Week 3 - Publishers and journalists must work together to save journalism, Roy Greenslade

This article is about how people who are working in journalism are beginning to loose their jobs due to the revolution of digital media. Roy Greenslade talks about how quickly the journalism industry is starting to fall apart, as he states, "Hardly a day passes without an announcement by one newspaper publisher or another that jobs must go, titles must be merged and offices must be closed." He later goes on to talk about how the revolution of digital media is the only reason to, newspapers, publishers losing their jobs,"the cause, as we all know, is the onward march of the digital revolution."  

Even though, we can tell Greenslade despises the digital media, he still talks about how the revolution of digital media being a good thing, as he states, "We who praise its advance cannot also help but lament its disruption." Due to Greenslade despises digital media, and blaming digital media for the reason of journalists and authors losing out on the jobs, he himself is an author and therefore this article could almost be seen as biased and hes completely putting the blame on digital media itself. 

In my opinion, I strongly believe that the revolution of digital media is the reason as to why people such as, journalists, authors and even publishers are losing out on their jobs. I believe that digital media is the reason to this, as in this day and age, people mainly rely on their phones, for basically everything. Whether it be, for catching up on with what friends are doing, to keeping up to date with the news, majority of people are now able to access, basically everything through their phones whenever they want. Therefore, due to the fact of people not having to wait and accessing everything instantly, they no longer need to go out of their way in order to pick up a newspaper, or go get a book as everything is on their phones. 

Therefore, I do agree with Greenslade's opinion of new digital media being the reason as to journalism falling apart.

 

Week 3 - Those taking selfies with Hillary Clinton aren’t narcissists – but our best hope, Jonathan Jones

This is an article about how people of the public crowded around Hillary Clinton, and took pictures, not of Hillary, but with Hillary - selfies. Jonathan Jones talks about how selfies have changed people and how they behave. For example, he says, "If the image this picture seems to present is true, we’re all damned. Looking lost and ignored as people turn their backs on her to preserve their own faces for posterity – me with that politician!" Jones further goes on to talk about his views about people taking selfies, "The resulting view is unflattering – not only to Hillary Rodham Clinton but the crowd. They all have their backs turned to her while they hold up phones to take pictures of … themselves". In addition, his views about people taking selfies is completely negative as he states that the people taking the pictures look 'lost' . 




He further goes on to talk about how most of the people in the crowd are female, "A large group of mostly younger women all excited to be in the same picture as Hillary Clinton. They are not turning their backs on her in contempt. They are simply turning round so they can photograph themselves with her". In my opinion, I believe that Jonathan is stereotyping females with being vain and taking 'selfies', which is not true.



 Furthermore, he goes on to speak about how taking selfies is the new way of marking a memorial event, as he says, "Taking a selfie has now become the natural way for many people to mark important events". In my opinion, I agree with this, due to new and digital media improving and becoming more advanced, this does mean that more and more people are becoming used to the idea of people taking selfies and looking at themselves and it has become a normal thing. However, I do disagree with Jones associating 'selfies' with females, as it's both males and females who have started to take selfies.   

NDM case study: How has news changed?

1) What are the most popular platforms for audiences to access news and how has this changed in recent years?

The most popular platforms for audiences to access news are, local news, and news consumption in the nations. 

However, this form of accessing news has changed over the years, Television is by far the most-used platform for news, with 67% of UK adults saying they use TV as a source of news. However, there has been an eight percentage point decrease since 2014 (75%), following a three percentage point decrease between 2013 (78%) and 20143 . The number of people who use the internet or apps for news has remained the same since 2014, with just over four in ten (41%) doing so, compared to just under a third in 2013 (32%). Newspapers are used by three in ten (31%), which represents a decrease of nine percentage points since 2014 and 2013 (when 40% of UK adults said they used newspapers for news). 

 

2) How do different age demographics access news in the UK?

