Bully and Skins
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSq2q45ohB8&feature=related]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lA86kQcE1I]
1. Compare and contrast the representation of teenagers in the two texts. (8 marks)
The representation of teenagers in Skins is quite different from that of the Bully trailer. The Skins opening represents teenagers as having a sensitive nature, easily hurt and upset where hormones and emotions take their toll during school. The shot of the two girls kissing abruptly cuts to another where the same girl is kissing a male instead. This also connotes that hormones are at their peak at a time where it is difficult to distinguish sexual preference. At the same time, it shows teenagers to still be immature and concentrating on the insignificant aspects of life – like the shot of Ollie pouring water out of his ears.
Bully seems to take a different side in terms of representation, showing teenagers to be violent, rude and involved in antisocial behaviour such as criminal damage. Similar to Skins, it shows an element of carelessness and immaturity – referring to the shot of the main protagonist slipping on some glass. However, the fact that the creators of the game have chosen to represent the main protagonist in this way shows that they are trying to create a sort-of “teenage gaze”, in order to allow users to play the game through the bully’s perspective. Some could argue that this promotes and encourages violent behaviour, showing teenagers that they should strive to take the easy way out in difficult situations.
2. Consider the view that the current representation of teenagers is simply another ‘moral panic’. (12 marks)
There has been a great controversy regarding the representation of teenagers in the media. Teenagers have been criticised constantly in the media since the 1960s, when teenage lifestyle began through popular music and youth culture. Some argue that the media seem to consider the actions of a minority in society as a stereotype with which to represent all teenagers in news articles and broadcasts. There has been more teenage crime in the last decade than ever in the history of UK, which has essentially caused audiences to become accustomed to stereotyping all teenagers as being dangerous, uneducated and unmannered. This sort of moral panic normally originates when newspaper institutions realise that certain stereotypes produce a higher readership and circulation than stories which are unusual. Therefore, it is common for certain newspapers and broadcast channels to reinforce these stereotypes for their own gain, knowing that audiences will be anxiously waiting for the next story that will follow this trend.
A recent example is that of the student protests in London, following the rise in University tuition fees ordered by the new British coalition government. These protests soon turned into riots, ultimately ending in destruction, violence and injuries. Most media coverage soon after these events failed to focus on the point that teenagers were making through the use of violence, but focused on stereotyping teenagers as being dangerous and a threat to society when joined in groups. Therefore, the media are creating moral panics for the profit of institutions. This Marxist view would argue that the institutions providing this news footage are like hypodermic needles, injecting the values and ideologies into audiences which would ultimately benefit the institution financially. Although User Generated Content has also become such a big form of contemporary news, the footage from people’s mobile phones and low-quality cameras showing police handling innocent and peaceful protesters violently, were not given as much attention as those that proved teenage crime was at its toll. These forms of Citizen Journalism have allowed the media to shape stories to fit the representations they are trying to disperse among the public. Therefore, even though it is simple and fast to create User Generated Content through the use of new and digital media, it is not as simple trying to convince institutions to portray the completely true story of the events shown in the footage.
Therefore, it could be said that the media are creating a moral panic in order to allow the public to stereotype certain people/groups of people for their own personal gain. It is a form of entertainment and also a form of profit that is easy to accomplish and carry out.
3. To what extent has new and digital media given younger audiences the opportunities to shape their own media representations? (12 marks)
User Generated Content has been one of the biggest advantages for audiences in terms of shaping their own media representations. Websites such as YouTube were invented in order to allow anybody to post videos containing their own views and opinions. Some argue that this brings out the Democratic values of the UK, allowing anybody to have their voices heard and accepted by majorities around the world. However, it is debatable whether YouTube’s censorship and regulation is in support of younger audiences shaping their own media representations. This is because, since its takeover by Google Inc. in 2006, certain content has been banned from being uploaded and shared due to its explicit nature. Therefore, it could be argued that the content being consumed by younger audiences on sites like YouTube is not the view of every uploading user, but simply the view that Google Inc. are trying to portray to its viewers, by banning other materials it thinks are too explicit or extreme.
Another E-Media platform that has contributed greatly to the younger generation and its stereotyping of certain places/people is Facebook. The social networking site allows any users over the age of 13 to interact and encourage their views and opinions on their own profiles. It has arguably been one of the most accepting social networking sites since the launch of the Internet, not undermining those who have extremist beliefs and judgments. Although the regulatory body of Facebook allows users to report anybody with racist or offensive remarks, users are able to simply block those who they do not wish to interact or communicate with. This leaves the younger generation with a new-found sense of power and freedom, where they are able to choose what kind of representations they are comfortable with, and accept these as being their own.
Monday, 25 April 2011
Task 2
In timed conditions (45 mins) answer the following essay question on New and Digital Media. You may need to research your case study in more detail to answer the questions successfully.
“Digital Media have, in many ways, changed how we consume media products” – who do you think benefits most? Audiences or Producers?
New and digital Media has had an enormous impact on, not only audiences, but also institutions that run traditional Media platforms such as broadcasting and print. Since the late 20th Century, digital Media has grown rapidly, almost three times as fast as the growth of traditional Media during the entire century.
The cross-platforming of many Media products has allowed audiences’ power and control to increase dramatically. Through the revelation of User Generated Content (UGC), it has widely become known that Media consumers have acquired just as much power and equality by the public as news readers. Websites such as BBC, that allow viewers to post home-made quality footage as news events, further emphasises this power. It illustrates today’s society as no longer being obsessed with trust and authority, but accepting of anything which could be viewed as evidence.
Traditional Media consumption methods such as television and radio have, since the Noughties, had a massive decline in revenue. Where traditional 50s patriarchal families would join together for the evening to watch the good old 6 o’clock news on BBC1, now families spend more time on their computers socialising much less with members of the household. Some argue that social networking sites such as Facebook contribute to this negative change and are dumbing-down society, eventually allowing themselves to be taken over by the Media (which Marxists call Ideological State Apparatus). The advantage for Mark Zuckerberg and producers of Facebook is that it illustrates a virtual world that is available for any person over the age of 13 to access and use freely. This means that those who are unaware of the dangers of antisocial behaviour, would find it extremely difficult to distinguish between the virtual world, and the real world.
Furthermore, this idea of audience power is illustrated through Citizen Journalism, where anybody is now able to record low-quality footage and have it treated with the same importance as that of professional quality. Some could argue that audiences are now trusting these things more than what they consume through traditional Media, e.g. Broadcasting. A recent example of an issue related to Citizen Journalism is the mobile phone recording of Ian Tomlinson’s assault during the G20 protests. This shows the public that Media institutions are almost deliberately not disclosing certain content in hope that the police officers in question would not be accused. Therefore this gives audiences power.
Another example of a rise in audience power and control is the introduction of Wikileaks, where the public were able to challenge and question the government – more so than before. This sort of power would have been almost impossible in the mid-20th Century, where the Media was one of the only methods of communication between elites and the public. This meant that it was so much easier to take advantage of the audience’s trust than it is now. A Marxist view on this issue would argue that institutions aim to take control of its viewers in order for the elite to remain powerful and destroy any equality. Even though this may not be the case in the US, it is clear that this sort of website allows for a more Democratic society and equalises the public.
Traditional Media consumption has, in a way, gone “downhill”, as the Media conglomerates now find it more important to merge platforms, in order to appeal to a larger demographic audience. Through the creation of Youtube, institutions are able to advertise channels/programmes to a younger target audience, depending on their profiles. This is another aspect of New and Digital media that has been in favour of producers. It is now possible to create automatic advertisements that only appear to certain users depending on the videos they watch, like and subscribe to. Youtube would be able to detect videos that have a similar theme like, for example, “Racing” and would proceed to publish recommended videos of Racing on the user’s profile next time they sign in. Therefore, it is beneficial for TV channels such as BBC and Channel 4 to create their own channels on Youtube. It allows them to advertise certain programmes to those viewers who show interest in similar themed videos.
Therefore, it is very clearly the audiences that benefit most from New and Digital Media and its technological advances. This is because this Pluralistic way of life has forced institutions to conform to the needs and requirements of its audiences, therefore leaving them with no choice but to accept technological advances and compete with organisations that are conforming faster. This makes is easier for audiences to consume products as the radical amount of new technology being produced as a result of institutions’ conformity, means audiences have a much larger variety to choose from.
“Digital Media have, in many ways, changed how we consume media products” – who do you think benefits most? Audiences or Producers?
New and digital Media has had an enormous impact on, not only audiences, but also institutions that run traditional Media platforms such as broadcasting and print. Since the late 20th Century, digital Media has grown rapidly, almost three times as fast as the growth of traditional Media during the entire century.
The cross-platforming of many Media products has allowed audiences’ power and control to increase dramatically. Through the revelation of User Generated Content (UGC), it has widely become known that Media consumers have acquired just as much power and equality by the public as news readers. Websites such as BBC, that allow viewers to post home-made quality footage as news events, further emphasises this power. It illustrates today’s society as no longer being obsessed with trust and authority, but accepting of anything which could be viewed as evidence.
Traditional Media consumption methods such as television and radio have, since the Noughties, had a massive decline in revenue. Where traditional 50s patriarchal families would join together for the evening to watch the good old 6 o’clock news on BBC1, now families spend more time on their computers socialising much less with members of the household. Some argue that social networking sites such as Facebook contribute to this negative change and are dumbing-down society, eventually allowing themselves to be taken over by the Media (which Marxists call Ideological State Apparatus). The advantage for Mark Zuckerberg and producers of Facebook is that it illustrates a virtual world that is available for any person over the age of 13 to access and use freely. This means that those who are unaware of the dangers of antisocial behaviour, would find it extremely difficult to distinguish between the virtual world, and the real world.
Furthermore, this idea of audience power is illustrated through Citizen Journalism, where anybody is now able to record low-quality footage and have it treated with the same importance as that of professional quality. Some could argue that audiences are now trusting these things more than what they consume through traditional Media, e.g. Broadcasting. A recent example of an issue related to Citizen Journalism is the mobile phone recording of Ian Tomlinson’s assault during the G20 protests. This shows the public that Media institutions are almost deliberately not disclosing certain content in hope that the police officers in question would not be accused. Therefore this gives audiences power.
