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Question: The development of new and digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the arguments for and against this view.

Changes made in red

Audiences are said to have more power in some ways however others believe that this statement is not true due to how the rich stay rich and the powerful stay powerful. The concepts of Marxism and Pluralism associate with power for audiences in terms of the consumption and production of new and digital media. In terms of Marxism, audiences are said to be force fed information and facts; believing what the rich and powerful say due to how the media portrays them as role models. The other side to Marxism (the opposite of this theory) is known as Pluralism which is the belief that people/audiences have power and do control the media. This essay will explore these concepts in correlation to new and digital media through the use of key media terms, quotes from authorities figures and media theorists that link towards the overall question.

Firstly the development of new and digital media allows pluralists to argue that audiences are empowered due to consumption and production of media. They believe that audiences/viewers are in control of what media organisations show and air because the media organisations want to give people what they want in order to ensure that they are getting money. It’s based around the money as they only give audiences what they want as that’s the only way that they can ensure they get what they want. Furthermore the uses and gratifications theory by Blumler and Katz relates to Pluralist ideologies due to the fact that it argues that media companies give audiences a number of reasons to view content such as diversion (otherwise known as escapism) or socialism. Also audiences are gaining the information that they want to know about as media companies accommodate to what the audience want.  As this is the case Pluralists believe that audiences control what media organisations show them and therefore believe that audiences are in fact empowered. “Technological blossoming of the culture of freedom, individual innovation and entrepreneurialism” Castells, 1996.  This statement connotes the fact that technology is becoming more advanced and more available and Castells therefore believes that this is allowing ‘freedom of speech’.

Another factor which gives audiences more power than they once had is the through web 2.0. Web 2.0 allows audiences to become producers of media texts instead of just being consumers of media. It allows anyone with a web connection to produce, publish and share their work easily without being a professional. This means that there is no need for professionals or even gatekeepers as it allows equal opportunities for anyone including smaller media producers who want to be heard. Briggs and Burke described the internet as “…The most important medium of the twentieth century” which is a Pluralist point of view based on the internet due to the amount of user generated content (UGC) available to everyone. An example of user generated content is like YouTube as anyone is able to create and post videos on here as long as you have a Google account. Furthermore viewers are able to like, comment and subscribe to videos and YouTube channels. UGC websites such as YouTube create opportunities for people to get their ideas out there in the world. An example of someone who got famous due to YouTube is Justin Bieber. He started his career by singing his songs on YouTube and is now one of the most famous young artists in the world. User generated content does help create opportunities for people to get heard and does equal the playing field.

Citizen journalism is a big factor of user generated content as it is the idea that anyone is able to record and post articles on the web where people are able to read their stories and beliefs without being a media professional. An important piece of citizen journalism is the Rodney King incident which was recorded by a passer-by on a camera phone. This was revolutionary as it was a gateway to people being able to record anything and use it as evidence.

A Marxist perspective in terms of audience empowerment within new and digital media would be that the mass media conglomerates control all of its consumers through forcing their own ideologies which become hegemonic views and opinions. Pareto's law agrees with this statement “a minority of (media) producers always serve a majority of consumers”.  This statement means that the 5 big media companies; who own majority of organisations; get their message across to majority of the population as most of the things people consume come from the same ideological foundation company such as News Corp. News Corp is a huge media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch, one of the most substantially rich media businessmen in the world. A Marxist perspective would be that the ‘information revolution’ has done little to nothing in terms of benefits to society as its allowed piracy and copyright. However, the perspective is different to this and subverts the Marxist perspective in order to make audiences think more. 

Marxists believe that big companies such as News Corp; who own most organisations; just push their ideologies onto people/consumers and they don’t give audiences power. In fact they believe that the rich media companies allow audiences to believe that they are getting what they want and do have the control and power but they are just led to believe that when it’s not even true. “…it could be argued that the media merely offers the idea that audiences can have their say, while, in practice, the ways in which user-generated content is expressed and understood is barely different from traditional media”. This statement argues that the media exaggerates the point about audiences have great power and control when in fact when the time comes for them to do or say something, nothing happens. The quote is saying that new and digital media is the same as traditional media in terms of audience empowerment but people cannot see this.  It’s therefore instigated the ‘dumbing down’ of the media so anyone can grasp the very basic concepts regardless of ability or expertise. The 'dumbing down' of media are in television however audiences are unaware of this. Often it has been noted that audiences do subliminally know this however they like being spoke to and referenced to in an 'easier' and 'dumbed down' way. Examples of the 'dumbing down' of media are like the news articles in newspapers, websites and even television programmes. 