Those aged 55+ are more likely than those aged 16-24 to use TV, newspapers and radio for news consumption, while the opposite is true for the internet/ apps. Men are more likely than women to use any of the four main platforms for news (TV, internet, newspapers and radio).

 Seven in ten (69%) men use TV for news, compared to 65% of women. The same is true for the internet (45% vs. 37%), newspapers (34% vs. 27%) and radio (35% vs. 29%). 

3) Does socio-economic status change attitudes to news? If so, how?

People in the AB socio-economic group are more likely than those in the DE socio-economic group to consume news on any of the four main platforms: TV (71% vs 67%), the internet (50% vs. 29%), newspapers (38% vs. 26%) and radio (46% vs. 23%). Of the four main platforms, three in ten (31%) respondents use only one platform for news, with just under two in ten (19%) using only the TV alone, 11% using only the internet, 3%. 

 4) How many different sources of news are used on average? How does differ between different groups?

The top two news sources, in terms of reach among UK adults, are both TV channels. BBC One is by far the most-used (at 48%), followed by ITV/ ITV Wales/ UTV/ STV News, wiith just over a quarter (27%) of people saying they use it as a source of news. BBC One has had a five percentage point decrease in reach since 2014 (53%). The BBC website or app remains the third most-used news source: just under a quarter (23%) of people say they use it. The BBC News Channel comes next (at 14%), followed by the Sky News channel (12%) which decreased by five percentage points since 2014. Facebook is now the joint-fifth highest news source in terms of reach, used by 12% of UK adults, an increase of five percentage points since 2014.

5) How has news consumption through television changed in recent years?

BARB figures show that each adult watched 108 hours of national and international news on television in 2014 (figure 3.1). This represents a decrease of seven hours since 2013 (when the average number of hours was 115) and 13 hours since 2011 (when the average was 121 hours). 

People aged 16-24 each watched just 25 hours of news on television in 2014, compared to 189 hours for those aged 55 and over. Although the BBC channels account for the majority of news viewing for 16-24s, this group is more likely than older viewers to consume news on ITV (18.0% vs. 12.5% for those aged 55+) and Channel 4 (5.8% vs. 2.3% for those aged 55+). Total hours of viewing of news among 16-24 year olds has decreased each year (by eight hours since 2010). In the same period, viewing hours have fluctuated for over-55s, with an overall decrease of five hours between 2010 and 2014. 

6) How much has news consumption through newspapers declined since 2005?

BBC Radio 1 has had a six percentage point decrease since 2014 in the proportion of people who say they use it for news. NRS figures, the reach of national newspapers has declined considerably in the past ten years, with reach among adults falling by 27 percentage points since 2005 (from 72.4% of all adults in 2005 to 45.4% in 2015)

7) How does newspaper reach differ by age group?
Reach of national newspapers varies by age group: 29.3% of 15-24s are print newspaper readers, compared to 67.9% of over-65s. Newspaper readers aged 16-34 are more likely than older readers to read The Sun (27%) and the Metro (25%) (15% of those aged 55+ say they read The Sun and 5% say they read the Metro). Older readers are more likely to read the Daily Mail (27% vs. 14% of 16-34s). 

8) Which are the most popular newspapers and websites in the UK? What do you know about those newspapers' political viewpoints?

The Daily Mail is the most widely-read news title in the UK, with around 5.5 million users. The Sun follows with 5.2 million users, compared to 5.8 million in 2014. Looking at readership levels of print-only newspapers, The Sun was the most popular (with just under 5.2 million users vs. 3.5 million for the Daily Mail). The most used titles were: The Sun (20%), the Daily Mail (19%), the Daily Mirror (13%), the Metro (12%) and The Times (9%)

9) How does online news consumption differ for age, gender and socio-economic status?
Four in ten (41%) UK adults say they use the internet for news. Six in ten (59%) UK adults aged 16-24 say they use the internet or apps for news, compared to just under a quarter (23%) of those aged 55+. Over half (53%) of those in the ABC1 socio-economic group use online sources for news, compared to a third (32%) of those in the C2DE socio-economic group. Men are more likely than women to say they use internet for news (45% vs. 37%). 