Another example of a rise in audience power and control is the introduction of Wikileaks, where the public were able to challenge and question the government – more so than before. This sort of power would have been almost impossible in the mid-20th Century, where the Media was one of the only methods of communication between elites and the public. This meant that it was so much easier to take advantage of the audience’s trust than it is now. A Marxist view on this issue would argue that institutions aim to take control of its viewers in order for the elite to remain powerful and destroy any equality. Even though this may not be the case in the US, it is clear that this sort of website allows for a more Democratic society and equalises the public.
Traditional Media consumption has, in a way, gone “downhill”, as the Media conglomerates now find it more important to merge platforms, in order to appeal to a larger demographic audience. Through the creation of Youtube, institutions are able to advertise channels/programmes to a younger target audience, depending on their profiles. This is another aspect of New and Digital media that has been in favour of producers. It is now possible to create automatic advertisements that only appear to certain users depending on the videos they watch, like and subscribe to. Youtube would be able to detect videos that have a similar theme like, for example, “Racing” and would proceed to publish recommended videos of Racing on the user’s profile next time they sign in. Therefore, it is beneficial for TV channels such as BBC and Channel 4 to create their own channels on Youtube. It allows them to advertise certain programmes to those viewers who show interest in similar themed videos.
Therefore, it is very clearly the audiences that benefit most from New and Digital Media and its technological advances. This is because this Pluralistic way of life has forced institutions to conform to the needs and requirements of its audiences, therefore leaving them with no choice but to accept technological advances and compete with organisations that are conforming faster. This makes is easier for audiences to consume products as the radical amount of new technology being produced as a result of institutions’ conformity, means audiences have a much larger variety to choose from.
Task 3
In timed conditions (45 mins) answer the following essay question on Representation. You may need to research your case study in more detail to answer the questions successfully.
It has been said that media representations often reflect the social and political concerns of the age in which they are created. Discuss.
Media representation has been the most controversial topic since the invention of television. It is hard to distinguish whether the Media is the voice of the public, or whether the public respond to issues raised in the Media.
Celebrity culture is a representation that steers between positive and negative depending on the social and political issues of the age in which they were created. There are some issues raised about celebrities being represented as better than “regular” people in society, purely because of their status of fame. Some argue that those who are famous seem to be more powerful than those who are not, because of the money they earn, their expensive dress-sense and style, and the sheer amount of fans they possess. This brings media institutions to draw the public’s attention to their private lives, in hope that they will be able to destroy these “fairytale” representations. A Marxist would argue that institutions are doing this in order to control what audiences view, and insert certain Ideologies into them, through the use of Ideological State Apparatus. Therefore, a Marxist view would agree with the above statement.
Furthermore, other figures of “power” such as Royalty also steer in terms of representation. 50 years aso, the Royal Family were seen as the ideal family, to which everyone would have aspired to, leaving their own beliefs behind. Even through the immense Media outburst of Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ “fairytale wedding” illustrated these positive representations. However, after they used the Media to bring out their opinions about their marriage and its failure, the positive representation of Royalty was destroyed. It became clear that the royal family were like any other family and shared problems that are experienced in any modern-day relationships. Therefore, audiences were persuaded to take on a negative view on any monarch who tried to portray their relationship as being happy/perfect.
Television shows such as “Have I Got News for You” would take advantage of this change of representation, allowing the public to believe that authority figures should not be represented any differently from those who have no status. It could be argued that the representation of politicians had never been favoured by the Media. Even though there seemed to have been glimpses of positive representations such as Obama becoming the first black US president, audiences have become accustomed to finding flaws in peoples’ personality and their work, in order to conform to the stereotypes illustrated in the Media.
This brings about the issue of ethnic minorities being represented negatively. It is known that racism is still a huge issue that is being tackled in this country. Therefore, it is not surprising that black or Asian people are represented as being more dangerous and less accepting of the British culture. News footage that talks about crime and terrorism seems to feature names/images of Muslim extremist groups. This, in a way, brainwashes audiences to believe that it is the religion that requires these actions to be committed and don’t concentrate on the individuals themselves. As this is something that has become somewhat of a moral panic in Britain recently, especially after this Post-911 society as we near the London Olympics, it needs to be made clear that those who are ethnic minorities have a far lower chance of acquiring “power” or “authority”. Therefore, the representations of ethnic minorities in the media agrees with the statement that those in power are favoured in terms of positive representations in the Media, and those who are considered second/third class citizens would always be represented negatively.
Furthermore, the representation of politicians in the media seemed to have taken a huge negative toll in the recent years. The panic arising from this change in the British government from Labour to a Coalition between Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties has taken over the way politicians are represented. The media specifically targeted Gordon Brown for his weaknesses in controlling his temper in private. This was seen when controversy hit his public image after he was caught on microphone calling a regular woman “bigoted”. Another example of a negative representation is when a YouTube user created a creative music video featuring shots from the three main politicians’ debated and transforming them into a “rap battle”. This, in a way, allowed viewers to understand the issues going on in Parliament without having to listen to pointless excuses by politicians, who are psychologically experienced in manipulating audiences’ thoughts.
To conclude, it is clear that the Media does not favour those in power at the expense of those without, as it is often observed that those in power receive far more criticism by the media because of audiences’ demands to understand their private lives.
It has been said that media representations often reflect the social and political concerns of the age in which they are created. Discuss.
Media representation has been the most controversial topic since the invention of television. It is hard to distinguish whether the Media is the voice of the public, or whether the public respond to issues raised in the Media.
Celebrity culture is a representation that steers between positive and negative depending on the social and political issues of the age in which they were created. There are some issues raised about celebrities being represented as better than “regular” people in society, purely because of their status of fame. Some argue that those who are famous seem to be more powerful than those who are not, because of the money they earn, their expensive dress-sense and style, and the sheer amount of fans they possess. This brings media institutions to draw the public’s attention to their private lives, in hope that they will be able to destroy these “fairytale” representations. A Marxist would argue that institutions are doing this in order to control what audiences view, and insert certain Ideologies into them, through the use of Ideological State Apparatus. Therefore, a Marxist view would agree with the above statement.
Furthermore, other figures of “power” such as Royalty also steer in terms of representation. 50 years aso, the Royal Family were seen as the ideal family, to which everyone would have aspired to, leaving their own beliefs behind. Even through the immense Media outburst of Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ “fairytale wedding” illustrated these positive representations. However, after they used the Media to bring out their opinions about their marriage and its failure, the positive representation of Royalty was destroyed. It became clear that the royal family were like any other family and shared problems that are experienced in any modern-day relationships. Therefore, audiences were persuaded to take on a negative view on any monarch who tried to portray their relationship as being happy/perfect.
Television shows such as “Have I Got News for You” would take advantage of this change of representation, allowing the public to believe that authority figures should not be represented any differently from those who have no status. It could be argued that the representation of politicians had never been favoured by the Media. Even though there seemed to have been glimpses of positive representations such as Obama becoming the first black US president, audiences have become accustomed to finding flaws in peoples’ personality and their work, in order to conform to the stereotypes illustrated in the Media.
This brings about the issue of ethnic minorities being represented negatively. It is known that racism is still a huge issue that is being tackled in this country. Therefore, it is not surprising that black or Asian people are represented as being more dangerous and less accepting of the British culture. News footage that talks about crime and terrorism seems to feature names/images of Muslim extremist groups. This, in a way, brainwashes audiences to believe that it is the religion that requires these actions to be committed and don’t concentrate on the individuals themselves. As this is something that has become somewhat of a moral panic in Britain recently, especially after this Post-911 society as we near the London Olympics, it needs to be made clear that those who are ethnic minorities have a far lower chance of acquiring “power” or “authority”. Therefore, the representations of ethnic minorities in the media agrees with the statement that those in power are favoured in terms of positive representations in the Media, and those who are considered second/third class citizens would always be represented negatively.
Furthermore, the representation of politicians in the media seemed to have taken a huge negative toll in the recent years. The panic arising from this change in the British government from Labour to a Coalition between Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties has taken over the way politicians are represented. The media specifically targeted Gordon Brown for his weaknesses in controlling his temper in private. This was seen when controversy hit his public image after he was caught on microphone calling a regular woman “bigoted”. Another example of a negative representation is when a YouTube user created a creative music video featuring shots from the three main politicians’ debated and transforming them into a “rap battle”. This, in a way, allowed viewers to understand the issues going on in Parliament without having to listen to pointless excuses by politicians, who are psychologically experienced in manipulating audiences’ thoughts.
To conclude, it is clear that the Media does not favour those in power at the expense of those without, as it is often observed that those in power receive far more criticism by the media because of audiences’ demands to understand their private lives.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Representation Essay Question
It has been said that media representations often reflect the social and political concerns of the age in which they are created. Discuss.
It is in human nature to stereotype people/places to make it easier to understand why they do certain things. These stereotypes are not always necessarily positive. Negative representations of certain groups of people or places can be used for comic purposes or in sitcoms/soap operas to create a narrative that would interest the audience. The representation of women is an example of a group of people stereotyped negatively for many years.
Before feminism originated in the 1960s, women were represented as being inferior to men in terms of mental ability and the use of practical reasoning. In relationships, it was a common sight when the wife was beaten by their husband for disobeying his orders or disagreeing with his views. This kind of awareness was not properly launched until the mid-1960s. Even though there were pockets of feminism around after the Second World War, originating after female uprising due to their workload during the war, the 60s brought about a new kind of culture where teenagers were to be respected and treated as equals to adults, and pop culture was at its peak. Especially after female contraception was introduced and women were able to have intercourse with whoever they wished, adding on to the Equal Pay Act in 1963, where it became legislation for all women to be paid equally to men when they are working in the same jobs. Because of this, the representation of females in the media changed dramatically from the narrow-minded black-and-white household products advert degrading women's roles in the home, to contemporary social issues that affect everybody and not just aimed at undermining women. Therefore, it is unclear whether, in terms of the representation of women, the advertisements of the time were reflecting social concerns or whether they were only illustrating the situation of the time.
