Thursday 7 December 2017

The Daily Mail focuses on politics, the Royal family, the weather, celebrities,

The Guardian - Politics, sports, health

Curated content - There is too much happening in the world for us to keep up with. We can only realistically process a small amount of news. But who should decide?
1. Supply-led content: 'gatekeepers' are people who decide which news are important, in news this would be the editors and the journalists.
2. Demand-led, no 'gatekeepers', we decide what is important, we follow the people that interest us and ignore the rest.

Clay-Shirkey - Cognitive Surplus, focuses on describing the free time that individuals have to engage with collaborative activities within new media.
In my own words, the free time that people have on their hands to engage in collaborative activities, especially the internet

Twitter- launched in 2006, twitter is a web 2.0 social media with over 300 million active users. 

What's the point of Twitter? People get to check in on famous celebrities, etc Twitter is also used by journalists, and this is because from twitter, they can easily get gossip and drama about celebrities.  However, there are many fake accounts, which means fake stories.

  • Vox pops - The average person's opinion 
  • Marketing and distribution platform 
  • Source of tips 


So social media can assist in the production, marketing and exchange of news.








They're both popular because they post news that are about politics, celebrities, the Monarchy and overall, human interest. They're also quite similar, as they post nearly the same things, except the Guardian posts more sports.

Wednesday 29 November 2017

Fake news and how to create some.

PLAN:
1) an introduction of us saying what we're gonna do, and we're gonna list pros and cons

2) Record screen using fraps, going through fake news

3)separately record a voice over using phone and then transfer the audio file into computer

4)then over the screen recording, put the voice over audio over it (make sure it is in time though)



Alina: Hey guys, so today we're going to be talking about fake news, which is false information under the guise of news reporting. 

Honey n Kev: The pros of it is that you get a lot of money from doing fake news, it can be considered as entertainment - making up stories to entertain the audience, like a hobby.

Neila: However, in my opinion, I think that fake news is bad and has a negative impact, for example; it can literally spread false information all around the social media and can cause misunderstandings between the people who are involved. 



In the screen recording: http://clonezone.link/editclone; show how to clone:

"so a lot of people love to create fake news because it could be considered as a hobby, and we're gonna show you how to create fake news. So what you want to do is go to clonezone.link and type in any website you prefer, so for example, for fake news, we're going to use mailonline.com and choose a random article, and as you can see, the titles are highlighted and you can literally change it if you wanted to." <-- Put this over the screen recording


Final video: Fake news and how to create it

Saturday 25 November 2017

The cases of Madeleine McCann and Shannon Matthews.



Image result for who is madeleine mccannMadeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) disappeared on the evening of 3 May 2007 from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal, sparking what one newspaper called "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history". Her whereabouts remain unknown. The theory seems to have been that the two doctors killed their daughter by accident, possibly by giving her too much sedative in the hope that she would sleep while they went out to dine with friends at a tapas restaurant 50 yards away.






 Shannon was nine years old when she went missing for 24 days in 2008Shannon was a nine year old girl who went missing for 24 days in 2008, it was later discovered that 

On December 4 2008, mum-of-seven Karen and Donovan were found guilty of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.Both were sentenced at  Leeds Crown Court to eight years behind bars.



It has been claimed Karen wrote "dirty letters" to pen pals from prison.



And her friend Julie, the woman who organised the search for Shannon, since said she believes Karen was trying to get away from Meehan, was pressured into calling the police and reporting her daughter missing, and was then tied to the lie.


Meehan was jailed for 20 weeks after unrelated child sex abuse material was discovered on his computer.


(1.) Find examples of language used in each of the pieces to describe the parents of both children: "

In the article of Madeleine, it says "The McCanns described how they plan to use some of the £300,000" which suggests that they're quite a wealthy family who have a lot of money, which would mean they'd be able to make the disappearance of their daughter more important. Throughout the article, we see a series of adjectives such as; "traumatised", "terrifying", "tearfully" whilst also being described as "totally protective parents" which portray the horror that the McCann family went through when Madeleine had went missing, and that they're in distraught. Further, in corroboration to the support of them being wealthy, is that the McCanns also had a spokesperson to emphasise the importance of the case; "personal psychologist" and "a source close to the McCann family." However, in Shannon's article, the differences between the two is wide. For example, the article portrays rather a negative view on the parents; "Miss Matthews, who has seven children to five fathers" clearly states that she is a stereotypical mother who is on benefits due to having seven children, it also portrays that she is a mess, as she was having an affair with the main who kidnapped her daughter. Further, we can see that the dysfunction of Shannon's family and mother is showed through a comparison to a "Channel 4 drama series Shameless, shown in the month before the nine year old vanished" which describes how the daughter of a character in the series, fakes a kidnap of the character's youngest son in order to gain money.
Overall, the two families show quite a contrast to each other as they both come from two different social classes. The McCann family is definitely from an upper and wealthy class, whereas the Matthews, came from the middle-working class. Both have stereotypes demonstrated, such as the wealthy family having more support due to a sufficient amount of money, whereas the middle and working class are seen to struggle and be put on benefits.

