Leveson Inquiry

Lord Justice Leveson has made it very clear that the press has failed in its responsibilities to the public. The ethical code of conduct has been continually ignored, public interest has been damaged and elements of the press have wreaked havoc on the lives of innocent people. He has recommended that the press have a genuinely independent self-regulation, so that they may uphold their standards with obligations to the public. Also, importantly, he says this regulator needs to be supported by statute to protect victims.

In my opinion, I believe that Lord Leveson is correct in saying that the press should be regulated but only to a certain extent. For example, there is news that the public would like to know about such as exposure of criminal activities that could possibly relate to them, and these kinds of things may not be printed in the press in the future. However, e-emedia is a platform that allows people to publish whatever they like online and also it is of easy access. This could cause moral panics in the UK because of the prohibition from the government that forces them to publish 'sensitive' information on the internet.

My Video

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Kidulthood

• What representation of young people in London do we see in the opening of Kidulthood?
• Is it a fair representation?
• Is it a good example of verisimilitude (think of realism or being true-to-life)?
• Has a process of mediation taken place with the filmmakers concentrating on one aspect of youth culture?

The opening scene of Kidulthood we, as the audience, are able to see the different groups of people within the school which are normally shown in American teen films that follow an individual in a school. For example, you are able to see the popular kids who in America, tend to be the good-looking bunch and also quite affluent compared to others. This is subverted through the opening of Kidulthood because this film is based in London and the filmmakers have decided to portray a lack of wealth in these individuals. The film reinforces the stereotype of chavs that some people have about London youth and continues to negatively portray these groups of people.

During the opening of Kidulthood, we see a group of young students in a school who have been portrayed extremely negatively. The reason why it may seem this way is due to the fact that the director/writer has decided to put all the bad things associated with London youth, into one opening scene of the film which is then negatively received and could then cause people to criticise this representation. This then makes this an unfair representation because there have been many events that have been squeezed into once scene; for example, drugs, bullying and sex. This is an example of a form of verisimilitude and is not a positive one because most London youths do not experience what happens in the first film and therefore makes some of the acts irrelevant to them such as the smoking of marijuana. Some people may argue that the true representation of London youth lies beyond verisimilitude because it should challenge the realism of the representation. If the audience believe that the representation is challenging the norms of society and makes sense, this then makes the audience question the particular representation and therefore make their own judgement.

The reason why it is only partly credible for being true to life is because most of these behaviours don’t apply to the mass London youth and therefore becomes a form of mediation. The filmmakers seem to have wanted to portray the lives of young Londoners by showing the things that they go through during their time at academic schools. It focuses more on social aspects as one of the young girls in the film makes fun of the girl being a virgin thus, suggests that having sex at the age of 15 is something that is now ‘normal’ for Londoners however this again does not apply to all London youth but it makes this individual ‘virgin’ has become a social outcast and as a result, is bullied. Mediation has taken place in the sense that the filmmakers have chosen to represent the London youth in what they believe will either challenge stereotype or heavily reinforce and in this case, the latter point applies to Kidulthood. It can be understood why they have decided to do this which can again relate to the money which the controversy will cause to boost because more people will be intrigued to watch the film. This could relate to the writer himself who may come from a similar background to those of the characters in the film and therefore just exaggerate the lives of the characters to appeal to audiences.

New and Digital Media Slideshow

Slides:

3.

• Text Documents -  Google Docs , MyTextFile, Text Files.
•  Photographs - Flickr, PhotoBucket, Google Images
• Video - Google Video, YouTube, DailyMotion  
• Movies - BlinkBox, LoveFilm ,  NetFlix
• Videogames - GAME , Play.com , GameSpot
• Audio Recordings - Vocaroo , Voice Recording Online , Muziboo
• Computer Programs - Online Utility , SpectorSoft, Microsoft

5. I believe that Briggs and Burke are correct when they state that the internet is the medium of the twentieth century but also adding on to this,  it is the medium of the future even from today. It is highly important as there is a very significant percentage of people in the world that have access to the internet and this could also be related to McLuhan's theory of the world becoming a 'global village'. The reasoning for this is due to the fact that people from all over the world are able to maintain contact with each other through the internet which is a quick and efficient method of doing so and this could have never been done in the past.