There are many other groups of people who are represented in both negative and positive lights, depending on the situation of the time. For example, my case study research discusses the representation of white British politicians in the Media. It has often been the case that they are seen as lacking awareness of contemporary social issues that affect society. In the current century, it has been the case that the Coalition government formed by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have been criticised immensely for their narrow-mindedness. Nick Clegg, head of the Liberal Democrat party had made a personal pledge to students going into higher education to reduce tuition fees and cut costs that would keep them in a difficult financial situation. However, because of the turn in poitical tides, he immediately changed his policies to conform with the Conservative party, contradicting his promises to the public. This has brought a lot of negative crticism onto himself by the media - who are speaking on behalf of the British public, and looking for somebody to blame for the country's economic decline.
An alternative representation of white British politicians would be that of Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s, when she was seen as a hero after normalising and drastically improving Britain's economy. However, even though this positive representation existed, it soon declined with Thatcher's power and increasing respect from the public. This was a great step for feminism, as she was the first female British Prime Minister, there to govern a patriarchal society that hadn't yet conformed to the idea of equality between men and women. She could, however, be seen as a complex individual. It could be argued that she was not really succeeding in governing the country as a woman, but used strong masculine movements and tone of voice to connect with her people. The positive representation soon changed when she was challened in the well-known interview in May 1982 on BBC One. After her sinking of the Argentinian battle ship "Belgrano", she was criticised and insulted by a a housewife on live television. This created great controversy as it began the trend in public authority. The fact that somebody who had virtually no authority in society whatsoever was able to go onto national television and criticise the Prime Minister of her own country seemed to suggest that their power was declining.
This became a milestone in the journey through insulting comments and satirical television programmes such as "Have I Got News For You" and "Mock The Week", who crticise authority figures on a regular basis, purely because the media has gained this amount of adequate power that it is now able to criticise any public figure without getting into any sort of trouble. Royalty has also been target of negative representation since the end of the 20th Century. 60 years ago, it would have been impossible to insult the royal family in the media as it would possibly have been considered an act of treason, for which one could receive a prison sentence. However, it has become a common aspect to see the royal family being criticised for their narrow-mindedness and lack of public awareness. They were once seen as the perfect family, who society was technically supposed to learn from and look up to. It set an example to the rest of the country on how to live their lives with manners and etiquettes. But since the media has become involved in private aspects of royals' lives, the public seem to witness problems that exist in everyday families, such as domestic arguments and divorce. Because these issues would not have been as obvious 60 years ago as they are now, it is obvious that the representation of royalties does reflect the social and political concerns of its time.
In terms of politics, part of my representation case study focuses on the representation of Tony Blair, who was the British Prime Minister during most of the Noughties. At the start of his government, he was represented as a very intelligent individual who was aware of all political and social issues of the current age. However, by the time documents were leaked about the war in Iraq after it was crticised for being unjust and denied by the Prime Minister, he was virtually weakened and bombarded with insults. The information that was revealed to the public proved that the Prime Minister was acting out of the public's safety and interest when it went to war with Iraq, who contained no weapons of mass-destruction as he had claimed. This, in turn, became another huge turning point in the representation of politicians in the media, as it has set a new level of expectation for consumers of these texts, meaning the public are now more conscious of how they view the actions of those in authority and what effects they would have on the country.
In conclusion, it is certainly the case that media representations often reflect the social and political concerns of the age in which they are created. As seen in many examples, the media illustrate public opinion regarding contemporary social issues, and their views on the political situation of the time, therefore giving the public what they want. This Pluralist view seems to be in the public interest as they are consuming information that reflects their opinions, giving the media their complete trust when it comes to these issues.
It is in human nature to stereotype people/places to make it easier to understand why they do certain things. These stereotypes are not always necessarily positive. Negative representations of certain groups of people or places can be used for comic purposes or in sitcoms/soap operas to create a narrative that would interest the audience. The representation of women is an example of a group of people stereotyped negatively for many years.
Before feminism originated in the 1960s, women were represented as being inferior to men in terms of mental ability and the use of practical reasoning. In relationships, it was a common sight when the wife was beaten by their husband for disobeying his orders or disagreeing with his views. This kind of awareness was not properly launched until the mid-1960s. Even though there were pockets of feminism around after the Second World War, originating after female uprising due to their workload during the war, the 60s brought about a new kind of culture where teenagers were to be respected and treated as equals to adults, and pop culture was at its peak. Especially after female contraception was introduced and women were able to have intercourse with whoever they wished, adding on to the Equal Pay Act in 1963, where it became legislation for all women to be paid equally to men when they are working in the same jobs. Because of this, the representation of females in the media changed dramatically from the narrow-minded black-and-white household products advert degrading women's roles in the home, to contemporary social issues that affect everybody and not just aimed at undermining women. Therefore, it is unclear whether, in terms of the representation of women, the advertisements of the time were reflecting social concerns or whether they were only illustrating the situation of the time.
There are many other groups of people who are represented in both negative and positive lights, depending on the situation of the time. For example, my case study research discusses the representation of white British politicians in the Media. It has often been the case that they are seen as lacking awareness of contemporary social issues that affect society. In the current century, it has been the case that the Coalition government formed by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have been criticised immensely for their narrow-mindedness. Nick Clegg, head of the Liberal Democrat party had made a personal pledge to students going into higher education to reduce tuition fees and cut costs that would keep them in a difficult financial situation. However, because of the turn in poitical tides, he immediately changed his policies to conform with the Conservative party, contradicting his promises to the public. This has brought a lot of negative crticism onto himself by the media - who are speaking on behalf of the British public, and looking for somebody to blame for the country's economic decline.
An alternative representation of white British politicians would be that of Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s, when she was seen as a hero after normalising and drastically improving Britain's economy. However, even though this positive representation existed, it soon declined with Thatcher's power and increasing respect from the public. This was a great step for feminism, as she was the first female British Prime Minister, there to govern a patriarchal society that hadn't yet conformed to the idea of equality between men and women. She could, however, be seen as a complex individual. It could be argued that she was not really succeeding in governing the country as a woman, but used strong masculine movements and tone of voice to connect with her people. The positive representation soon changed when she was challened in the well-known interview in May 1982 on BBC One. After her sinking of the Argentinian battle ship "Belgrano", she was criticised and insulted by a a housewife on live television. This created great controversy as it began the trend in public authority. The fact that somebody who had virtually no authority in society whatsoever was able to go onto national television and criticise the Prime Minister of her own country seemed to suggest that their power was declining.
This became a milestone in the journey through insulting comments and satirical television programmes such as "Have I Got News For You" and "Mock The Week", who crticise authority figures on a regular basis, purely because the media has gained this amount of adequate power that it is now able to criticise any public figure without getting into any sort of trouble. Royalty has also been target of negative representation since the end of the 20th Century. 60 years ago, it would have been impossible to insult the royal family in the media as it would possibly have been considered an act of treason, for which one could receive a prison sentence. However, it has become a common aspect to see the royal family being criticised for their narrow-mindedness and lack of public awareness. They were once seen as the perfect family, who society was technically supposed to learn from and look up to. It set an example to the rest of the country on how to live their lives with manners and etiquettes. But since the media has become involved in private aspects of royals' lives, the public seem to witness problems that exist in everyday families, such as domestic arguments and divorce. Because these issues would not have been as obvious 60 years ago as they are now, it is obvious that the representation of royalties does reflect the social and political concerns of its time.
In terms of politics, part of my representation case study focuses on the representation of Tony Blair, who was the British Prime Minister during most of the Noughties. At the start of his government, he was represented as a very intelligent individual who was aware of all political and social issues of the current age. However, by the time documents were leaked about the war in Iraq after it was crticised for being unjust and denied by the Prime Minister, he was virtually weakened and bombarded with insults. The information that was revealed to the public proved that the Prime Minister was acting out of the public's safety and interest when it went to war with Iraq, who contained no weapons of mass-destruction as he had claimed. This, in turn, became another huge turning point in the representation of politicians in the media, as it has set a new level of expectation for consumers of these texts, meaning the public are now more conscious of how they view the actions of those in authority and what effects they would have on the country.
In conclusion, it is certainly the case that media representations often reflect the social and political concerns of the age in which they are created. As seen in many examples, the media illustrate public opinion regarding contemporary social issues, and their views on the political situation of the time, therefore giving the public what they want. This Pluralist view seems to be in the public interest as they are consuming information that reflects their opinions, giving the media their complete trust when it comes to these issues.
Monday, 28 March 2011
Internet vs Washing Machine
Did the washing machine change the world more than the internet?
Agree
- The washing machine has become a necessity
- Washing your clothes manually is harder labour than replacing the internet (reading books)
- Could be argued internet is breaking/dumbing down society
- When using a washing machine, you can ignore it while it works and socialise
- Creation of internet has made crimes easier
- Internet introduced moral panics
- Brought attention to issue of patriarchal society
- Introduced feminism
- Made job easier for women, as men learn to wash clothes
- Neutral with all customers - does not pick and choose
Disagree
- It is easier to communicate across the world
- More convenient than using telephones
- Has created virtual lifestyle
- Enhanced imagination and creativity
- More complicatedly created than washing machine
- Requires less power
- Introduced citizen journalism
- Gives a voice to everyone
- Removes authority
- Allows access to content that would otherwise not be available
- Gives sense of closeness and international connectivity
The Guardian article - "Ha-Joon Chang: The net isn't as important as we think"
Agree
- The washing machine has become a necessity
- Washing your clothes manually is harder labour than replacing the internet (reading books)
- Could be argued internet is breaking/dumbing down society
- When using a washing machine, you can ignore it while it works and socialise
- Creation of internet has made crimes easier
- Internet introduced moral panics
- Brought attention to issue of patriarchal society
- Introduced feminism
- Made job easier for women, as men learn to wash clothes
- Neutral with all customers - does not pick and choose
Disagree
- It is easier to communicate across the world
- More convenient than using telephones
- Has created virtual lifestyle
- Enhanced imagination and creativity
- More complicatedly created than washing machine
- Requires less power
- Introduced citizen journalism
- Gives a voice to everyone
- Removes authority
- Allows access to content that would otherwise not be available
- Gives sense of closeness and international connectivity
The Guardian article - "Ha-Joon Chang: The net isn't as important as we think"
The economist and author says the washing machine changed the world more than the internet, a tool we overestimate while ignoring its downsides.