(2.) The comparison between the two pictures is unique. The colours are also contrasted. For example, for Madeleine, she is looking quite oblivious as if she didn't know the picture was taken, and this could be because she was distracted and was having fun. However, more importantly, in the mis-en-scene, her hair is seen to be neatly brushed, which says something about her character and background; she comes from a wealthy and organised family, and by the choice of colour she is wearing; pink, demonstrates that her parents treat her quite well, and they may want her to adapt to a female stereotype of having to wear pink. But, the pink can also connote that she is located somewhere relaxed, in this case, Algarve, given by the short sleeves, she is somewhere warm, which again, signifies that her family is from a wealthy background, as they have enough money to travel around and go on holidays. In contrast to this, the mis-en-scene in Shannon's picture is quite dull looking as it all contains blue and navy blue. She is seen wearing a school uniform, which is the opposite to Madeleine, she is in more of a relaxed scenery, whereas Shannon is in a school environment. Her hair is also messy, which connotes that she may be a tacky character, and her having to wear a school uniform could signify that she is of a stereotypical, working-class family background. Both shots are portrait, with no significant backgrounds. However, Shannon looks aware of the picture and is even smiling, whereas Madeleine doesn't. It could suggest that maybe Shannon preferred to stay in at school rather than go home.


(3 and 4 in one) News coverage can be hierarchical, for example, in Madeleine's case, the Telegraph intended to make the audience feel sorry for the disappearance of Madeleine, however in my opinion, as a reader, I'm opposed because I don't feel sorry for the family, due to the fact of my belief that parents should never leave their children alone, especially if they are as young as Madeleine. Further, since the McCann family is quite healthy, people who have money, have social power, so they can manipulate attitudes and make the audience feel sorry for them. However, the Telegraph has a different connotation towards the Matthews, because as they are a middle-working class with benefits, they are portrayed as people who struggle with their life and resort to doing any types of things in order to gain money. The Telegraph has clearly intended to make the audience feel hate and negativity towards the mother, and this is due to how she was being described. In my opinion, using the Reception theory, I'm clearly an opposed reader and that's because I think both are very much guilty, especially the Matthews, as she fake kidnapped her daughter in order to get money, and for the McCanns, they should have never left their child alone, especially since they were very young and should have been under supervision.



Friday 17 November 2017

Journalism

Keywords:


  • Ethics - Morals, but morals are individual, whilst ethics is a shared system of morals, dealing with what is good and bad: 1) Accuracy 2) Independence 3) Impartiality 4) Humanity (being aware of your own consequences, don't be a dick, be nice :-) 5) Accountability 
  • Truth and Accuracy
  • Self Regulation
  • Public Interest

What would some of your ethical considerations be when: 

-Reporting on a 15y/o student who has traveled with ISIS - I'd be respectful since that is what the student has decided to do, but at the same time, it's considered to be a wrong decision since it's dangerous and deadly, and I'd think that the student was brainwashed into joining ISIS, since they don't really stand for anything - not even religion. Cause he's also underage, I'd have to take accountability for him 


Reporting on a mass shooting in America - Don't mention religion, cause some mass shootings have nothing to do with religion, also I wouldn't talk about it too much, cause some readers wouldn't want all the gory-details, because it may be distressing to some,

A ‘self regulatory body’ - the regulate themselves rather than being regulated by the government.

1. Truth and Accuracy

Journalists cannot always guarantee ‘truth’, but getting the facts right is the cardinal principle of journalism. We should always strive for accuracy, give all the relevant facts we have and ensure that they have been checked. When we cannot corroborate information we should say so.

2. Independence

Journalists must be independent voices; we should not act, formally or informally, on behalf of special interests whether political, corporate or cultural. We should declare to our editors – or the audience – any of our political affiliations, financial arrangements or other personal information that might constitute a conflict of interest.

