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”.