Ha-Joon Chang says the washing machine revolutionised society in more profound ways that the internet
Ha-Joon Chang, born in South Korea in 1963, is an economist based at Cambridge University specialising in development. Known for his heterodox views, he is the author of several books, including Kicking Away the Ladder (2002) and Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008). In his new book, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (Allen Lane, Chang debunks many cherished myths about the free market. In one chapter, he says: "The washing machine changed the world more than the internet."
Is it really true that the washing machine has changed the world more than the internet?
When we assess the impact of technological changes, we tend to downplay things that happened a while ago. Of course, the internet is great – I can now google and find the exact location of this restaurant on the edge of Liverpool or whatever. But when you look at the impact of this on the economy, it's mainly in the area of leisure.
The internet may have significantly changed the working patterns of people like you and me, but we are in a tiny minority. For most people, its effect is more about keeping in touch with friends and looking up things here and there. Economists have found very little evidence that since the internet revolution productivity has grown.
And the washing machine was more transformative?
By liberating women from household work and helping to abolish professions such as domestic service, the washing machine and other household goods completely revolutionised the structure of society. As women have become active in the labour market they have acquired a different status at home – they can credibly threaten their partners that if they don't treat them well they will leave them and make an independent living. And this had huge economic consequences. Rather than spend their time washing clothes, women could go out and do more productive things. Basically, it has doubled the workforce.
The washing machine is just one element here. Other factors have contributed to the liberation of women – feminism, the pill and so on.
Yes, but feminism couldn't have been implemented unless there was this technological basis for a society where women went out and worked. Of course it's not just the washing machine, it's piped water, electricity, irons and so on.
Do we tend to overestimate the importance of communications revolutions?
Not always. The invention of the printing press was one of the most important events in human history. But we overestimate the internet and ignore its downsides. There's now so much information out there that you don't actually have time to digest it.
In another chapter of the book, I talk about the American economist Herbert Simon, who argued that our problem now is that we have limited decision-making capability rather than too little information. If you try to find something on the internet, it's a deluge. And in terms of productivity, the internet has its drawbacks – for example, it makes it a lot easier to bunk off work.
But what about the sheer speed at which it allows us to do things?
That is exaggerated too. Before the invention of the telegraph in the late 19th century, it took two to three weeks to carry a message across the Atlantic. The telegraph reduced it to 20 or 30 minutes – an increase of 2,000-3,000 times. The internet has reduced the time of sending, say, three or four pages of text from the 30 seconds you needed with a fax machine down to maybe two seconds – a reduction by a factor of 15. Unless I'm trading commodity futures, I can't think of anything where it's really so important that we send it in two seconds rather than a few minutes.
Does it matter that we overestimate the internet's importance?
On one level, no. If I think the Sun goes round the Earth, it's not going to affect how I do my grocery shopping or teach economics. But where it does matter is that a lot of people have come to accept a policy action or business decision on the grounds that this is something driven by technological changes rather than by active human decisions. So anyone who is against total globalisation is a modern luddite.
This idea that the internet is driving globalisation has enabled business leaders and politicians to get away with decisions made for their own self-interest, because people have been too ready to accept that things have to be like this.
Do we fundamentally misunderstand the nature of capitalism, as the title of your book implies?
Let me start by saying that I am an advocate of capitalism. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I think it's the worst economic system except for all the others. So I'm not an anti-captialist, or anarchist. I want capitalism to work. But the version of capitalism that we have practised in the past two or three decades is a very extreme free-market version which, contrary to the claims of many economists, is not the only or best way to run things. There are many different ways and in the book I show that countries that have run capitalism differently – even if they practise free-market capitalism today – have done much better.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Electronics Weekly Article - Net Neutrality
Sir Tim Berners-Lee to help defend net neutrality in UK
Monday 21 March 2011 09:49
Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee is to work with the Broadband Stakeholders Group to ensure the UK works towards a more open Internet.
The move follows a roundtable meeting on net neutrality of business, industry and government agencies chaired by communications minister Ed Vaizey.
Vaizey welcomed Berners-Lee's involvement, saying the development of the Internet should be based on access to legal content, non-discrimination against content providers, and clear traffic management policies.
Berners-Lee said, "While transparency about traffic management policy is a good thing, best practices should also include the neutrality of the net.
"The web has grown so fast precisely because we have had two independent markets, one for connectivity, and the other for content and applications."
The meeting discussed issues around managing traffic on the web and protecting the open Internet, as well as creating an industry-wide agreement for self-regulation.
Berners-Lee agreed to help the group to include the rights of consumers and business to connect to whomever they want on the Internet without discrimination, in its new transparency document.
Vaizey described the meeting as "useful and productive". He said, "Handling heavier [Internet] traffic will become an increasingly significant issue so it was important to discuss how to ensure the Internet remains an open, innovative and competitive place."
Broadband Stakeholders Group CEO Antony Walker said the challenge was to agree on how to safeguard the benefits of the open Internet and ensure ongoing investment and innovation. "It is important that this is based on what is happening in the UK rather than what is happening elsewhere in the world," he said.
Open Rights Group executive director Jim Killock said BT's involvement with the new YouView and BT Vision content distribution services could harm net neutrality.
"We are talking about ISPs competing with the Internet for content delivery," he said. "People could then shift from buying services from the Internet to buying bundled services from ISPs. This would reduce competition and take investment away from Internet companies. That would be bad for everyone," he said.
At the meeting were Amazon, BBC, Broadband Stakeholder Group, BSkyB, BT, CBI, Channel 4, Channel 5, Consumer Focus, Ebay, Everything Everywhere, Facebook, Federation of Communications Services, Google, ISPA, ITV, Mobile Broadband Group, Nominet, Ofcom, Open Rights Group, Skype, Talk Talk, Tax Payers Alliance, Three, Virgin Media, Vodafone, W3C, WE7, Which? and Yahoo.
Ian Grant, Computer Weekly
Daily Mail Article - Net Neutrality
U.S. media watchdog passes net neutrality law that paves way for 'two-speed' internet for mobiles
By Niall Firth
Last updated at 9:01 AM on 23rd December 2010
Accessing the internet on mobile phones will not be subject to the same net neutrality laws
New rules designed to keep the internet free have come under fire for allowing a 'two-speed' internet that will let firms charge for accessing services on mobile phones.
The new guidelines, narrowly passed by the Federal Communications Commission last night, are designed to stop phone and cable companies from blocking services that travel over their networks.
But critics say the rules leave open the possibility of broadband providers creating internet fast lanes for services like video – something critics say is one step towards a ‘two-tier’ internet.
Crucially, mobile phone carriers have been exempted from the rules and will now be free to charge users extra to watch online video services
At a time when more and more people go online using smart phones and other mobile devices instead of computers, the rules leave mobile phone companies with tremendous control over tomorrow's internet.
And critics say the rules do not do enough to break the existing hold that wireless carriers have over the online applications that subscribers can access through their systems.
The regulations ban wireless carriers from blocking access to any websites or competing services such as internet-calling applications on mobile devices.
But wireless companies get more leeway to manage data traffic because wireless systems have less network bandwidth and can easily become overwhelmed with traffic more easily than fixed broadband.
Technology website Engadget has suggested that lobbying behind the scenes by Google has helped influence the decision not to enforce net neutrality on wireless providers. Google's Android mobile operating system has seen it go head to head with the iPhone in the U.S.
The rules also will not apply to phone makers, so Apple could still dictate which applications to accept or reject for the iPhone. Apple could choose to block Skype, for instance, even if AT&T, which provides wireless service for the iPhone in the U.S., cannot.
Internet service providers will not be allowed to block U.S. users from accessing web services like Skype, pictured, but the new rules do allow firms to charge for high-bandwidth services
The rules require broadband providers to let subscribers access all legal online content, applications and services over their wired networks.
But they do give providers flexibility to manage data on their systems to deal with network congestion and unwanted traffic, including spam, as long as they publicly disclose how they manage the network.
Critics say the new rules on so-called ‘net neutrality’ are a compromise that has handed far too much power to the big companies who control how normal customers access the internet.
The FCC has come under attack for interfering in regulation of the internet and for essentially bowing to pressure from the very big firms it is meant to protect consumers from.
By giving big media firms the power to decide how to manage their bandwidth is a slippery slope towards charging for premium content and web censorship, critics fear.
The vote, which was passed 3-2, quickly came under attack from the commission's two Republicans, who voted against it, who said the rules would discourage investments in broadband.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski pushed hard for the net neutrality compromise
The rules, known as ‘net neutrality,’ have been at the centre of a dispute for at least five years. The issue hit many internet users in 2007, when U.S. cable giant Comcast slowed traffic from an internet file-sharing service called BitTorrent.
Comcast argued that the service, which was used to trade movies and other big files over the internet, was clogging its network.
The new FCC rules are intended to prevent that type of behaviour.
The new rules have the backing of the White House and capped a year of efforts by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to find a compromise.
‘Today, for the first time, we are adopting rules to preserve basic internet values,’ Genachowski said. ‘For the first time, we'll have enforceable rules of the road to preserve internet freedom and openness.’
Critics fear the rules do not do enough to ensure that broadband providers cannot favour their own traffic or the traffic of business partners that can pay extra.
Many are also uncomfortable at the prospect of the federal authorities stepping in to dictate what can or cannot be passed to consumers, in direct opposition to the concept of a ‘free and open internet’.
Big websites such as Google could pay to have their content download more quickly than smaller sites - leading to what critics term a two-tiered internet.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman, policy director for the nonprofit Media Access Project, said: 'There is a reason that so many giant phone and cable companies are happy, and we are not. These rules are riddled with loopholes.
'They foreshadow years of uncertainty and regulatory confusion, which those carriers will use to their advantage.'