3. Fairness and Impartiality

Most stories have at least two sides. While there is no obligation to present every side in every piece, stories should be balanced and add context. Objectivity is not always possible, and may not always be desirable (in the face for example of brutality or inhumanity), but impartial reporting builds trust and confidence.

4. Humanity

Journalists should do no harm. What we publish or broadcast may be hurtful, but we should be aware of the impact of our words and images on the lives of others.

5. Accountability

A sure sign of professionalism and responsible journalism is the ability to hold ourselves accountable. When we commit errors we must correct them and our expressions of regret must be sincere not cynical. We listen to the concerns of our audience. We may not change what readers write or say but we will always provide remedies when we are unfair.

Newspaper codes and conventions

Newspapers can commonly be defined as either a ‘broadsheet’ newspaper or a ‘tabloid’ newspaper.
They both look quite similar, they have the same conventions.


Sunday 12 November 2017

Paywalls: For and Against

1. What does David Simon mean by 'slow suicide'? What he means, is that if people don't subscribe to their newspapers, their industry will slowly collapse until there is NO industry left.

2. The people who are anti-paywall, they don't understand journalism because it's not who they are, they don't know how hard it is to be a journalist; ". It costs money to cover a metro region, or a nation"

3. Journalism is a profession because it's a hard job to get and it requires hard working people to do it, it's not easy to go out and 'cover a metro region or a nation', it can't just be done by anyone, it requires careers.

4. Many people have paid for the New York Times because it covers a lot of different material, it's also interests people who use social media, because on the New York Times website, they have audio files that people can listen to. e.g: "

Listen to ‘The Daily’

Stephen K. Bannon, a former Trump adviser, speaks to The New York Times about the future of the Republican Party, white nationalism and more." 
Further, it targets a range of different types of audiences e.g middle aged women.

 5. What he means by "band-aid to cover bullet hole" is that, it'll be pointless to cover up the damage because it'll keep happening again and again. 

6. $1 a month for Facebook because 


Thursday 9 November 2017

News Corp.

Who is Rupert Murdoch? 
Image result for rupert murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC KCSG is an Australian-born American media mogul. His father, Sir Keith Murdoch, had been a reporter, editor, and senior executive of the Herald and Weekly Times newspaper Owns News Corp, which is a conglomerate that owns financial news services and wireless media, harpercollins, new york post, news UK
Also owns 21st Century Fox (film), Fox (TV), 39% SKY TV, Star TV (Asia)



  • Who are News Corp (and who were they)?
The original News Corporation or News Corp, they were American multinational mass media corporation headquartered in New York City. It was the world's fourth-largest media group in 2014 in terms of revenue,
  • Who is Rupert Murdoch and why are people scared of him?
  • 1211 Avenue of the Americas.jpgNews Corp logo 2013.svghe is a media mogul
  • successful businessman or entrepreneur that control through personal or via a dominant in any media related content
  • he owns news crop, fox tv, these are both conglomerates that own financial services + wireless media
  • his news channels are racist (it's what the people want)
What is Media Plurality? And why do we need it? The information that people consume on a daily basis, which informs their views and perspective on the world. 'Media plurality' means having a diversity of viewpoints available and consumed across the media
  • What does Power without Responsibility (Curran and Seaton) mean? It's a book written by James Curran and Jean Seaton, it's about history of the news media dated all the way back from the eighteenth century to the present. It'd probably mean when one has power and takes advantage of it/takes it for granted, but they wouldn't be responsible for what happens to society or the people around them.

Tuesday 7 November 2017

Which news values apply in the story? Give a range of examples and make specific reference to theory including Galtung and Ruge and narrative ( Levi-Strauss). Consider the role of ideology

Which news values apply in the story? Give a range of examples and make specific reference to theory including Galtung and Ruge and narrative ( Levi-Strauss). Consider the role of ideology.


Published on 11th of November, 2017, in this news article, a teacher has been suspended and could face the sack after he ‘accidentally’ called a transgender pupil a ‘girl’ in class when the student identifies as a boy.