Touching once more upon uses and gratifications by Blumler and Katz, the theory is also about audiences and how people use what they see on television or read on the internet; via a media organisations webpage; as a way of making and talking to friends. It allows interaction. An example of this is that if there is a popular show on television people seems to talk amongst themselves about it over the next few day and even weeks. It’s therefore accepted that if you are not part of the people who watch this you feel as if society ignores you and the only way to socialise is to watch this too.  This can be a Marxist point of view based on the uses and gratifications theory because the audience don’t seem to control this. Marxists believe that audiences are being led to believe they have the power to control the media however they are just subliminally being brain washed into watching it.

This can link in with the theory concept known as the hypodermic needle due to the way the media injects information and forces audiences to believe things which may not possibly be as true as they appear to be. Marxists believe that the gatekeepers controlling most of the organisations (monopolisation) are actually just injecting false information to viewer’s minds in order to keep the rich and powerful in society on top and looked upon as role models.

In conclusion this essay has been based on Marxism and Pluralism in terms of audience empowerment and audiences influences in the media arguing on one side that audiences have power due to them controlling what they want to watch and read however on the other side that audiences are just made to think that have the option to choose when in fact majority of everything comes from one of the top 5 media conglomerates in the world leaving us with one important question, do you believe you have empowered due to the development of new and digital media? 

The London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony

The London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony was about representing London as a multi-cultural city full of a vast variation of ethnic groups and diverse cultures. The ceremony consisted of scenes with a mixed variety of actors and dancers. The ceremony portrays Britain through a visual timeline. 

The Olymics opening ceremony goes againsts Frantz Fanons racism theories as his theory represents African Americans as "gangsters" or "Pimps" whereas the ceremony represents the characters as hardworking individuals. However, the ceremony also portrays the characters as wearing "white masks" as the family itself looks too staged. In modern society two different ethnic groups around a table is too normal and too staged and therefore portrays families living in Britain as "putting on the white mask". In terms of Fanons theory, the characters represented in the ceremony are seen as too ideal and exaggerates how accepting Britain actually is. 

New and Digital media stories 27/01/14

Broadcasting's poor ethnic mix has an impact on everyone

The lack of black and minority ethnic people must count as one of the industry's great moves backwards

The position of women in broadcasting, for example, is arguably improving and even disability post-Paralympics has a higher profile than ever before – something else has gone very wrong indeed. Whereas in 2003 Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people amounted to 7.6% of the creative industry workforce they now account for just 5.4% – a drop of a third over a decade during which their proportion of the population at large has grown significantly. In short, the position of BAME Britons in broadcasting and the creative industries is now significantly worse than it was ten years ago.

This must count as one of broadcasting's biggest moves backwards, with plenty of potentially contributory factors. But that was then. Now ITV plc is a single corporate entity that has subsumed the old regional companies across England and Wales, with an overall national perspective. Nevertheless the years of relative neglect mean fixing the ethnic diversity problem, even at the BBC, will take time. Meanwhile talent is finding expression elsewhere and broadcasting runs the risk of becoming ever more estranged from sections of Britain's population.

Urgent action is needed to reconnect the increasingly fragmented bits of our creative 
industries – and broadcasting in particular. In order to show social media more diverse and equal more ethnic presenters, characters and actors should be used so that audiences can see the industry as a fair and equal opportunity for all. 
Furthermore in order to make the industry more equal, television should be studied and looked upon and broadcasters should more more African American. The fact that African American are not as frequent on television could represent the industry and how racism in this widely changed industry has not progresses in terms of racism and is still to show favouritism towards the white working man. 
Having different ethnic groups as presenters or other important roles in television allows equality and shows that no one is disregarded due to religion, race or ethnic background which is important in this day and age. 