The new rules probably will not mean big changes for internet users, at least at first. In the wake of the Comcast row, all of the major broadband providers have already pledged not to discriminate against internet traffic on their wired networks.
Republicans said they worry the rules will discourage phone and cable companies from upgrading their networks because it will be more difficult for them to earn a healthy return on their investments.
Robert McDowell, one of the FCC's two Republicans, predicted that the watchdog will face court challenges to its regulatory authority as well.
In April, a federal appeals court ruled that the agency had exceeded its existing authority in sanctioning Comcast for discriminating against online file-sharing traffic on its network.
Guardian Article - Net Neutrality
Berners-Lee warns ISPs on net neutrality
Inventor of world wide web says plans for 'two-speed' internet go against its principles
Article history
The inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has warned internet service providers (ISPs) that plans for a "two-speed" internet go against the principles that have let the net grow so rapidly in the past two decades.
"Best practices should also include the neutrality of the net," Berners-Lee told a round table in Westminster on Wednesday morning, convened by the communications minister Ed Vaizey. Content companies, represented by Facebook, Skype, the BBC and Yahoo, squared up to ISPs, with input from consumer representatives including the Open Rights Group, the Consumers' Association and the communications regulator Ofcom.
Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group, who was representing consumer interests at the meeting, said afterwards that he was concerned about the direction the debate was going: "The potential for something going terribly wrong is absolutely there. The regulator and government do not wish to intervene, for good reason; but industry is not putting forward anything that looks like meaningful self-regulation."
ISPs have for years sought to charge the BBC or customers, or both, for the huge amounts of data transferred over their networks by applications such as the iPlayer, whose popularity has exploded in the past few years. ISPs have to pay for carriage of data from BT's core network to customers, but offer unmetered services on broadband – meaning that when people's demand for data grows, ISPs can be out of pocket.
But the BBC and other content providers such as YouTube have resisted calls that they should pay, on the basis that they are providing a service that allows the ISPs to find customers. In response, ISPs both in the US and Europe have mooted the idea of "two-tier" connections where some services are slower than others. Skype complained at the meeting that its service is effectively blocked on all of the mobile services in the UK except 3, meaning that carriers are violating the principle of net neutrality because they fear it will affect their call revenues.
Berners-Lee told the meeting that "every customer should be able to access every service, and every service should be able to access every customer ... The web has grown so fast precisely because we have had two independent markets, one for connectivity, and the other for content and applications."
Vaizey said the meeting had been "useful and productive" and that "it was important to discuss how to ensure the internet remains an open, innovative and competitive place."
"Net neutrality" – in which services are treated exactly equally as they pass over the net, no matter what their source or destination – has become an increasingly vexed topic as demands on ISPs and mobile carriers have begun to outstrip capacity.
ISPs have thus suggested that they should be allowed to manipulate the transfer of data, but that they would be transparent about how and what they were doing.
On Monday the Broadband Stakeholder Group launched a new traffic management transparency code, which has since been signed by the largest fixed-line and mobile carriers, including BSkyB, BT, Everything Everywhere (formerly Orange and T-Mobile), TalkTalk, 3, Virgin Media and Vodafone. Together they represent more than 90% of all fixed-line broadband and mobile customers in the UK.
It pledges that "information will be provided in a common format to explain what traffic management techniques are used, when and with what impact for each broadband service currently marketed by the code's signatories."
But Rob Reid, senior policy adviser at the Consumers' Association, who was among the attendees at the meeting, said that there was concern that transparency was only one half of the required commitment – because users might be tied into contracts lasting 18 months or more, meaning that if they disliked a change to the traffic management policy it would be expensive to switch to a different provider who offered one they preferred.
Antony Walker, the chief executive of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, told the Guardian: "The issue of [customer] switching is critical. It's the other side of the coin to transparency. Ofcom is working on guidance on this and it is an issue that was highlighted. Everybody agrees that it is important."
Adding faster systems would only work as a short-term measure to relieve congestion on networks, said Walker: "it's like adding more lanes to the M25 – it just attracts more cars. Having faster networks will mean that people will want more services using more data."
But Killock said that not enough was being done yet: "In contrast with the US, where rules are being put in place through the Federal Communications Commission, or Norway where ISPs have agreed a meaningful code, our ISPs are not offering us what we and the UK economy needs. If that continues to be the case, then Ed Vaizey will find himself with the task of breaking the log jam."
Inventor of world wide web says plans for 'two-speed' internet go against its principles
Article history
The inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has warned internet service providers (ISPs) that plans for a "two-speed" internet go against the principles that have let the net grow so rapidly in the past two decades.
"Best practices should also include the neutrality of the net," Berners-Lee told a round table in Westminster on Wednesday morning, convened by the communications minister Ed Vaizey. Content companies, represented by Facebook, Skype, the BBC and Yahoo, squared up to ISPs, with input from consumer representatives including the Open Rights Group, the Consumers' Association and the communications regulator Ofcom.
Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group, who was representing consumer interests at the meeting, said afterwards that he was concerned about the direction the debate was going: "The potential for something going terribly wrong is absolutely there. The regulator and government do not wish to intervene, for good reason; but industry is not putting forward anything that looks like meaningful self-regulation."
ISPs have for years sought to charge the BBC or customers, or both, for the huge amounts of data transferred over their networks by applications such as the iPlayer, whose popularity has exploded in the past few years. ISPs have to pay for carriage of data from BT's core network to customers, but offer unmetered services on broadband – meaning that when people's demand for data grows, ISPs can be out of pocket.
But the BBC and other content providers such as YouTube have resisted calls that they should pay, on the basis that they are providing a service that allows the ISPs to find customers. In response, ISPs both in the US and Europe have mooted the idea of "two-tier" connections where some services are slower than others. Skype complained at the meeting that its service is effectively blocked on all of the mobile services in the UK except 3, meaning that carriers are violating the principle of net neutrality because they fear it will affect their call revenues.
Berners-Lee told the meeting that "every customer should be able to access every service, and every service should be able to access every customer ... The web has grown so fast precisely because we have had two independent markets, one for connectivity, and the other for content and applications."
Vaizey said the meeting had been "useful and productive" and that "it was important to discuss how to ensure the internet remains an open, innovative and competitive place."
"Net neutrality" – in which services are treated exactly equally as they pass over the net, no matter what their source or destination – has become an increasingly vexed topic as demands on ISPs and mobile carriers have begun to outstrip capacity.
ISPs have thus suggested that they should be allowed to manipulate the transfer of data, but that they would be transparent about how and what they were doing.
On Monday the Broadband Stakeholder Group launched a new traffic management transparency code, which has since been signed by the largest fixed-line and mobile carriers, including BSkyB, BT, Everything Everywhere (formerly Orange and T-Mobile), TalkTalk, 3, Virgin Media and Vodafone. Together they represent more than 90% of all fixed-line broadband and mobile customers in the UK.
It pledges that "information will be provided in a common format to explain what traffic management techniques are used, when and with what impact for each broadband service currently marketed by the code's signatories."
But Rob Reid, senior policy adviser at the Consumers' Association, who was among the attendees at the meeting, said that there was concern that transparency was only one half of the required commitment – because users might be tied into contracts lasting 18 months or more, meaning that if they disliked a change to the traffic management policy it would be expensive to switch to a different provider who offered one they preferred.
Antony Walker, the chief executive of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, told the Guardian: "The issue of [customer] switching is critical. It's the other side of the coin to transparency. Ofcom is working on guidance on this and it is an issue that was highlighted. Everybody agrees that it is important."
Adding faster systems would only work as a short-term measure to relieve congestion on networks, said Walker: "it's like adding more lanes to the M25 – it just attracts more cars. Having faster networks will mean that people will want more services using more data."
But Killock said that not enough was being done yet: "In contrast with the US, where rules are being put in place through the Federal Communications Commission, or Norway where ISPs have agreed a meaningful code, our ISPs are not offering us what we and the UK economy needs. If that continues to be the case, then Ed Vaizey will find himself with the task of breaking the log jam."
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Mutualisation of news
- Citizen journalism - seen as equals now as creating own news footage.
- "There was a very clear wall, dividing readers and writers" - Alan Rusbridger comments on what it was like before the invention of User Generated Content.
- Comment is Free - now has 1000 think pieces a month - page traffic in May 2009 rose to 9.3 million.
- Rusbridger argues that citizen journalism is still to restricted to codes and conventions of newspaper writing.
- He thinks websites like Twitter and social networking sites will allow more freedom for journalists to develop direct relationships with its readers.
- This is an advantage of social networking, and the importance of its existence for not only consumers, but producers as well.
- June 2009 - The Guardian technology pod on Twitter - 682,000 followers
- This shows the enormous impact cross-platform journalism is having on society. The fact that the public is able to visit their favourite social networking sites and still be able to find out the latest news.
- According to Rusbridger, all information coming from the public should be treated as primary sources and examined. This suggests there is still a considerable difficulty in trusting certain sources on the Internet and seems to indicate a disadvantage with User Generated Content.
- An advantage of UGC would be the reporting of the death of Ian Tomlinson, where footage was shown from the scene of the crime that was taped with a bystander's mobile phone.
- Similar to the Rodney King case in 1998, the public outcry emphasised the unreliability of traditional news broadcasting methods, who were unable to capture this footage. Some argue that the journalists at the scene deliberately did not capture the footage in anticipation that they would be humiliating the British justice system for its incompetence.
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Task 8
There have been some moral panics regarding the content on Youtube and its danger of desensitisation and acts of the Copycat theory. For example, the term "happy slapping" has become a popular action, originating in South London, for troubled youth who used it as a form of entertainment and gratification. A recent case in 2006 explored the murder of a 38-year-old barman, which was taped on the movile phone of one of the violent gang members who beat him to death, after convincing him they were filming a documentary about "happy slapping".
Audiences have also become acustomed to the idea of immediacy and on-demnad content, resulting in a lack of moral patience in today's society. Youtube further convinces its audience that, through the creation of UGC, anybody would be able to become an internet celebrity. This is argued as dumbing down society, who could be spending their time broadening their knowledge with academia, than watching pointless home-made videos by inexperienced individuals.