We can already see that in this news article, there is a value of Negativity being used, this is because bad news is always highly more rated than good news, because it's more exciting and interests the readers more, it's more exciting than good news. Stories about death, tragedy, bankruptcy, violence, damage, natural disasters, political upheaval or simply extreme weather conditions are always rated above positive stories such as royal weddings or celebrations. Bad news stories are more likely to be reported than good news because they are more likely to score high on other news values, such as threshold, unexpectedness, unambiguity and meaningfulness. In this case, the teacher has been suspended and could lose his job, which is a tragedy for him, and thus, makes it interesting for the readers.

Further, there is use of Unexpectedness in this article, because the man here is only seen to be mispronouncing the student's gender pronouns, and because of that, he may lose his job, and that's quite unexpected because in a way, it's harsh for the teacher and maybe not deserve to lose his job if it was just an 'accident', it was even reported that he was reduced to tears because teaching was his life. However, it also raises an issue as he is a hypocrite; 'He said he had told senior staff carrying out the ‘misgender’ investigation that his private belief was that it was not wrong to call a person born a female a girl' and that he felt like he was being forced to call the pupil by his gender pronouns, because it meant that it'd interfere with the human rights.

We can also identify Personalisation here, where people are interested in people. News stories that centre on a particular person, and are presented from a human interest angle, are likely to make the front page, particularly if they involve a well-known person. Some people claim this news value has become distorted, and that news editors over-rate personality stories, especially those involving celebrities. In this case, we have a teacher, who is on the brink of getting fired, from this, the readers could perhaps take some advice from this article e.g to respect pupils and call them by their preferred gender pronouns. 

Finally, we can identify Proximity, which means stories/articles that involve people from their own countries or stories that are close to people geographically. So, in this article, it is obvious that this took place in London, and it's beneficial because the people who live there will receive the most coverage out of this article, whereas people who live somewhere else, they wont get the full coverage.

In conclusion, I think that the ideology that should be considered here is respect, some people are so big on respect that, well, result to people losing their jobs due to one small mistake of not respecting something they were not aware of, such as this teacher here. The school was clearly big on respect of the LGBT - Transgender community, and so they thought they had to take drastic measures as someone's preferred gender pronouns were ignored. What I think overall is that, the school may have gone a little too far with pressing charges against the teacher because it's not what he deserves, he made one small mistake, but even though he is a hypocrite at the same time; 'although I did not intentionally refer to the pupil as a “girl”, I do not believe it is unreasonable to call someone a girl if they were born a girl.’ he should have at least deserved some small element of punishment. 




Thursday 2 November 2017

Newspaper Industry Introduction.

Starter:

Do you consume news? No.

How/where do you consume the news: Through TV, radio, social media sites e.g twitter(??) word of mouth, journeys, on the train - physical printed papers,

  TASK
I don't consume news, but my mom does, she listens to the TV when she gets ready for work. The reason why some people watch and listen to the news is because they want to know what is happening around the world, or what is happening around the area that they live in, it's also good for young people because it helps develop their reading and writing skills. People can consume the news in various ways such as radio, social media sites e.g Facebook, whilst some actually buy physical printed papers, for example, when they're on a train. Some people consume it through websites like The Guardian, which is a very popular news site. Non-news websites, in my opinion, are considered untrustworthy sources because they don't have the efficient evidence to support their claims.

You are the owner of a national newspaper. You want to increase profits. What do you do?

Pros and Cons


Hire more journalists to cover a bigger range of events.
Pros: They'd get more stories, get more money
Cons: They'd probably be hard to find, hard to cover a big range of events(may not cover all of the material)
Put more ‘sponsored content’ online and in your paper.
Pros: having sponsored content would increase chances of making more money, high demand, readers will benefit from the content,
Cons:: needs time, can be deceptive(might not trust it as much), some viewers may not be able to tell the difference between the normal content and the sponsored content, it can put off readers due to irrelevant interests


Sack journalists
Pros: Less budget, you save money
Cons: Less information


Make journalists tweet more.
Pros: If they tweet about it, more people will know about the issues that are going round
Cons: Not many people use social media or even use Twitter.


