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?

Developments in new and digital media have meant that audiences now are able to have a wider reach to opinions and views which can influence their own ideas. this can be an example of Hegemony as the elite institutions still influence a a large amount of the audience with views that sometimes not even in the favour of them. this might be because the audience is too scared to voice their own opinions as they may be against what the elite institutions have to say. This is an example of how elite institutes have psychologically brainwashed the majority of the public.However, new and digital media has allowed individuals to form views that backup pluralism as there are platforms where individuals can voice their own opinions while staying anonymous. Examples of this include the Scottish referendum where both views of hegemony and pluralism where being displayed on the television for everyone to see even though some broadcasters had bias views. 

Also, the extent to which audiences are empowered depends on the website they receive the opinions and views from. For example most of the internet is owned by Google, this can be linked to Poreto's law where 80%is controlled by 20%. This is also a hegemonic theory .An example of was the Scottish referendum in which the BBC was supposedly providing a balanced argument but was leaning towards their own  views for a NO vote. There are pluralistic views that are apparent where on blogposts and articles it is available for users to give their opinions by posting a comment. This can be seen by other users and thus may influence them with their views. this is an example how audiences may encourage other parts of the audience. Also if the comment or post is very popular with a certain opinion it is likely that the institution will see this and can therefore mould there future articles to satisfy the taste of their audience

What’s the right relationship between technology companies and journalism?

http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2014/nov/23/silicon-valley-companies-journalism-news

“at news organisations the central organising principle is usually to produce something with social impact first ahead of utility or profit”

we have entered a world where the way we see news is dictated not by what’s on the newsstand or even what leads the 6 o’clock news, but what we see on our phones through another filter, increasingly through Facebook

 In the 2014 report of the same metrics 30% reported getting their news primarily from Facebook alone. That is a very rapid rate of migration in just two years.

This article emphasises how new and digitial media is affecting journalists and their roles in the industry. research has shown that UGC is more popular and is still increasing in popularity compared to news which is shown on the television. This may be seen as an advantage for some journalists as they may be able to use new technologies as different platforms for their stories. However I think that if they do not take advantages quickly then it will be too late to break through and be a successful journalist. 

YouTubers ads for Oreo banned for not making clear purpose of videos

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/26/youtube-ad-oreo-banned-advertising-lick-race

A campaign for Oreo featuring a host of British YouTube stars has been banned by the advertising watchdog for not clearly telling the public their videos were ads, following a complaint from a BBC journalist.

Mondelez, the parent company of Oreos, signed up a number of stars to promote its product in videos where they took part in an “Oreo Lick Race”.

The campaign featured some of the best-known British YouTubers including Phil Lester and Dan Howell, on the AmazingPhil channel which has 2.2 million subscribers, who were hired to present a Radio 1 show in 2012.

This article basically sums up how a journalist thought that there were a number of people who were trying to promote the Oreo brand were not seen clear by the attacking journalist. The journalist made a big deal about it how he thought that oreo had secretly asked people to promote their product through YouTube however all the youtube video makers had clearly stated that they were working with the oreo company in the description.I think that this article and issue has been slightly blown out of proportion as youtube can be an informal marketplace, and should not be taken so seriously by some officials.

Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony

1

The traditional view would be the police are seen as the elite people as if they have no faults. They seem to be the people who have control over the public. There was a suggested lck of control of the k9 police dog as he was a threat to society. According to new and digital media Ian Thompson was seen as being anti-social. As this is how his body language was shown.

Ian's family attended today's Metropolitan Police disciplinary hearing of PC Simon Harwood, held in public in west London. Speaking on behalf of the Ians Family Campaign, Ian's son Paul King said:

"We came here expecting a disciplinary hearing. There has been no hearing. We expected the Met to rule on whether it's officer killed Ian. The Met has basically gone 'no comment'.

It's a whitewash. It's like they have just let PC Harwood resign. The conflicting verdicts of the inquest and criminal court still need to be resolved.

We haven't given up, we will now be looking to the civil courts for the final judgement on who killed our dad."

A website was set up by his family that showed how an officer resigned or had his position in the force dropped because of the incident. This supports a hegemonic view of society where advantages of the public can be taken and no real punishment is made on the superior people.

2

The author argues that without 2.0 it wouldn't have been possible to take Harwood to court, and it would not have been possible to create awareness about the situation.