Audiences have also become acustomed to the idea of immediacy and on-demnad content, resulting in a lack of moral patience in today's society. Youtube further convinces its audience that, through the creation of UGC, anybody would be able to become an internet celebrity. This is argued as dumbing down society, who could be spending their time broadening their knowledge with academia, than watching pointless home-made videos by inexperienced individuals.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Task 7
In terms of employability, there is not much of a difference between the amount of jobs available for advertisers. If anything, there are more employment prospects for those who have technical abilities to be able to advertise on Youtube, that many broadcast-based employees would probably not be in posession of.
Therefore, the advertising industry would receive an immense amount of profit - not only from viewers who watch the advertisement forcefully, but also from those who click on the link that they would be unable to avoid. It could be argued that advertisers take advantage of those who have less experience in their use of the Internet/Computing, who may accidentally click on the link, unaware that they have just been pulled into a viral marketing attempt. This could cause vulnerable viewers to believe they have no choice but to buy the product if they would like to continue watching their chosen video, and therefore exploited by the institution. This would, however, increase profit for the institution by use of a set income received from every link that is clicked on.
However, the use of the new Adblock plugin on Firefox could show a slight decline in income, as users would be unable to see the advertising, let alone click on it. The reason it would cause only a slight decline instead of an income epidemic, is that not all users of the World Wide Web would be in posession of Firefox. Although efficient and noticeable quicker in download speed than Internet Explorer, many deem Firefox as having less security and therefore dangerous for the use of minors.
Therefore, the advertising industry would receive an immense amount of profit - not only from viewers who watch the advertisement forcefully, but also from those who click on the link that they would be unable to avoid. It could be argued that advertisers take advantage of those who have less experience in their use of the Internet/Computing, who may accidentally click on the link, unaware that they have just been pulled into a viral marketing attempt. This could cause vulnerable viewers to believe they have no choice but to buy the product if they would like to continue watching their chosen video, and therefore exploited by the institution. This would, however, increase profit for the institution by use of a set income received from every link that is clicked on.
However, the use of the new Adblock plugin on Firefox could show a slight decline in income, as users would be unable to see the advertising, let alone click on it. The reason it would cause only a slight decline instead of an income epidemic, is that not all users of the World Wide Web would be in posession of Firefox. Although efficient and noticeable quicker in download speed than Internet Explorer, many deem Firefox as having less security and therefore dangerous for the use of minors.
Task 6
In some aspects, one could argue that audiences have lost their choice of what they can watch on Youtube. This is because advertisements cannot be skipped but only ignored. A Marxist approach to this issue would suggest that audiences have no control whatsoever on these contents.
However, others could argue that audiences have not got more control because of the amount of advertisements being less than those shown on television. Therefore, there is less that advertising agencies are able to inject into the minds of helpless audiences. This also keeps the audience continuously optimistic about the website, as they always have the length of television adverts to compare it to.
A new revolutionised new add-on has been created for Firefox users called AdBlock (alternatively AdBlock plus) that blocks advertisements on all UK-based websites that contain compulsory ads. It also allows users to block videos only, from certain websites, in aniticipation of security from inappropriate content. This gives the audience a stronger sense of control to be able to choose which ads/videos they would like to watch.
However, others could argue that audiences have not got more control because of the amount of advertisements being less than those shown on television. Therefore, there is less that advertising agencies are able to inject into the minds of helpless audiences. This also keeps the audience continuously optimistic about the website, as they always have the length of television adverts to compare it to.
A new revolutionised new add-on has been created for Firefox users called AdBlock (alternatively AdBlock plus) that blocks advertisements on all UK-based websites that contain compulsory ads. It also allows users to block videos only, from certain websites, in aniticipation of security from inappropriate content. This gives the audience a stronger sense of control to be able to choose which ads/videos they would like to watch.
Task 5
FaceJacker
Original target audience - Young adults
Current target audience - Young teenagers
How do you know? - Its advertising on Youtube clips attract a younger audience (users of Youtube)
Family Guy
Original target audience - Adults
Current target audience - Young teenagers
How do you know? - Usually late scheduling time on Broadcast TV but now clips are available on Youtube
Cadbury Gorilla Advert
Original target audience - Older audience
Current target audience - Younger audience
How do you know? - Used to be advertised on daytime TV, for those who would be at home to watch it. But now available on Youtube for the younger audience.
Original target audience - Young adults
Current target audience - Young teenagers
How do you know? - Its advertising on Youtube clips attract a younger audience (users of Youtube)
Family Guy
Original target audience - Adults
Current target audience - Young teenagers
How do you know? - Usually late scheduling time on Broadcast TV but now clips are available on Youtube
Cadbury Gorilla Advert
Original target audience - Older audience
Current target audience - Younger audience
How do you know? - Used to be advertised on daytime TV, for those who would be at home to watch it. But now available on Youtube for the younger audience.
Task 4
Audience size has increased dramatically since the invention of Youtube. Especially as institutions have allowed the use of advertising on Youtube videos themselves, institutions are able to focus on their target audience (mainly teenagers depending on the genre of the video) shows such as The Inbetweeners for example, featured on Youtube, includes at least 3 advertisements one of which is always that of FaceJacker (Brian Bedoné) - famously known for its enormous youth audience. This allows institutions to force their way into more popular shows through the use of these compulsory advertisements, expecting inexperienced viewers/users to accidentally click on the link.
Task 3
Media institutions are, through the use of Youtube, able to appeal to an enormous audience - not only in the UK, but also worldwide. Therefore, it is very important for institutions to be able to create these shows in a way that is more accessible by its target audience. For example, many current shows on Youtube can feature channel-approved advertisements, which are compulsory to view before the start of the video. Also, Youtube tends to encourage viewers to create User Generated advertisements, with which they would be able to promote their own products, without stringts attached, at flexible prices which are most comfortable.
Task 2
Due to this increase of User Generated Content, audiences are far more careful of what they believe to be true. THis is because it is difficult to distinguish whether some videos are made for the purpose of entertainment or viral marketing. E.g. the viral marketing ad for Mini Clubman car in 2009 emphasised the importance for audiences to distinguish which videos are genuine and which have hidden purposes.
This was not the case before tha launch of websites like Youtube, as audiences were not aware that some UGC-like footage could have been easily recreated for other purposes by institutions longing to inject certain ideologies into them (Marxist view)
This was not the case before tha launch of websites like Youtube, as audiences were not aware that some UGC-like footage could have been easily recreated for other purposes by institutions longing to inject certain ideologies into them (Marxist view)
Task 1
Youtube is owned by a multi-million dollar company Google Inc, also a worldwide search engine available in more than 140 countries across the globe. Youtube has allowed the public the freedom of User Generated Content, with which they feel much more comfortable rather than watching news clips on TV broadcast.
This new-found freedom has had an enormous impact on TV Broadcasters as viewers no longer wait for their favourite show to appear on television, but find it much easier to simply search it on Youtube.
It is also an enormous base for viral marketing, where advertisers are able to target younger audiences, in anticipation that it would be that generation that would be accessing the content on the Internet rather than watching it on TV.
However, it could be argued that this is exactly what TV Broadcasters have been aiming to do - grab the trust of the audience by allowing them to believe they are watching User Generated Content, when they are being injected viral marketing like a Hypodermic Needle.
This new-found freedom has had an enormous impact on TV Broadcasters as viewers no longer wait for their favourite show to appear on television, but find it much easier to simply search it on Youtube.
It is also an enormous base for viral marketing, where advertisers are able to target younger audiences, in anticipation that it would be that generation that would be accessing the content on the Internet rather than watching it on TV.
However, it could be argued that this is exactly what TV Broadcasters have been aiming to do - grab the trust of the audience by allowing them to believe they are watching User Generated Content, when they are being injected viral marketing like a Hypodermic Needle.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
New and Digital Media Quotes
Hegemony
"...The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks." (Gramsci 1971, 238)
Hegemony: Studies in consensus and coercion - by Richard Howson [The State and its Powers]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9HXp4Ex4yTEC&pg=PA163&dq=hegemony+study+of+consensus&hl=en&ei=JOI-TaPWKM60hAfig5HXBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Marxism
"For years, what I have advocated as the antidote to the threat of technological determination - or to the equally serious claim that the threat comes, not from technology simply, but from techno-capitalism - is a revival of the spirit of dissent in public interest activist movements"
Democracy in a Technological Society - by Society for Philosophy + Technology (U.S) [Marxism and Democratic Control of Technology]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=emKoAdUAsHsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Democracy+in+a+Technological+Society&hl=en&ei=0eM-TbibEM60hAfog5HXBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Pluralism
"If the world of technology can exist in different corporate cultures, it becomes possible to develop a cosmopolitan communicative culture for a technological world."
Corporate Integrity: Rethinking Organizational ethics, and leadership - by Marvin T Brown [Cultural Integrity as Openness]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-HGPIZFnPC0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Corporate+Integrity:&hl=en&ei=r-U-TaT8D8mDhQfJ9NXCCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Cultural Imperialism
"Does imperialism lie in the contents of foreign programmes? If so, how does the influence work? The screen appears to be blank; we can't see what the people are watching. But doesn't this blankness also signify our capacity to know how alien texts are red, and the cultural effects they may have?"
Cultural Imperialism: A critical Introduction - by John Tomlinson [The Discourse of Cultural Imperialism]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0CFMS0z5-gcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cultural+Imperialism:+A+critical+Introduction&hl=en&ei=T-c-Tez8EZGFhQeA-4TcCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Globalisation
"Communication and transport technologies, however, might be better described not so much as reflecting the globalisation of technology as representing the technologies of globalisation since they service the increasingly global operation of cultural, social and economical life."