10) What percentage of people use social media to access news? How does this differ by age and socio-economic status?

A quarter (25%) of UK adults say they access news on a mobile phone, up by four percentage points since 2014. This compares to 20% who say they use a computer, laptop or netbook to access news (down by four percentage points since 2014) and 13% use a tablet for news (the same as in 2014). Two in five (42%) 16-24s say they use a mobile phone to access news, compared to 8% of over-55s.

11) What percentage of users only use social media sites for their news?
Ten per cent of online news users use only social media sites for news.

12) What are the most popular online sites for news?
Over half (56%) of online news users said they used the BBC website or app, compared to 59% in 2014. Facebook was the second most popular response, up by 12 percentage points since 2014 (from 17% to 29%). This was followed by the Google search engine (15%) and the Sky News website or app (14%).
13) What percentage of 16-24 year olds access news mostly from social media?
16% of those aged 16-24  

14) How do audiences find stories online? 
30% of those who used social media for news said they ‘mostly’ accessed their news stories through social media posts, compared to 38% who said they ‘mostly’ accessed them directly from the websites/apps of news organisations. A further three in ten (31%) said they accessed them equally on social media posts and on news organisations’ websites or apps.


New/digital media: audience and institution



15) What are the benefits for audiences from the changes new and digital media have had on the news industry?
Due to changes in new and digital media, many platforms are on audiences phones, things from keeping up to date with what friends and families are doing, through social media apps, to keeping up to date with whats going on in the news, allows audiences to instantly access these platforms whenever they want. 

16) What are the benefits for institutions from the changes new and digital media have had on the news industry?
They have more platforms to distribute their products which can be linked to provide a multimedia product line

17) What are the downsides for audiences as a result of new and digital media in news?
One main downside, that audiences may fac as a result of new and digital media in the news is that certain apps and platforms will not be free or accessible to them for much longer. 
 18) What are the downsides for institutions as a result of new and digital media in news?
The main problem that institutions will face due to new and digital media will face is loosing out on money and trying to find different way to make profits. 
Who has benefited most from the changes new and digital media have had on the news industry - audiences or institutions?
In my opinion, I think that audiences have benefited more so than institutions from the new changes in new and digital media. I think audiences have benefited more, because audiences are able to be constantly updated and stay informed with the latest news as they're able to access it whenever they want through their mobile phones. Furthermore, due to changes in new and digital media, audiences are not only able to just view the latest news, but they're able to form an opinion on certain topics and put these views out for other people to see. Additionally, this allows people from around the world to debate and argue back their viewpoints. Furthermore, if there were no audiences that took granted of these new changes, institutions wouldn't benefit at all. Overall, these changes in new and digital media have just made it easier/more efficient for audiences to access news and be constantly updated with what's going on. Therefore, I believe that even though institutions have benefited from these changes, audiences have benefited more so, as these changes have made staying updated with the news more efficient and quick as they are no longer waiting for newspapers to come out, or they don't need to pay for anything as everything is online and free.  

NDM Baseline assessment: Learner response

Feedback-

www:   

- Used examples in my paragraphs 

ebi: 

- No theories
- No institutions 
- No consideration of audiences 
- Examples are too general 
- No depth to analysis 





Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences now have access to a greater variety of views and values. To what extent are audiences empowered by this development?