The Information Age relates to the revolution in the manner that people receive and collect information; which, with the support of the internet, has become an easier method of spreading information around the world.

6. 2407.5 million people have access to the internet as of 30th June 2012.

7. The Gutenberg Revolution:

   - Religion

   - Science

   - Art

8. - Communication - Social Networking

   - Nature of information

   - Culture - Lack of culture

   - Privacy - Hacking (Personal Information)

   - Community - Social Networking

   - Business - Skype Meetings across the world

   - Online safety - Hacking

   - Copyright - Taking the work of others to pass of as your own

9. What is so special about the internet? 

  - Tool used for rapid communication

  - Store data online for back ups

  - Can become recognisable through UGC (YouTube)

  - Save lives through sharing information

  - Affordable

12. TASK - Suggest THREE other ways it could be argued that the internet might be ‘killing our culture’?
- pornography
- piracy
- cyber-bullying

13. The information that is revealed to users could be construed as something immoral and could force individuals, especially young people, to become aware of these things from a young age which are attempted to be kept from them and could then promote sex which in turn could lead to an increase in teenage pregnancies etc.

15. - An online study published by OFCOM

      - A report on BBC News Online

      - An article on Wikipedia

      - An academic paper available at a US University website

      - A film review in the comments section on IMDB

24. The internet allows people to educate themselves through various sources and changes the way people think.

28. One-to-one communication - Telephone, Letters, Text Messaging

     One-to-many communication - Books, Film, Television, Radio

     Many-to-many communication - Newspapers, Magazines, Forums, Chatrooms

32. Pareto's Law was looked into by Lin and Webster in 2002 and technology has rapidly increased over the years since then and therefore communication has increased also. This means that there are social networking sites and website that allow users to upload user-generated content which can be viewed across the world on the internet. This is a form of communication that allows information to be spread quickly and through various forms.

34. What is the difference between an internet user and a television viewer? Are you more active on-line  Justify your answer

The internet user is anyone that uses the internet to collect information that could educate or entertain them. A television user is someone that has the access to TV and views various things on that television which can vary however these things can also be viewed on the internet through various websites such as Channel 4OD.

36. Recall THREE examples that demonstrate how media institutions influence what we think. 
Newspapers - political views can change through the biased papers such as The Sun who used to support the Labour party and then switched to the Conservative party when they won the last election along with the Liberal Democrats.

Film - The amount of sales from film can cause a boost in the economy and therefore allow the country to become stronger in terms of its economical values.

Television - Culture can be diversified as portrayals are changed in television and therefore promote values and beliefs about culture that could appeal to people and cause them to change their values to match these.

37. 

The front page of The Sun - Very biased

A parliamentary report on BBC News 24 - Somewhat biased

An editorial in The Guardian - Stating their own opinions therefore bias will be recognised.

A typical Hollywood action film - Neutral

An episode of Big Brother on C4 - Neutral

The headlines on Fox News - Very biased due to NewsCorp conglomerate owner Rupert Murdoch

A typical British ‘social realist’ drama film - Slight bias to the representations that are shown

A police/crime documentary on ITV1 - No bias

41.

Less censorship - pornography, extreme politics, conspiracy theories…

More freedom - blogs, forums, global information

Supporting innovation/entrepreneurialism - internet start-ups, social networking, Google

Anti-establishment - G8 protests, file-sharing

Cottage industry - eBay

47. Have the inequalities that characterise old media ownership extended into new media ownership?
Is the internet run by powerful media institutions?

Conglomerates such as NewsCorp own a large percentage of the media that we live in however in my opinion, I would not agree by saying that the internet is controlled by large media institutions as there are many sources where information can be published and people are free to voice their own opinions. There may be a certain extent to which institutions can control the publications on the internet however I believe that e-media is a platform that is free of regulation and anyone could provide information about something to someone across the world without anyone even knowing about it.

54. There are always concerns about new technology. In your view, what are the possible benefits and problems attached to the Internet?

The benefits of the internet include the fact that information is readily available to a user and therefore people can educate themselves and possibly gain recognition through UGC on sites such as YouTube or E-Blogger.  A disadvantage of the internet is the minimal use of regulations that are present and therefore publications from people could prove to be disadvantageous.