Technology, Globalisation and Economic Performance - by Daniele Archibugi [The Globalisation of Technology]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IYBk4yk3F9oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=technology,+globalisation+and+economic&hl=en&ei=Weg-TdSFEcyxhAfcxZDDCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Post Colonialism
"Writing is not just a transcription of sound, but is a technology that produces fundamental change in conceptions of the world, its meanings, and the recovery of knowledge through its establishment of an 'autonomous discourse'" (Ong 1982:78-116)
Postcolonial Cultures - by Simon Featherstone [Postcolonial Cultures]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HAV_pBAIHKIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=postcolonial+cultures&hl=en&ei=EOk-Tci0GIu3hAerz43gCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
"...The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks." (Gramsci 1971, 238)
Hegemony: Studies in consensus and coercion - by Richard Howson [The State and its Powers]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9HXp4Ex4yTEC&pg=PA163&dq=hegemony+study+of+consensus&hl=en&ei=JOI-TaPWKM60hAfig5HXBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Marxism
"For years, what I have advocated as the antidote to the threat of technological determination - or to the equally serious claim that the threat comes, not from technology simply, but from techno-capitalism - is a revival of the spirit of dissent in public interest activist movements"
Democracy in a Technological Society - by Society for Philosophy + Technology (U.S) [Marxism and Democratic Control of Technology]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=emKoAdUAsHsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Democracy+in+a+Technological+Society&hl=en&ei=0eM-TbibEM60hAfog5HXBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Pluralism
"If the world of technology can exist in different corporate cultures, it becomes possible to develop a cosmopolitan communicative culture for a technological world."
Corporate Integrity: Rethinking Organizational ethics, and leadership - by Marvin T Brown [Cultural Integrity as Openness]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-HGPIZFnPC0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Corporate+Integrity:&hl=en&ei=r-U-TaT8D8mDhQfJ9NXCCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Cultural Imperialism
"Does imperialism lie in the contents of foreign programmes? If so, how does the influence work? The screen appears to be blank; we can't see what the people are watching. But doesn't this blankness also signify our capacity to know how alien texts are red, and the cultural effects they may have?"
Cultural Imperialism: A critical Introduction - by John Tomlinson [The Discourse of Cultural Imperialism]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0CFMS0z5-gcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cultural+Imperialism:+A+critical+Introduction&hl=en&ei=T-c-Tez8EZGFhQeA-4TcCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Globalisation
"Communication and transport technologies, however, might be better described not so much as reflecting the globalisation of technology as representing the technologies of globalisation since they service the increasingly global operation of cultural, social and economical life."
Technology, Globalisation and Economic Performance - by Daniele Archibugi [The Globalisation of Technology]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IYBk4yk3F9oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=technology,+globalisation+and+economic&hl=en&ei=Weg-TdSFEcyxhAfcxZDDCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Post Colonialism
"Writing is not just a transcription of sound, but is a technology that produces fundamental change in conceptions of the world, its meanings, and the recovery of knowledge through its establishment of an 'autonomous discourse'" (Ong 1982:78-116)
Postcolonial Cultures - by Simon Featherstone [Postcolonial Cultures]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HAV_pBAIHKIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=postcolonial+cultures&hl=en&ei=EOk-Tci0GIu3hAerz43gCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
MediaMagazine Articles
Election US-Style: an englishwoman’s view from the streets of new york
It’s all done and dusted, and by the time you read this, Obama will have taken over in the White House. The hype of the electoral process was well-covered in the British media, but what was it really like over there? Intrepid student, Emma Coker, on a 21st birthday trip to New York, was actually there on election day with her camera. This is her report.
I arrived in New York on the 30th of October, five days before the presidential election. It had been eight years since my first visit to the ‘Big Apple’ and I was yet to experience the city post-9/11. Perhaps it was arriving at night, driving south down Broadway in a yellow taxi, looking up in amazement as we passed Times Square, the city still so alive (or maybe ‘awake’ is a more appropriate term), that heightened my sense of anticipation of my stay. I was heading downtown to Tribeca on the Lower West side of Manhattan and within five minutes of my ride, I noticed the first evidence of the impact of the electoral race. In the window of an elegant 6th Avenue department store, two male mannequins attired in Armani suits each wore the mask of a potential president.
New Yorkers are of course world-renowned for their friendly, approachable demeanours as well as their seemingly genuine optimism. However, it was evident to me almost straight away that this positivism had amplified as the race to the White House reached the finishing strait. The people of New York were eager for, and expected, change. The city was consumed by election fever, and the Obama vs. McCain battle was completely unavoidable. New York is undoubtedly Blue through and through (rather confusingly, while blue for us means the Conservatives, in the US it stands for the Democrats). The face of Barack Obama was plastered or gratified on almost every street corner. Hundreds of New Yorkers wore pins on their lapels to confirm their partisanship, and I didn’t see a single one branded with the face of John McCain.
What surprised me the most, however, wasn’t how totally Obama-obsessed New York appeared to be, but the emphasis placed on the importance of voting, whichever way, and the sense of urgency do to so. Furthermore, it wasn’t just the public trying to spread the word to others, urging them to make the most of their most valuable civil liberty, but also franchises, including some of the world’s most well-known brands. Huge ‘VOTE’ signs were the centre-pieces of window displays in stores such as GAP, Urban Outfitters and American Apparel as well as several independent boutiques. Clever incentives were adopted to persuade people to make their vote count. GAP gave out free ‘Vote for _____’ T-shirts to anybody who made a purchase, whilst on election day itself, Starbucks gave away free lattes to anybody who could prove they’d already voted. The more creative types in SoHo and the meat-packing district used their artistic flair to illustrate the significance of voting, with eye-catching and witty posters and shop fronts. The Magnolia Bakery, made famous by an appearance in Sex and the City, was selling batches of cup cakes iced in red, white and blue, each with a mini stars and stripes flag. There was a queue around the block to get your hands on one. They tasted good.
Coverage of the electoral campaign was constant on American news channels, and while the general mood was positive and hopeful, there were reports of possible corruption in Virginia, a state with several marginal seats, and thus a heightened sense of urgency for everyone entitled to vote to do so. News of attempts by Republican support groups to sabotage Democratic voting emerged – and illustrated the darker side of such a critical election. It was suggested that several potentially Democratic neighbourhoods were targeted, and inhabitants were wrongly told that due to ‘unprecedented voter numbers’ Democrats had to vote on the 5th rather than the 4th of November – by which time the result of the election would have already been called. Specific groups, including recent immigrants and African Americans (seen as likely to support Barack Obama) were supposedly warned off voting with threats of arrest for trivial offences and deportation.
Five days later, as my trip neared its end, preparations were being made all over the city for the big day and the even bigger night that would follow. The Rockefeller Center, due to become ‘Election Plaza’, announcing the results from each state as they came in, already shrouded in tourists queuing for a skate on its famous ice rink, was crawling with news reporters awaiting the biggest story they’d surely cover in months and electricians making sure transmission went without a hitch.
To my utter frustration, I left New York City at 9pm on Election Day, just hours before Barack Obama was announced President. I can only imagine what it would have been like to experience such a momentous occasion in the flesh; instead I had to watch the reaction of New Yorkers on my television at home. As my bus headed to JFK airport, I caught my last glimpse of the big city, the Empire State Building lit up in the colours red, white and blue.
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 27, February 2009.
---------------
Election
In MediaMagazine 13 Jerome Monahan provided a comprehensive account of the media tactics employed in the 2005 General Election. Here he looks in more detail at the party Political Broadcasts and provides:
– a list of blogging MPs, with links
– links to other blogs connected to the election or politics more generally
– suggestions for further online reading.
Party Political Broadcasts – General Election 2005
The highlights include Anthony Minghella’s extraordinary film for the Labour party, depicting Blair and supposed arch-rival Chancellor Gordon Brown in a series of intimate discussions about the philosophical roots and governing principles attaching to their policies. Vaseline had definitely been applied to the lense to give it a warm glow, and the settings for the conversations in first the wood-panelled cabinet room and then in a bright canteen provided subliminal messages about tradition and forward thinking. The film was described as a ‘love scene’ by some journalists and there was a great deal of eye contact between the politicians going on, as a rather restless camera flicked between them. As you watch, look out for Blair’s vanishing striped tie – a classic continuity blunder! Among the subsequent broadcasts one that really stands out is that using Alan Sugar of The Apprentice fame. The screening was timed to coincide with the later stages of the reality show and scored on all sorts of levels, not least suggesting that labour was the natural choice of top businessmen.
The Tories broadcast a number of different films, but the first had clearly had the most money lavished on it. It featured a series of eleven vignettes involving representative individuals, echoing the ‘dog whistle’ concerns in the manifesto and on the posters. The rather dull content, with some of the contributors appearing distinctly lack lustre in their delivery, was counterbalanced by an extremely artful editing job that ensured no scene lasted more than a few seconds and every speaker was heralded by a close up on something that seemed to define them. In the background a rock-music track provided a counterweight to the traditional views being expressed. Among the richest in connotations were those scenes of a lady striding among the pebbles on a south coast beach – ready to defend our shores, a sentiment in keeping with the views she was expressing about immigration.
The Lib Dems by contrast could not afford the kind of production values their rivals could manage, so their first broadcast was a rather down-market affair with Charles Kennedy superimposed on a computer graphic of Britain from which orange cones of light emerged to herald brief sequences celebrating the party’s record in such places as Newcastle, where they run the council. Far more effective was the party’s second film – a version of the ‘the boy who cried wolf’ cautionary tale voiced by Sandy Toksvig and ridiculing both Blair and ‘Howie’ for believing tales of bad things hiding in the woods.
However, in the end, first prize in the audacious broadcast stakes deserves to go to UKIP. Their film was a hilarious tribute to B-feature sci-fi featuring screaming crowds and a fabulously tacky European Union many-tentacled monster clambering over the Bank of England and the Palace of Westminster. The film was in the great tradition of nineteenth-century political cartoons by the likes of James Gillray or Thomas Rowlandson.