Mirror, Independent and Standard enjoy festive website traffic boost

Three sites buck annual trend, but Mail, Guardian and Telegraph report month-on-month declines in daily unique browsers

Mirror Group Digital, Independent.co.uk and Standard.co.uk enjoyed month-on-month traffic gains in December, when the festive holiday usually results in newspaper website user numbers dipping. Sure enough, the UK's three most popular newspaper websites – Mail Online, theguardian.com and Telegraph.co.uk – reported some decline in average daily unique browsers over the festive period compared with November.

• Mirror Group Digital cracked the 2 million daily unique browser mark for the first time in December
• rising 8.61% month on month to hit 2,023,770 
• Trinity Mirror's digital business, which also saw a 5.29% rise in monthly web browsers to 42,880,543 
• MGD reported 33,935 readers of the Monday to Friday version of its free e-edition, which is defined as a replica of the print newspaper read on devices such as tablets and does not include app usage, and 5,048 punters who paid £3.99 for the weekend digital edition.
• Independent.co.uk had a strong month with a 5.45% rise in daily browsers to 1,355,770 
•  The largest faller among national titles reporting ABC digital figures in December was the usually irrepressible Mail Online, which saw daily browsers drop 5.7% to 9,810,129, and monthly browsers dip by 4% to 161,320,058.

People seem to be using more and more portable devices and therefore they prefer accessing their news via the internet on a website published by the newspaper as this is easy and practical. Whilst technology is becoming more advanced, the demand for print newspapers would be in decrease therefore it is safe to say that newspaper publishers should take their business on the internet as this is where they will now be making their revenue.  

Film trailer analysis

12 years a slave trailer

The trailer for 12 years of slave relates to Alvarados theory of black people and the way that the group is portrayed. The theory concerns four main ideologies which are that people represent black people as: Dangerous; Humorous; Exotic and pitied. In the movie, black people are pitied in relation to Alvarados theory of representations because they are treated badly and are slaves to the white characters. Also black people were considered dangerous to the white characters in the movie and therefore they were chained up so that they could not bring any harm towards their white owners. The film is based around how black people have no power during the 1800's and shows how they were treated. 

At the very beginning of the trailer, Frantz Fanons theory of 'Black skin, White masks' is evident. This is due to the main character being from New York is black however is a free-man and therefore has a considerably good life in New York. He can be considered as having a 'White mask' due to the fact that he lives amongst white people and has white friends and hence the reason why he is attempting to fit in with this metaphorical white mask. 

Django Unchained trailer

Django Unchained is based on how black people were treated badly and were slaves to the white. They forced them to work on plantation sites picking crops and working their whole lives until they died. The movie follows this one slave who helps out a German bounty hunter who gives Django his freedom. He then allows Django to become a bounty hunter two as they both work together for a while before going after Django's wife at a plantation site. The movie relates to Alvarados theory of racial representations due to the fact that black people are pitied by the audience viewing the film. Also, they are feared and considered dangerous by the white characters in the movie. The characteristics in both Django unchained and 12 years a slave are the same in terms of Alvarados theory of racial representations and ideologies. 

The print below is a film poster in order to promote Django unchained. It consists of minimal writing and mostly images of various characters in the movie. Majority of the poster is red and yellow with parts which are black. The red could be in place to represent the blood and gore of the movie as the film itself is based around slavery and the way that black people were treated. Furthermore, the poster does not give much away at all however the fact that Leonardo Dicaprio is larger than the rest of the people portrays him as quite an important character in terms of the film.  

Chris Rock Stand up 

Chris Rock is an African American comedian who is on television. In terms of Alvardos theory of racial representations, he is considered as humorous he is a comedian and therefore is not represented or looked upon as dangerous. 

New and digital media stories 19/1/14

How do we do journalism differently in the digital age?

There are new ways of doing journalism as the digital revolution moves on. But what are these innovations? How do they work? How are they changing journalism, and with what effects? City University London is hosting a panel discussion on 28 January to explore these developments and the challenges they pose. 

Those taking part will be: Andrew Jaspan, founder and chief executive of The Conversation, a site publishing news and commentary by academic experts, which is based at City; Luke Lewis, editor of the UK edition of Buzzfeed.com; Anette Novak, chief executive of Sweden's Interactive Institute, which experiments with interaction design and data visualisation; and Sarah Hartley, co-founder and editor of Contributoria, who was involved intalkaboutlocal.org.uk, prolificnorth.co.uk and The Guardian's notice start-up.