Developments in new and digital media not only allows audiences to voice and share their opinions, but it allows them to debate and argue on certain topics. In this day and age, debates mainly take place online, through social media apps. One main social app that allows audiences to do so, is Twitter. 
This app allows people to stay updated with certain events going on around the world and voice their opinions. By doing this audiences are allowed to 'Tweet' what they want, moreover, if someone has already Tweeted something, audiences are able to 'retweet' that specific tweet showing they agree. Twitter also gives you the option of liking someone elses tweet, or tweeting something back. 
Additionally, Twitter isn't just used for socialising but it allows audiences to keep up to date with certain events trending, along with being able to raise awareness for certain things.
This therefore, gives audiences more of a chance to access a greater variety of views and values, as they are able to view other peoples opinions - worldwide. 
Furthermore, many celebrities are on Twitter and have a great amount of followers. Therefore, the two-step flow model can be seen in relation to Twitter, as certain celebrities are seen as opinion leaders. So once they tweet something, their followers could be influenced by whatever it is they have to say.
 In my opinion, I do think social media apps allow audiences to be empowered to a certain extent. However, due to audiences having the chance of following celebrities and being 'influenced' by what they have to say I don't think audiences are fully 'empowered', but they do have a greater chance of being able to access a variety of different views and values. 

Week 2 - We used to think shyness was refined. That was before social media

This article is about how social media has changed the way people are, in terms of being shy. 
In Morans book, he described shyness as “a low-intensity, mundane, chronic, nebulous and hard-to-define condition” Throughout his book, he gives examples of people overcoming the feeling of being shy, due to social media.

For example, Alan Bennett, a shy man whose working-class parents thought of reticence as a mark of sensitivity and refinement, once wrote that he had “clung far too long to the notion that shyness was a virtue, and not, as I came too late to see, a bore”. 

Another example is, The novelist Elizabeth Taylor, whose shyness intensified after a firework accident left scars on her neck, exchanged letters for more than 25 years with the writer Robert Liddell who lived faraway in Athens.“Taylor used letter-writing to cathartically dissect her social embarrassments,” Moran writes, but it may also be true that sending letters to people who knew you only from words on paper allowed the writer to confect an epistolary personality, to exaggerate, distort or plain invent herself and the life around her. Taylor wrote a story of what happens when an expatriate novelist returns to England to discover that the version of village life given by his dedicated correspondent, a shy, single woman, is let down by reality. 







He later goes on to talk about how there's evidence on the Internet that supports the statement of social media being able to help people get over shyness. 
"The evidence is there on the web – in Facebook, Twitter, and the comment threads that have liberated shy people from their real identities and face-to-face contact on an unprecedented scale, and which use the written word rather than speech as their medium." 

In my opinion, I agree with this statement, as I believe it's easier for people to voice their opinions and talk about their feelings behind a screen, rather than doing it in person. 

Week 2 - Using Snapchat to give a voice to sexual abuse survivors

    
  Snapchat is an app which allows members of the public to take pictures and instantly send them to their friends and families. 
The two sexual abuse survivors then swiped left through Snapchat’s filters until they found a mask to hide their faces. They both chose a dragon mask. They chose to hide their faces behind dragon masks, but the app still captures their eyes, which are windows to their emotions. 
The survivors trusted the film-making process to hide their identities and audiences trusted their stories – selfie journalism. The girls weren’t familiar with Snapchat. With the high cost of data and low access to high-speed internet, the app isn’t popular in India’s rural communities. But the girls knew how to take selfies, and hiding their faces immediately established trust. They witnessed their transformation and it encouraged them to tell their stories more so than a promise that we’d add filters back at our office

  Snapchat allows people to post videos and pictures to their stories, which can be viewed by friends on their snapchat. Therefore, these two girls were allowed to share their story whilst keeping their identities hidden. 

News institutions research

BBC NEWS:

British commercial company formed on 18 October 1922. BBC combine global audience revealed at 308 million. By 2020 estimated 500 million global reach among viewers. John Reith founded the company.
  For the first time, television (148m) overtook radio (133m) as the most popular platform for BBC international news, and it is also the first time since the BBC tracked audiences for all three platforms – radio, TV and online (55m) – in English and 28 other languages – that they’ve all grown in the same year.
 World Service TV news content is now available in 12 languages.
The BBC is available on the TV/ONLINE/APP/YOUTUBE/FACEBOOK


THE SUN:

The Sun is a daily tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Founded in 1964, in late 2013 slipped to second largest Saturday newspaper behind the Daily Mail It had an average daily circulation of 2.2 million copies in March 2014.
Approximately 41% of readers are women The Sun has been involved in many controversies in its history, including its coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster. 