76.

Case Study:

Who owns the site? Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Do they also own any traditional media businesses? Yes (Blogger, YouTube)

What other internet sites do they own? 23 of the top 100 most popular sites in the world.

What is its revenue? $37,905

What is its overall worth? $249.9billion

Research five key facts about the institution.

 - The infamous “I feel lucky” is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.

- They use the 20% / 5% rules. If at least 20% of people use a feature, then it will be included. At least 5% of people need to use a particular search preference before it will make it into the ‘Advanced Preferences’.
- Google has the largest network of translators in the world
- The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. In fact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.

 - Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘Whats up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.

Find three quotes (with references) about the institution.

Google is working on self-driving cars, and they seem to work. People are so bad at driving cars that computers don't have to be that good to be much better.
 - Marc Andreessen 

The great thing that guys like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and the Google guys have in common is they treat their technology like it's art, and I suppose in the hands of virtuosos like them, it is.
 - Harvey Weinstein 

If I could edit Google Images, then I wouldn't be as scared of the Internet.
 - Chloe Sevigny

List the key info provided on the company’s corporate homepage.

In 2000, we introduced AdWords, a self-service program for creating online ad campaigns. Today our advertising solutions, which include display, mobile and video ads as well as the simple text ads we introduced more than a decade ago, help thousands of businesses grow and be successful.
On April Fools' Day in 2004, we launched Gmail. Our approach to email included features like speedy search, huge amounts of storage and threaded messages.
Our Initial Public Offering of 19,605,052 shares of Class A common stock took place on Wall Street on August 18, 2004.
We acquired digital mapping company Keyhole in 2004, and launched Google Maps and Google Earth in 2005. Today Maps also features live traffic, transit directions and street-level imagery, and Earth lets you explore the ocean and the moon.
In 2006, we acquired online video sharing site YouTube. Today 60 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. Cat videos, citizen journalism, political candidacy and double rainbows have never been the same.
Amidst rumors of a “Gphone,” we announced Android—an open platform for mobile devices—and the Open Handset Alliance, in 2007.
Word got out about Google Chrome a day ahead of schedule when a comic book introducing our new open source browser was shipped earlier than planned. We officially launched on September 2, 2008.
Larry Page, Google’s original CEO until 2001, took up the title again in April 2011. Eric Schmidt, now our executive chairman, served in the role for 10 years.
In June 2011, we introduced the Google+ project, aimed at bringing the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web, and making all of Google better by including people, their relationships and their interests.

News night Story

 The Mirror:

15 minutes of shame: BBC caved in to failed chief's demandsfor £450,000 golden goodbye

The Guardian:

BBC director general failed to grasp gravity of Newsnightscandal, MPs told.

The Telegraph:

George Entwistle quits as director-general over Newsnightfiasco.

Summary:

George Entwistle was the Director General for the BBC which is the largest Public Service Broadcaster in the world and denied being aware of an investigation into Lord McAlpine who was falsely accused of being a child abuser. He then made the comments to BBC trustees, including its chairman Lord Patten, following his disastrous appearance on Radio 4's Today programme on Saturday 10 November to answer questions about the BBC2 programme's aborted investigation of sexual abuse by the late TV and radio star Jimmy Savile. Later that day, he handed in his resignation after a mere 54 days in the job.

Opinion:

I think that the pressure that Entwistle was under was immense and forced him to leave his job so early into his contract. Also, the fact that the press have been following him and even followed him to his home door which shows the lack of respect that they have for him which could be construed as an invasion of privacy which is something that everyone in the UK is entitled to.

Media Guardian Story

BBC's budget management'slow and resource intensive', says watchdog

NAO report criticises corporation's internal reporting and budget negotiations, but says improvements have been made.

The BBC's stewardship of its £3.9bn annual spend is "slow and resource intensive", according to a report by the public spending watchdog. On Tuesday the National Audit Office (NAO) published a report on financial management at the BBC saying the corporation should do more to streamline internal financial reporting, and monitor more closely whether its spending decisions were aligned with its strategic and editorial objectives. The NAO's report added that the BBC had strengthened its approach to managing its finances, but outlined several areas in which it could be improved further. It comes as the BBC grapples with the implementation of former director general Mark Thompson's £700m Delivering Quality First cost-saving scheme.