Make journalists write about celebrities more.
Pros: People are nosy and like to read about that stuff
Cons: Invading privacy


Increase cost of paper
Pros: People will start reading it online and will get money
Cons: Less people will buy the papers

Put up ‘paywall’

Pros: You get the money
Cons: Less customers because people have to pay in order to get their newspaper


Ask readers to write more stories (for free)
Pros:
Cons:


Shut down your paper (go online only)
Pros: You can find things more easily, and a lot of people will read the paper since many people are on social media sites
Cons: Not everyone has internet e.g older generations don't really use social media

Decrease price of newspaper (or make it free)

Pros: More people will buy the paper, more money for the people who publish the newspaper
Cons:

Conglomerate - a thing consisting of a number of different and distinct parts or items that are grouped together e.g big company that owns smaller companies,

Oligopoly - a state of limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of producers or sellers,

DMGT

What newspapers do they own: The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, MailOnline, Metro
What companies do they own?: 


Monday 30 October 2017

Ideas for presentation,

Audience: A demographic of teenagers who are 14-25, females and males.
Platforms: Twitter hashtags, Instagram tags, Snapchat filters, and Kylie actually promoting the products.
Reviews; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovEYfyOx7pc
EXTRA INFO/BACKGROUND:  Kylie Jenner launched Kylie Cosmetics in 2016 after the global launch of her wildly successful liquid lipstick + lip liner duo, the Kylie Lip KitAfter Kylie revealed the Kylie Lip Kit to the world, her fans wanted more. Kylie Cosmetics is Kylie Jenner’s new launchpad for sharing her best kept beauty secrets to her fans. Kylie is currently working in the Kylie Cosmetics Lab on a handful of new, top secret products she’s creating to help give you that perfect ‘Kylie look’. Kylie Cosmetics' products are not tested on animals.Kyshadow is the second product that Kylie Jenner has created and released through her cosmetic brand Kylie Cosmetics.

TASK 2.

Friday 20 October 2017



Key Terms; 

User Generated Content - Content created by the audience/fans who are unpaid. e.g taking a picture and posting it on instagram, or a tweet on twitter,

Shareable content - Put simply "shareability" is the potential of a given piece of content to be transmitted or shared by a third party, if you can complement your content with genuine, personal engagements via social media on a regular basis, eventually you'll build a loyal audience of followers on your social platforms.

Pro-sumera person who buys electronic goods that are of a standard between those aimed at consumers and professionals. We are not consumers, we produce our own content. 

Participatory CultureParticipatory culture is an opposite concept to consumer culture — in other words a culture in which private individuals do not act as consumers only, but also as contributors or producers.

Collective Intelligence - Shared or group intelligence that emerges from collaboration.

Web 2.0 - The second stage of development of the internet, characterized especially by the change from static web pages to dynamic or user-generated content and the growth of social media. Basically it just means calling the internet.


Q: Task: The Starbucks #WhiteCupContest. Which attracted around 4000 entries over three weeks https://news.starbucks.com/news/starbucks-invites-you-to-decorate-its-iconic-white-cup -  According to IPSOS, user-generated content is 35% more memorable than other media, and 50% more trusted.  Why is user- generated advertising so powerful?  Consider the position of audience as “pro-sumer” and “collective intelligence.”

A: User Generated advertising is so powerful today because a lot of people use social media today, which means it's very influential, people get content from social media and they play around with it, which means they can make UGC, though these are usually made by fans, people who are unpaid. So for example, Starbucks is very popular on social media, especially Instagram, so since many people are on instagram and love Starbucks, they'll advertise it by 'decorating its iconic white cup' Further, this audience can be called 'prosumer' which means that they're not only consumers, but they're also people who make their OWN content, and since so many people are doing this advert, signifies that it's a collective intelligence - people are involved, they're participating.


"This is abuse" ad, this is made for the demographic audience of 16-18, who are facing abuse in their relationship and pressures of having sex. It has been made so that people can acknowledge these issues and put a stop to them.

"Be food smart - Change4Life" ad, the fact that they use a kid in this advert, shows that he is talking to the parent, so that they can make their kids eat right. We can also acknowledge that this advert consists of a familiar speech, this again, is because of the kid and thus makes the advert more friendly. 

Thursday 19 October 2017


Audience Readings.
Preferred Reading – This is when audiences respond to the product the way media producers want/expect them to.
Negotiated Reading – This is when a member of the audience partly agrees with part of the product .e.g Film, documentary, TV programme.


Oppositional Reading – This is when the audience are in complete disagreement with the product’s message or setting.
Modes of address.
Direct/Indirect - Giving the audience direct contact, indirect is more of an objective speech. 
Authoritative/familiar - Authoritative speeches, e.g "This is sportswear." Familiar is more 'chatty' or friendly.
4 slogans;
Direct - "You can make it happen."
Indirect - "This is one hell of an energy drink."
Authoritative - "This drink will BOOST your performance."
Familiar - "Check out these new creps."