBCs-Newsnight-airs-claims-of-child-abuse-against-leading-Tory-politician.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/15/newsnight-this-morning-ofcom

Letter to Murdoch

Dear Mr Murdoch
I am writing to discuss your view on charging for news online, in my opinion I see this as a terrible and useless idea for today’s society. Why would audience want to pay for news when they can get it for free on their TV and phones from various sites? .I consider the view that professionals need to be paid and that many newspapers will lose out due to the cut of profit from newspapers. However does the loss in profit mean that you should moneymise newspaper businesses through the web. 

Your quote that “The world is changing and newspapers have to adapt” is seen to have started to have impacts through The Times by the “Pack’s” available such as
The Web Pack
For your laptop or desktop with unlimited access to thetimes.co.uk and thesundaytimes.co.uk....£1 per week for the first 3 months.
The Digital Pack
A tablet edition, through our Smartphone app or online...£4 per week
The Classic Pack
Read the paper every day. Enjoy unlimited access to our Smartphone app and online too.
£6 per week

Nevertheless how much do these “packs” truly adapt newspapers into the changing world of today. It provided news instantly and on the go however it doesn’t adapt into the social attitudes of saving money and becoming active audiences; nor does it help target specific niche audiences.

Therefore In conclusion I suggest you consider the factors of how “The world is changing” before you consider the reasons of how we should adapt newspapers. The subscription of news in my eyes will be a huge disadvantage to targeted readers that read the Times and then when they click on a article on the online site find out they are only able to read 4 lines. This will be a huge disappointment and a huge loss of primary readers.

Sun journalists scared ??

Tuesday 13 November 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/13/sun-journalists-fear-arrest-whistleblowers

A senior editor on the Sun has warned that journalists on the paper are now unwilling to launch certain public interest investigations because of a fear of being arrested.

Brian Flynn, the paper's investigations editor, said the effect of the arrest of 21 journalists on the paper over alleged payments or knowledge  has already had a chilling effect.

Flynn said the paper turns its back on stories from whistle blowers  .((is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities))...who want payment,
even if they are exposing something in the public interest.

 Flynn said that the Leveson inquiry had already had a significant effect on freedom of speech in the UK.

QUOTE: "So many decent journalists have been arrested under a 1906 act [The Prevention of Corruption Act] that was never applied to journalists before. It was so obscure that none of us had even read about it in our bible, McNae's Law for Journalists,"


OPINION :
Journalist now starting to have and feel the restrictions due to the Leveson enquiry and perhaps slowly but surely the freedom of speech may be diminished for jounalists.
It shows that now public intrests in the future may be neglected due to the fear of arrest and consequenses.
 

Retweet 'four more years'#(@BarackObama)

Wednesday 7 November 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/07/how-barack-obama-celebrated-twitter

THE MOST POPULAR TWEET OF ALL TIME

US president tweets 'four more years' with a picture of himself hugging Michelle

The tweet had been shared more than 400,000 times within a few hours of being posted,

& marked as a favourite by more than 70,000





OVERALL VIEW:
This shows that Twitter has now become a global platform for not only ordinary people ,even the president and its campaigning team, It shows that huge events such as the elections have huge impacts not only in the country and in everyday lives but also online. It is significant in recognising how fast and instant social networking is with having the tweet shared 400,000 times within a few hours . Having the President tweet perhaps might give Twitter that extra boost of being acceptable and political rather than Twitter only being used to tweet peoples daily lives. Perhaps this shows that Twitter is now expanding to a wider audience with higher socio-econoimic class of A and B's .

The Impact of Online Technology on the News

Traditional Paper Based Form	Online news site
Has a purchase price. Is not Free	Has predominantly free content
Certain retailers sell newspapers	Can be accessed anywhere with internet access
Can be easily destroyed or marked	Content remains even if portal of access is destroyed
Usually target a specific audience base	Appeal to internet audiences - W
Costly to produce; paper, printing etc.	Less costly as they use website builders
Costly to distribute	Cheap to distribute
Stories are limited as it is aimed for certain audiences	Can offer countless news stories at any one time plus the ability to archive stories, although many of these news stories are simply replications or re-workings of main news stories and may be cut and pasted news stories from other mainstream news sites.
Only print version of story available	Only online version is available
Cannot be updated immediately and regularly	Can be updated and edited instantly
In not interactive	Can be interactive
Cannot allow audience immediate feedback/ citizen journalism	Allows audiences to express their beliefs through comment sections Allows interaction between audiences and institutions
Can offer in-depth analysis and comment but is limited by space	Varied options for expansion of topic matter. In depth editorials and comment

Audience Gratifications of The Guardian website.

Feature	Audience Gratification
Long-running chat boards	Interaction with their audiences
Network of weblogs
Leaving comments on articles	Can make an audience feel powerful by creating the idea that they are challenging the news institution’s values
Readers can access articles online, on mobile devices through RSS feeds or on eBook readers.	Can allow easy and faster access (audiences can easily access content wherever, and whenever.
Varied selection of categories in easy accessible genre areas	Appeals to mass audiences as audiences can pick what appeals to them
Images	Allows audiences to empathize and increases identification
Podcast	Audiences gain more information and the sense of connection
Access to paper-based content	Appeals to wider audiences who like paper based articles (sophisticated audiences)
Dating sites/ personals	Gives chances to interact

5 examples of UGC

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/25/bbc-trust-coverage-arab-spring?INTCMP=SRCH
Coverage of the Arab spring was "generally impartial", but required more "breadth and context" and better signposting of user-generated content such as mobile phone footage

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/oct/20/muammar-gaddafi-dead-body-video?INTCMP=SRCH
Muammar Gaddafi: mobile phone footage 'shows dead body' - video

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/19/simon-harwood-trial-news-websites
 Request for Telegraph and Mail to take down archive stories on Ian Tomlinson accused could have far-reaching consequences

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/oct/30/superstorm-sandy-gawker-huffigton-post
Several of the most popular US news and gossip websites, went offline overnight because of a New York power outage caused by post-tropical storm Sandy.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20179287
Elle Than, who saw the fire, said on Twitter:
"The heat was intense as we drove past - didn't stop pedestrians taking photos or videos!"