"The BBC's internal financial reporting and planning processes are slow and resource intensive," the NAO said. According to the NAO, the process of agreeing the BBC's annual budget "consumes more management time than in comparable organisations".

"It takes between five and six weeks from the end of each month for that month's financial results to reach the executive board," it added.

In my opinion, I believe that the BBC’s financial reports should be organised more to ensure that it continues to operate effectively and efficiently and therefore maintain its consumers. However, the sum that is spent annually is a large amount and in order to help recover the UK from the weak climate that we are currently in and ensure that it remains the biggest broadcaster in the world.

Media Guardian Story

Facebook proposesditching user votes on policy changes

Comments to replace user voting attracted 'quantity over quality' of feedback. Facebook has become so large that a system allowing users to vote on policy changes has become ineffective, the company's head of communications announced on Wednesday. The site's three-year old experiment allowing users to vote on corporate policy changes was introduced in 2009 in response to user outrage over Facebook's terms of use which gave the site licence over users' photos, videos and posts. Elliot Schrage, vice president of communications, public policy and marketing, wrote that the system had to change since the site grew to more than one billion users, and since it became a public company in May.

"The voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivized the quantity of comments over their quality," wrote Schrage. "Therefore, we're proposing to end the voting component of the process in favour of a system that leads to more meaningful feedback and engagement."

I think that the voting system was a useful tool however did not allow users to voice their opinions on something that the site’s owners can actually take from it. This new development will allow Facebook to receive more qualitative feedback about things which can allow them to increase their appeal to wider audiences and become a thing of the future.

Media Guardian Story

Future predicts'tablet Christmas' will boost e-editions sales

Magazine publisher hopes for seasonal surge as digital sales of titles such as T3 break the £6m mark this year. Mark Wood, the chief executive of Future Publishing, said the company is already shifting $1m in gross revenues a month from sales of its 100 digital titles, and expects a huge surge this festive season as tablets are expected to sell in record numbers this Christmas.

He said the growing market of tablet-style products from makers including Apple, Amazon, which has the Kindle Fire range, and the new Microsoft's Surface will make this a record Christmas for sales.

Future expects to see a massive associated revenue boost as digital edition sales surge once consumers start buying content when they start to use their tablets. 

In my opinion, I think that the sales volume will increase significantly this Christmas due to the amount of tablets that have already been purchased by large amounts of consumers. This may impact the economy of the UK in a positive way and will become strengthened as a result of this. the fact that technology has advanced over a major scale has become significant because more people are becoming aware of this technology and this can include 'silver surfers' who will not have experienced the uses of tablets previously. Furthermore, the main advantages of this include the tablets which can be used for many reasons; such as academic studies, business related work, and even social networking. The scale of technology has increased rapidly as there are more companies that are becoming involved with producing hi-tech products that appeal to wide audiences.

World Star Hip Hop - Media Story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/18/worldstarhiphop-bankable-brand-brutality The president may have come out swinging in the second presidential debate Tuesday, but on the web another pugilist is still dominating the week. Perhaps you are one of the millions who've watched the grainy video of a Cleveland bus driver who coldcocked an unruly passenger, delivering a brutal uppercut to the jaw that sent her tumbling out of the vehicle. Or perhaps you've watched one of the many spoofs, or the slow-motion replays, or the fan edits in which the bus driver's fist of fury is accompanied by Batman-style "Pow!" effects or the theme song from the video game Mortal Kombat.

This grim video is everywhere, from USA Today to national and international news broadcasts. The airheads of the View, exhibiting a degree of inanity exceptional even for them, got in on the act Monday: one observed that the driver may have been set off by fears of contracting the flu (the passenger had spit on him), while another opined that Ben Kingsley's performance in Gandhi had inspired her to follow the path of nonviolence. But the original publisher of this brutal video is none other than World Star Hip-hop, one of the most depressing outlets in an already bleak constellation of gory shock sites, third-rate mixtape feeds and desperate content aggregators. If you're not yet familiar with World Star, you're one of the few. In the past year, its videos of rappers, strippers and, especially, street fights – all screened in a Ram-hogging proprietary format, on a site whose design would have looked dated during the Clinton administration – have won a million or so pageviews a day: about the same as Gawker, or double the traffic to the soon-to-be-exclusively-digital Newsweek. In my opinion, WSHH allows for people to view videos from all over the world and similar to other video sites such as YouTube or Daily Motion however they cater for a different target audience due to the content that is placed on the site. Some videos such as the one with the bus driver punching a pedestrian who happened to be a woman are somewhat morally wrong however there are videos on the internet that also display this and WSHH cannot be solely blamed for this controversy that has been caused as a result of this.