Journalism now involves others writing news articles which are not even professional journalists due to the development of new and digital media and the fact that people nowadays have smartphones which enable them to video anything anywhere within a matter of seconds. This empowers audiences as they now can create news articles and create blogs on anything they want due to the internet. They have freedom of speech (to a certain extent).

Beats Music reveals US launch plans, but can it drown out Spotify?

Dr Dre and Trent Reznor among launch team for new streaming music service, promising curation and family-friendly pricing

Dr Dre's headphones brand Beats will launch its Beats Music streaming music service on 21 January in the US, competing with Spotify, Rhapsody and Google Play Music All Access. The company has been working on the service for more than a year, having hired Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor as chief creative officer, and digital music industry veteran Ian Rogers as chief executive at the start of 2013. In December, Rogers had promised that Beats Music would launch in January, but over the weekend the company confirmed the date, price, initial distribution partners and more details on how the service will try to differentiate itself from the competition, although for now, it will only be available in the US.

Unlike Spotify, there will be no free element to Beats Music beyond an initial 30-day free trial. Subscribers will pay $9.99 a month for unlimited access to a catalogue of more than 20m songs through apps on iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices, as well as a website for desktop access.

"Beats Music combines the emotion only a human created playlist can give you with the best personalisation technology can deliver," said Rogers in a statement. "With this you get not just the music experience only a talented DJ or music expert can deliver, but also the right one for you right now."

Post-Colonialism

Post-colonialism 

Post-colonialism does not simply refer to the period after the colonial era. It can also be seen as a continuation of colonialism. The word 'Post' is a prefix which means after colonialism. Post-colonialism may seek to challenge or undermine the 'western' way of thinking. The post-colonial theory attempts to focus on the oppression of those who were ruled under colonization. 

Factors include... 

• Political oppression 
• Economic 
• Social & cultural oppression

Post-colonialism...

• Questions the effect of an empire
• Raises issues such as racism and exploitation
• Assesses the position of the colonial or post-colonial subject
• Offers a counter-narrative to the long tradition of European imperial natives

Subaltern are the people in the 3rd world who do not have the power in the West. Western ideologies were therefore challenged by these groups of people. 

Theorist: Frantz Fanan

Black Skin,White Masks (1952 - translation published)

'Colonisation has had a huge psychological impact on both the coloniser and the colonised.'

'...putting on a white mask'

 --> Black slaves would wear white masks to mock their slave owners during the carnival. 

 --> They would mock their owners because they were treated badly and abused and therefore it was their one day to mock them. 

 --> He is saying that people change in order to fit into the western world

• Infantilize - Making everybody seem as children 'cute' 
• Primitivize - The 'exotic & Vinle' -tribal warriors
• Decivilized - Gang related
• Essentialized - Lumping them all together 

Theorist: Alvarado 

There are four keythemes in racial representations...

• Exotic (models; music artists; food)
• Dangerous (Crime; ganged; socially dysfunction)
• Humorous (Comedians)
• Pitied (Poverty)  

Theorist: Edward Said

Moved colonial disclosure into the first world academy and into literary and cultural theory. Was also very influential in third world universities.

• "Power and Knowledge are inseparable" (following Foucalt's belief)
• A "lumping" together of Asia   

New and digital media stories 12/1/14

The new New York Times: making the concept of redesign obsolete

The Gray Lady has overhauled with 'hamburgers', native ads and clever design, but for all the good, personalisation is wanting

A website redesign is often an expensive, time-consuming, over-hyped exercise in media navel-gazing: an expression of institutional ego over users' needs. So I will confess a pre-emptive shrug at news of the newest New York Times online. The redesign kills the irritating news-site habit of cutting stories into multiple parts. In print, we newspaper folk called that "jumping" from, say, the front page to one inside, and every reader survey ever performed told editors that customers hated that. Newspapers continued to do it online not because scarce space forced us to but instead because we wanted to pump up our page views: the more pages you viewed, the more ads you saw, the more money we made – or so went the myth of old mass media carried over to online. The Times now lets us scroll through a story without clicking.The new Times uses what geeks call the "hamburger button" (three parallel lines – two sandwiching the third) to get rid of the time-worn left-hand navigation bar. The navigation bar can be the basis of political turf wars, with editorial and commercial departments battling for more signage.The Times attracts more than half its readers every day.