I believe that that new and digitial media does reinforce dominant hegemonic views as the institutions are the elite nation themselves and therefore what they put out has a view of their own in wish they can convey their views in the public eye. However I do think comment sections allow the audience to challenge them as these are interactive ways of sharing opinions, and if popular enough the institution may be aware of them.

Copywriting is dead? Don’t tell the journalists

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2014/nov/06/copywriting-dead-content-marketing-journalism

Last week the Direct Marketing Association hosted a thought-provoking evening looking at the state of copywriting. They produced a film to go with it that compared two generations – those that thrived in the mad days of the 1980s, and those now ascending the greasy advertising pole.

The new breed explain the realities of working in new media, how copywriting has evolved and now means writing and responding as part of the brief.

Why do so many bland campaigns emerge, without the clear creative streak that so characterises ads developed thirty years ago?

Old school copywriter Patrick Collister who is now the head of design at Google gave a talk about the different types of copywriters and how they are successful. He says that the ones who actually do nothing are the most creative copywriters opposed to the ones who are typing hard without thinking. He emphasises on how there is a lack of creativity now and things are not being effectively advertised now as they once were.

I agree with this article as now things on the internet pretty much have the same information as other articles and there is no distinct differentiation between most articles.

Jennifer Lawrence: 'I will never get Twitter. The internet has scorned me'

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/12/jennifer-lawrence-twitter-internet-hunger-games

In an interview with BBC Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw, Lawrence was asked by a fan: “Why don’t you have Twitter and will you ever get it?” To which the star emphatically and quickly answered: “I will never get Twitter.” Sitting alongside her co-stars Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson, she elaborated: “I’m not very good on phones or technology. I can not really keep up with emails, so the idea of Twitter is so unthinkable to me. I don’t really understand what it is, it’s this weird enigma that people talk about. And it’s fine, I respect that, but no, I will never get a Twitter. “And if you ever see a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram that says it’s me; it most certainly is not”.

 I think that it is impossible for celebrities to fully avoid social media sites as they will always be a source of entertainment upon these platforms, however because jennifer lawrence is already so popular due to various films being released, she does not necessarily need to keep intact with her fans at the moment because she is almost always in the limelight at the moment. I think that as her career starts to slow down she may start to use social media to maintain a brand image. 

Spotify CEO speaks out on Taylor Swift albums removal: 'I'm really frustrated'

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/11/spotify-ceo-taylor-swift-albums-daniel-ek

“We started Spotify because we love music and piracy was killing it. So all the talk swirling around lately about how Spotify is making money on the backs of artists upsets me big time,”

‘Here’s the key fact: more than 80% of our subscribers started as free users’

We’re getting fans to pay for music again. We’re connecting artists to fans they would never have otherwise found, and we’re paying them for every single listen. We’re not just streaming, we’re mainstreaming now, and that’s good for music makers and music lovers around the world.”

Ek also claimed that a top artist like Taylor Swift can expect to earn $6m a year from Spotify streams; criticised YouTube and SoundCloud for their lack of payments to artists for every stream on their services; and cited the likes of Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Calvin Harris and Daft Punk as examples of artists who have sold lots of albums without windowing their releases from Spotify.

I think that Spotify has made alot of progression as most of their users once started with free membership and have no updated for subscription packages. It is also a good way to tackle piracy.

Video games are not making us more violent, study shows

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/10/video-games-violent-study-finds

The study concluded that playing video games coincided with a fall in violent crime perpetrated by those in the 12-17 age group.

Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University in Florida, carried out two studies into media violence. In the first, his team correlated US homicide rates between 1920 and 2005

Screen violence inversely related to homicide rates in the 1990s.

“Society has a limited amount of resources and attention to devote to the problem of reducing crime,

This article focuses on how video games may potentially cause psychological imbalances resulting in players feeling more aggressive. So far there have not been any direct links strong enough to support this analogy. The reason why it is worth looking into is that the same age group who play video games of a violent nature are part of the same age group that have an increasing crime rate.

 “There is a risk that identifying the wrong problem, such as media violence, may distract society from more pressing concerns such as poverty, education and vocational disparities and mental health. This research may help society focus on issues that really matter and avoid devoting unnecessary resources to the pursuit of moral agendas with little practical value."