DAILY MAIL

The Daily Mail' is a British daily middle-market newspaper, First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The sun. 
Its sister paper 'The Mail on Sunday' was launched in 1982. 
The paper has been criticised by doctors and scientists for its reporting on medical subjects.
Approximately 2.503 million were in the ABC1 demographic and 1.448 million in the C2DE demographic. Its website has more than 100 million unique visitors per month.
It was at the outset a newspaper for women, the first to provide features especially for them, the only British newspaper whose female readers constitute more than 50% of its demographic.


THE GUARDIAN

 The Guardian was originated in 1821, it's a British nationwide newspaper.
It was known as The Manchester Guardian until 1959. The reader profile for the Guardian fall under Finance-savvy/ Food & drink aficionados/ Dedicated followers of fashion/ Active lifestyles/ Never without an item of technology/ Arts lovers/ Engaged, influential and well connected. 
The Guardian is only as print in the form of a newspaper, as well as on-line articles on the website (e-media) and broadcast and occasionally they feature clips on-line not necessarily on YouTube but as film broadcasting. 

Channel 4

'Channel 4' is a British public service television broadcaster which began transmission on 2 November 1982. Before 'Channel 4' and 'S4C', Britain had three terrestrial television services: BBC1/BBC2/ITV, then 'Channel 4' was added. 
Channel 4 viewers are broadly in line with the general population average in terms of age and gender, as is More4, although it is slightly more female.
Channel four also is home to soaps and reality shows as well as their daily feature of the news bulletins. Channel four news.






The impact of Google


1) Why has Google led to the decline of the newspaper industry?
Google has led to the decline of the newspaper because throughout years, Google have been taking money for advertisements. The online classified site that Craig Newmark started in his San Francisco apartment is often blamed for removing billions of dollars in classified advertising from the newspaper business, demolishing one of its key revenue pillars. Furthermore, the using the Internet is the new modern way to find out about news.

Do you personally think Google is to blame for newspapers closing and journalists losing their jobs? Why?
In my opinion, I don't think Google is to blame for newspapers closing and journalists losing their jobs, because technology was and still is improving rapidly and the us becoming reliant on it was inevitable.

3) Read the comments below the article. Pick one comment you agree with and one you disagree with and justify your opinions in detail.


"Obviously, Google is not to blame. I don’t think it’s about blame. I think the Internet is incredibly poorly designed. Rather than being free, everything on it should cost something in order to compensate creators. We have a proven system for doing this through organizations like ASCAP and BMI. The principal of royalties for profiting from the content of others is well established. Google came along, and, at least in the case of Youtube, knowingly robbed content creators for years in order to build up the business." 
- Phil Hood. 

- I agree with statement, as I don't believe Google is to blame for the reason of newspapers closing and journalists losing their jobs. Technology is improving and becoming more advance and if it wasn't Google, another website would've come along and done the same thing. Therefore, I think technology itself was the reason to newspapers losing out and journalists losing their jobs. 


"But no, they kept ALL of the money for themselves. And they still do it. They seem to think that Google News is a service. It’s just a leech on the hardworking reporters." 
- Bob.

- I disagree with this statement, as I don't believe it's a leech on hardworking reporters. They still give credit to the people who have studied and researched whatever topic they are studying. Furthermore, the term "leech" is very dramatic as Google is only a website that allows members of the public to access any information they need. 

Week 1 - Instagram unveils tool to allow users to filter abusive comments

Instagram allows users to like and comment on
other peoples pictures, however, they have
brought in this new feature which allows users to block and prevent people from commenting. The new tool lets users add custom keywords and phrases to a list of terms that they consider offensive. Those comments that contain such terms are automatically hidden.
Well known people such as celebrities were allowed to do this, before members of the public were given this opportunity. 
In my opinion, this is quite good as it allows users to block what they want and prevent people harassing them