I think this will make it easier to iterate with new technologies, obsoleting the concept of the redesign, rather than the present site. The new design features are there to help readers online to access content and navigate through the site more easily. The changes help on all platforms and means that the website is the same for each viewing device. 

The Guardian is working on its own new systems and redesign. 

BBC iPlayer sees record numbers over Christmas as tablets beat computers

Views on tablets hit 2.2m on Boxing Day, passing computers for first time, and smartphones getting 1.6m requests

The BBC has hailed 2013 as the year of the tablet after its popularity as a Christmas present saw viewing of TV programmes on the iPlayer via such devices pass laptop and desktop computers for the first time. Dan Taylor, head of the BBC iPlayer, said that tablet usage overtook viewing on computers as the most popular way to access the iPlayer from Boxing Day through to 30 December.

• On Boxing Day there were 2.2 million iPlayer requests from tablets, compared to 2.1 million from computers.
• Requests from mobile devices such as smartphones also rose significantly on Boxing Day to just under 1.6 million 
• By New Year's Eve, tablet requests had dropped back to 1.93 million
• New Year's day programme requests were up 35% year on year, from 8.1 milllion in 2012.

I think that these figures are due to the increase in the demand for new devices and technology products. Kids always want the latest smartphones/tablets and therefore this makes the sales and views at certain times of the year fluctuate. 

Black Mirror: The national Anthem?

What is the message of Black Mirror: The national Anthem?

The message of Black Mirror: The National Anthem is that new and digital media has had a huge impact on society and therefore people look at certain things in a different way than they once did. Also, the fact that people are use to instant news and instant access to information means that the media and news must update their news hourly and must be keeping up to date, to the minute in order for them to stay in competition with social media such as Twitter and Facebook. The keyword viral is important in the short film as it represents the fact that once something is put on the web, it can be access elsewhere even if it is taken down due to social media and the vast amount of people on the internet. The event took place on YouTube and despite it being taken down 9 minutes later, it went viral which meant that everyone soon found out in a matter of minutes. The government have no control over this and therefore they cannot stop this from becoming a national threat.  
Despite you deleting or taking down a video or piece of information on YouTube; or on the internet in general; there could be many copies of this still out there without you even knowing. 

Key terms:

• Instant access to information and data
• Trending
• Rolling news
• 24 hour updates
• Injunctions
• Ofcom
• YouTube
• Viral
• Audience 

The fact that some things which are bad have no become the norm mean that audiences can control the routines in which everyone promotes to. 

Christmas NDM stories

News Corp buys Storyful for £15m

Social news agency distributes video and user-generated content to news organisations such as the BBC and ITN

News Corp has bought Dublin-based social news agency Storyful for €18m (£15m). Storyful is a website where videos and current news stories are uploaded to for people to talk about and discuss. Storyful is a team of technologists and journalists, working round the clock in Asia, Europe and the United States. Some of us are veterans of big news brands like Reuters, BBC, CNN and the International Herald Tribune. Others cut their teeth in national newsrooms in Ireland and Korea. 

The company describes the organisation as "Storyful is dedicated to helping news and communications professionals everywhere to use social media to make their news-gathering,reporting and storytelling shine."

Rupert Murdoch's global publishing business said Storyful would remain a stand-alone operation that would complement its existing video offerings, including WSJ Live. The founder and chief executive Mark Little and David Clinch, executive editor, will stay, with News Corp senior vice president for video Rahul Chopra joining Storyful's management team as chief revenue officer.

News Corp has something of a mixed record with buying technology and digital media startups. Furthermore...

• They payed $580m (£324m) in 2005 acquisition of MySpace. 
• The social networking service atrophied under News Corp ownership as rivals including Facebook and Twitter forged ahead, and was sold for about $35m in 2011.