Somali Journalists

It's been a terrible year for Somali journalists. Fifteen of them have been murdered in 2012 so far – mostly victims of targeted killings. That makes Somalia one of the deadliest places to be a journalist. In all of these cases, the perpetrators have never been caught. While the murder of a journalist is always a heinous crime, corruption and clan loyalty can take Somali journalists on the wrong path. I'm not in any way suggesting they deserved to be killed, but abuse within the profession has led to the deaths of many. Corruption is part and parcel of the Somali media. Journalists don't normally ask themselves if a story is important or interesting. It is about how much money they can get from their sources to publish it. It's known locally as sharuur, and it's a form of bribery. In my opinion, journalism in Somalia is becoming more and more dangerous judging on the story that I have researched. These murders have mostly taken place due to corruption within the journalism industry in Somalia and therefore suggests that Somali journalists are not being paid to publish the truth in some cases and this is important as Somalia needs to be aware of what goes on in the country that they live in.

Media Guardian Story - Facebook reaches its £1b mark

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/04/facebook-hits-billion-users-a-month Facebook is now used by 1 billion people every month, or one in every seven people in the world, its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has confirmed. The milestone means Zuckerberg has achieved his stated ambition of reaching 1 billion active monthly users just two years and three months after the social network reached the half billion mark. Facebook reached 900 million active monthly users in April. Facebook has recorded 1.13 trillion Likes, 140.3 billion friend connections and 219bn shared photos since it launched in February 2004. More than 300m photos are uploaded every day and 62.6m songs played. "Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life," wrote Zuckerberg in a Facebook timeline update on his personal account. "I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too." In my opinion, Facebook has become a world-wide phenomenon and is useful for various things. For example, people can communicate across the world without having to pay a substantial amount and is much easier to do also. It keeps a personal record of someone's life and this could have negative implications. For example, the if someone updates statuses about various aspects of their lives, then it will allow for people to invade their private lives and possibly threaten this. However, the fact that Facebook has had this much commercial success means that it has become one of the worlds most well-renowned businesses and is continuing to grow and further develop.

Representation of Race and Ethnicity

The Olympic ceremony scene begins with a woman driving home with her mixed race son and in a red mini cooper. The reason why this is signification is that is represents British culture as this car is seen as something totally British in other people’s perspectives of England. When they get out of the car you are able to see the child who is playing on a portable console which allows audience members to identify with this as most other young children share the same interests. They are made to be seen as a happy family and this is contradicted by the article from the Guardian by Rick Dewsbury where he blatantly suggests that finding a happy mixed racial family who belong to the middle class is highly unlikely in England and therefore raised many eyebrows of readers. He discusses further on to subliminally suggest that black men are not educated and are unable to support their families and often leave their partners after impregnating them. This is a negative connotation of the race and ethnicity of black men and is extremely different to the opening ceremony of the Olympics in 2012. The article could relate to Alvardo’s theory of black people being pitied and possibly even dangerous. Fanon’s theory of black people wearing white masks is also being reinforced in the article due to the fact that Dewsbury states that it would be too much of a challenge for the organisers of the Olympics to find a middle class white family so they had to settle for a mixed raced family that is apparently “unlike to live in such a set-up”.

Media Guardian Story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/sep/27/olympics-iplayer-viewing-requests

The London 2012 Olympics proved to be digital gold for the BBC, with a record-breaking 200m viewing requests for shows on the iPlayer in August. In my opinion, I believe that the Olympics over the summer that were held in London, was something that London has used to its advantage and therefore strengthened its economy. The BBC iplayer application has been accessed more than 200 million views simply for catch-up TV for the running of the Olympics. Without this advance in technology and media, half of the country would not be able to see this and this has been beneficial to the whole country.