INDEX

1 ISIS militant

2 Apple Watch

3 Ios Update

4 Microsoft Job Cut

5 Apple buying Beats

6 Iphone 6 bending

7 Cassete Boy vs Cameron

8 Internet taking jobs

9 Snapchat Ads

10 Google Tax

11 Google develops device for cancer

12 Vodafone joins EE with 4G

UK joins world’s fastest mobile internet club with next generation 4G+ rollout

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/30/uk-joins-worlds-fastest-mobile-internet-club-with-next-generation-4g-rollout

EE joins Vodafone with mobile data speeds five times faster than average UK broadband in London, with Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool added in 2015

More people in the UK are going to get mobile internet speeds comparable with South Korea and US with the launch of EE’s next generation 4G+ network.

“The UK is now back to being a world leader in mobile networks,” said EE’s chief executive, Olaf Swantee. “Just two years since we were behind every developed market from the US to Japan, we’ve invested in innovation, driven competition and given people in London a mobile network that’s as faster than almost any other in the world, and even faster than most fibre broadband available here.”

EE has the largest 4G network in the UK covering 300 towns and cities and 75% of the population and with six million subscribers. O2 and Three have yet to confirm plans to follow EE and Vodafone.

I think that this will make the phone market more competitive meaning that the public will have less options to choose from if they wanted a high quality broadband with 4G connection. Also this could lead to EE and vodafone charging more for their deals as they are one of the companies that will have more to offer.

Google is developing a cancer and heart attack-detecting pill

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/29/google-cancer-heart-attack-detecting-pill

Google is working on a nanoparticle pill that could identify cancers, heart attacks and other diseases before they become a problem.

It is part of the move away from reactive medicine, which treats diseases once they have become serious enough to cause symptoms for patients prompting them to go and see a doctor and towards pre-emptive medicine, which catches signs of disease much earlier, before it becomes a problem

I think that this is just another business venture in which google can invest in. this will cause a decline in people going to see the doctors if this is successful but i think people will doubt the product in the start and this product may be looked down upon by doctors and the NHS. On the other hand it could be that the product is such a success that it could be sold to large health organisations and therefore increasing the profit made by google.

Spain moves to protect domestic media with new 'Google tax

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/31/spain-newspaper-google-tax

The Spanish government has successfully passed a new copyright law which imposes fees for online content aggregators such as Google News, in an effort to protect its print media industry.

Failure to pay up can lead to a fine of up to €600,000.

Google defends itself by claiming that it 10 billion views to newspapers’ websites every month.

A similar law passed in Germany saw Google removing the affected newspapers from Google news altogether – before the publishers eventually came back and asked to be relisted after seeing their traffic plummet, a step they said they had to take because of the “overwhelming market power of Google”.

I think that this is a great way to save journalism in certain countries however it may be easy for someone to copy all of google's news stories and post them somewhere else in which people may be able to evade the tax 

News Values

Immediacy

As there has been such an increase in technology and digital media platforms it is easier for the public to engage with news stories via these platforms. Meaning that news stories and UGC are now much easier accessible and are viewed by the public faster than ever before.

Familiarity 

I think that it is easier for people of all cultures to see news and digital media stories as the internet is a worldwide feature. 

Amplitude

Globalisation means that the internet is exposed to international events from social media platforms. and despite the size of the event we will still gain some form of information about it whereas before without new and digital media we would not.

Frequency

As the internet has such a huge archive of things that have happened in the past it is almost possible to find any story from a year so long ago. 

Unambiguity

Places on the internet like forum's and blogs can give us another story to the stories we have seen on the Tv and can help the public make up their mind about what article to believe. 

Predictability

Due to social media sites and other platforms on the internet it is likely that the public may predict events instead of waiting of official statements.

Surprise

Global reach new and digital media provides stories that may be surprising to the public like celebrity deaths. Whereas un going wars are less surprising.

Continuity

Digital media is informing people faster than ever before so by the time the story gets on to the news channels people may classify the articles as old news.

Elite Nations and People

The counties that are focused on the most tend to be countries with larger economies and power. for example if there was a news story about America and Zimbabwe, Americas story would be prioritised 

Negativity

Generally the highlighted news articles that appear on platforms are informing us of unfortunate events. 

Balance

It is hard to have an accurate balance of positive and negative news as the news stories are spontaneous  and not planned.