UK entertainment spending rises with surge in film and music streaming

Value of film and TV downloads, streams and subscriptions rises to £621m, and number of tracks streamed doubles to 7.4bn

After five years of decline, sales of entertainment products such as music, films and video games were growing again last year because of booming digital services such as Netflix and Spotify, according to figures published on Wednesday. The surge in popularity of watching TV and films on the likes of Netflix, Amazon's LoveFilm and Apple's iTunes fuelled a 40% increase in spending on digital videos with downloads, streams and subscriptions rising to £621m, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA). The digital revolution was also felt in the UK music industry, where the number of tracks streamed doubled to 7.4bn, thanks to a rise in users of services such as Spotify and Deezer, which have almost halted a 10-year decline in music sales.

• The shift to digital viewing more than offset a 6.8% fall in the sale of physical DVDs to £1.4bn
• a five-year decline in total video sales, which managed 3.7% growth to £2.06bn last year.

"Services like Netflix, LoveFilm and Blinkbox are transforming the video business by making content available over multiple devices," said Kim Bayley, director general of the ERA, 

• In the UK music market, total sales of albums and singles fell by just 0.5% to £1.04bn, as the popularity of digital downloads and streaming services almost offset the continuing plummeting sales of CDs, according to the music industry trade body BPI.
• The value of digital subscriptions to music services rose by 34% last year to £103m
• ...as the number of tracks streamed doubled to 7.4bn.
• Combined sales of digital and physical albums fell 3.6% in value to £772m.

In terms of music, the industry is in decline and therefore we as consumers of music and digital information should be willing to keep our favourite artists performing by helping them earn the amount which they should. This could be through more digital downloads and decreasing the amount of piracy which goes on in a consumers everyday life as part of the norm. 

Christmas NDM stories #2

Native advertising is the new paywall in media economics - but is it here to stay?

Many digital publishers have placed it at the heart of their business strategy - but there are concerns over transparency

In 1917, the American Federal Trade Commission settled a case with the Muensen Speciality Co., over an ad for its vacuum cleaner, which it presented as a favourable newspaper review. It was the first case where "advertorials" (or "native advertising" as they are now known) were identified by regulation in the US. Today you might expect to see something similar, but in the form of a viral link circulated round your social network, entitled "13 vacuum cleaners that suck in the wrong way, and one that doesn't".The Federal Trade Commission has however become so concerned about the new challenges of the digital advertorial that in December it organised a one-day workshop on the subject called Blurred Lines.When CBS's primetime current affairs show 60 Minutes recently ran an exclusive interview with Amazon boss and new newspaper owner Jeff Bezos, it pitched him no hard questions and allowed him to demonstrate his potty scheme for deliveries by drone. 

Two question marks hang over native advertising, which will become more significant this year. Personally "native advertising" is not good as it represents ideologies and values which our society doesn't realise. Its probably the fact that this form of advertising persuades readers/viewers to talk about it thus gaining publicity for all the wrong reasons.

Internet streaming won't save music – the industry still relies on hits

The top three selling albums of 2013 were compilations, with One Direction's Midnight Memories selling less than 1m

Perhaps the most telling comment on the end-of-year music sales figures for 2013 – reporting a 0.5% 

decline on the previous year – came from Kim Bayley, director general of the Entertainment Retail Association (ERA): "Music's performance is primarily due to a weak release schedule … Retailers will be hoping that labels deliver bigger hits in 2014." In other words, it doesn't matter that the internet has given loads more artists the opportunity to reach an audience – with a broader range of music – the survival of the record industry is as reliant on hits today as it's ever been, if not more. A closer look at the top 10 albums of 2013 in the UK illustrates this hit reliance – the top three albums are compilations: Now That's What I Call Music 84, 85 and 86.

• British artists continue to do well, being responsible for half of the top 10 albums of 2013 – and eight of the top 10 albums in the Official Artist Albums Chart. 
• the total number of albums sold in 2013 was down only 6.4%
• the number of units sold was down 4.2% in terms of Digital British singles 
• Only Passenger's Let Her Go (4) and Naughty Boy's La La La (5) managed to reach the top 10 of 2013.

Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal reports that data it reviewed showed that one major record company makes more per year, on average, from paying customers of streaming services such as Spotify ($16) than it does from the average customer who buys downloads, CDs or both ($14). This data appears to only apply to the US, however.