The last word on this score has to go to Channel 4 news who hired maverick ad-makers Lee and Dan to come up with a set of hilarious spoof broadcasts. At the time of writing this they remained online at http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=67
Blogging– General Election 2005
Blogging MPS
• Tom Watson http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/
• Boris Johnson http://www.boris-johnson.com/
• Shaun Woodward http://www.shaunwoodward.com/
• Sandra Gidley http://romseyredhead.blogspot.com/
• Austin Mitchell http://www.austinmitchell.org/
• Iain Dale http://www.iaindale.blogspot.com/
• Ian Lyon http://www.ianlyon.org.uk/
• Kevin Davis http://kevindavis.blogspot.com/
• Antonia Bance http://www.antoniabance.org.uk/blog/
• Anthony Little http://antonylittle.blogspot.com/
• Judith Blake http://www.labour.org.uk/home
• Keith Taylor http://www.keithforwestminster.com/h/f/KEITH/blog//2//
• Mark Young http://dyffrynt.blogspot.com/
• Jamie Bolden http://www.jamiebolden.com/
• Chris Whiteside http://www.chris4copeland.blogspot.com/
• John Hemming http://johnhemming.blogspot.com/
• Robert Buckland http://www.swindonforbuckland.com/
Election and political blogging
• Richard Allan http://www.richardallan.org.uk/
• Clive Soley http://clivesoleymp.typepad.com/clive_soley_mp/
• BBC Election blog http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/blog/default.stm
• Guardian Election blog http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/election2005/
• Times Election blog http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,20809,00.html
• New Statesman Election blog http://www.newstatesman.com/generalelection
• Bill Thompson’s blog http://www.andfinally.com/
• Slugger O’Toole http://www.sluggerotoole.com/
• Voxpolitics http://www.voxpolitics.com/index.shtml
• The Homeless Guy http://www.thehomelessguy.blogspot.com/
• Downing Street Says http://www.downingstreetsays.com/
• They work for you http://www.theyworkforyou.com/
• Election blogs, Keele University http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/ge05/electionblogs.htm
• Leon’s Election blog http://election-05.blogspot.com/
• Robin’s eDemocracy http://www.perfect.co.uk/
Blogs in the USA
www.blogpulse.com/papers/2005/AdamicG
Further online reading
Dog Whistle Issues
http://economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3789210
Sandy Walkington appointment
http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk/press/050105a.htm
Main Political sites
British National Party: http://www.bnp.org.uk/
Conservatives: http://www.conservatives.com/
The Green Party: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/
lanceBlogWWW.pdf
The Labour Party: http://www.labour.org.uk/home
The Liberal Democrats: http://www.libdems.org.uk/
Plaid Cymru: http://www.plaidcymru.org/
Scottish National Party: http://www.snp.org/
UKIP: http://www.ukip.org/
Respect: http://www.respectcoalition.org/
Sinn Fein: http://sinnfein.ie/
Ulster Unionists: http://www.uup.org
Democratic Unionist Party: http://www.dup.org.uk/
---------
Brand/Ross/Sachsgate: what every media student needs to know
When Brand and Ross left those infamous answerphone messages for Andrew Sachs, they little realised they were unleashing a scandal of national proportions – or that they might become enshrined as A Level case studies. Senior examiner Steph Hendry outlines the debates raised by the affair, the ways different media platforms addressed it, and the important issues it should raise for your media course.
For a recent issue of MediaMagazine I used the poster for the film Forgetting Sarah Marshall to demonstrate approaches to analysis. One of the points I raised was about the use of the image of Russell Brand in the marketing of the film. At that point Brand’s star was in the ascendency and he had begun to raise his profile both here and across the Atlantic. His ‘bad boy’ persona was an integral part of the way the film was promoted to British audiences. If, however, a week is a long time in politics then a few months is a lifetime in the entertainment industry. In October 2008 ‘Bad Boy Brand’ responded to public pressure and resigned from the BBC after being involved in a ‘phone prank’ broadcast on BBC Radio 2.
The scandal concerned answerphone messages left for the actor Andrew Sachs and the fact that Brand and Jonathan Ross had broadcast comments that some saw as abusive, inappropriate and vulgar. This story was high on the news agenda for the best part of a week in October. The event, the reporting of the event and the responses to both provide interesting insight into modern media culture for students. It is an ideal case study which shows how various media platforms act together to provide the momentum for a story to dominate the news agenda of all news outlets and to mobilise audiences. The broadcast itself generated very little public concern but the reporting of it created such interest that thousands who originally knew nothing about the prank felt compelled to complain (or defend the broadcasters) in the wake of the news media’s response to this radio show.
Institutional contexts
Radio
The offending broadcast was originally aired on BBC Radio 2 on Saturday Oct 18th during the The Russell Brand Show. Radio is a media platform which is often overlooked by students but it is still a very popular medium which mixes broadcasting of various types from music to current affairs and documentary to comedy. Radio is one of the most easily accessed of broadcasting platforms with radios themselves being cheap to buy. Radio is also broadcast on digital television, mobile phones and online either as live broadcasts or via recorded shows which are available as streamed audio or podcasts for downloading and listening to on MP3 players. The rise in the popularity of portable music players and downloadable material has made radio an exceptionally flexible format which allows audiences to control when and where they listen to radio shows.
On the day of the broadcast itself, it is interesting to note that there were only two complaints and that these were made about the use of bad language in the segment, not the content of the call itself. This could indicate a number of things: the radio audience for the show found the content of the programme within their expectations of the show; the radio audience did not feel the joke merited concern; proportionally, the audience for radio programmes such as this is relatively small (it is estimated that the radio show had around 400,000 listeners). Whatever the reasons, the initial broadcast did not generate much in the way of a public outcry. This only occurred when the issue was taken up by the national newspapers.
Newspapers
The first sign of ‘outrage’ came in an article published by The Mail on Sunday. The British press often positions itself as a guardian of public morality and decency and this was the tone taken by The Mail in its shocked reporting of the issue. No room was left for debate as the newspaper condemned the broadcast absolutely, describing Brand and Ross’s phone call as a ‘criminal offence’ (Oct 25th) and raising the institutional issue of BBC funding as an important factor given the fact that Jonathan Ross was working under a contract worth £18m over three years. This money comes from funds the BBC receives from the license fee paid by the general public.
The types of responses the different newspapers made to the event provide a lot of clues about the specific news agenda held by the titles. The Mail often criticises the BBC in terms of the way it spends money and the public service that it provides. The Mail broke the story and continued to give it a high profile over the course of the week. The Sun ran the story on the Monday on page 3 suggesting perhaps that it saw the event as little more than titillating entertainment. Their attitude changed and it took a more moralistic slant as the public response became clear but they also ran photographs of Sachs’ granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, which had been used in an attempt to launch her glamour model career some years previously.
Several papers, including The Mirror, The Express and The Guardian did not see the story as newsworthy enough on the Monday to include it at all – their coverage began on the Tuesday. The Star jumped on the bandwagon on the Wednesday by running pictures of Sachs’ granddaughter in her fetish stage gear. Max Clifford (a notorious PR agent) was employed by Baillie as the story broke and played a major part in ensuring her perspective was communicated through the tabloid press. The newspapers employed narrative techniques as villains (Brand, Ross, the BBC) were quickly identified and victims (Sachs and Baillie) were quickly defended. Each day saw a further conflict being brought to the story which allowed the papers to capitalise on the public interest being generated. Brand’s resignation, Gordon Brown’s statement, Baillie’s comments and the BBC’s responses all allowed the story to run for several days as each event added more discussion points. However, the main reason the story continued to run was due to the life it generated for itself outside the newspapers with audiences becoming involved in the debate, largely via the internet.
The Internet
The reason for the extended and expanded responses from all newspapers can be explained when looking at the role of the internet in the growth of the story. The initial story in The Mail on Sunday and its follow-up in The Mail on the Monday generated over 200, mainly negative, comments. This may not sound like a lot but, compared to the average number of responses received for a breaking news story, this indicated that the public’s feelings ran high and there was a large scale condemnation of both the broadcaster’s judgement and in the BBC’s decision to allow the pre-recorded segment to be aired.
The offending broadcast was the most accessed video ever on YouTube shortly after the story broke. One version of the clip on YouTube has been accessed by over 1.25 million people and the easy access to the ‘evidence’ gave people a chance to listen and evaluate the broadcast for themselves. In addition, online editions of newspapers now provide a useful way for the papers themselves to gauge audience feelings as stories on the internet provide a facility for readers to add their own comments.
Add to all this the sheer volume of outlets for reporting and commenting on the story provided by the internet and this story echoed across the media in news and gossip web pages, in blogs and in chat forums. Facebook currently has an area for people who are opposed to the suspensions with 43,000 members. Everyone who has felt the need has had an opportunity to contribute to the debate.
Wider issues and debates
• The events have put the BBC under the spotlight yet again. Questions have been asked about the accountability of individuals within the BBC when mistakes or bad judgements are made. Some commentators have criticised the fact that ‘success’ is always gauged by viewing figures and so the BBC is seen to be attempting to produce populist programming at the expense of broadcasts which seek to inform and educate. The enormous fees paid to presenters such as Ross has also been widely criticised and his subsequent suspension without pay has been widely reported as a victory as it saves the corporation over £1m.
• Wider questions have also been raised regarding the moral climate of a nation where the content of the broadcast is defined by some as ‘comedy’. This has been described as part of a wider culture of cruelty in popular entertainment.
• Debates have begun on whether we are witnessing evidence of a cultural generation gap. Sachs has been described as a ‘national treasure’ but this can only be of any relevance to people who can remember his performance in the 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers. Although Ross is nearly 50 years old, he still presents himself as part of youth culture and Brand is a comedian who appeals directly to a youth audience. Has this been at the heart of the ‘scandal’? Is this a clash of adult and youth values touching on attitudes to public discussions of sexual behaviour and ideas surrounding showing respect for older generations? Is gender a part of this? Is the outcry based on a perception of Brand’s ‘ungentlemanly’ behaviour in talking crudely about his sexual encounter?
• Conversely, concerns have also been raised about the condemnation by newspapers and a minority of the population and the BBC’s response to this, seeing it as a form of censorship. There are worries that this may make broadcasters less willing to take creative risks and act to limit new ideas in the future.
• The affair also raises questions about the power of the audience (and British newspapers). As no programming could ever please all audience members, it begs the question as to who should be the ones to decide what can and cannot be broadcast. Who should have the final say: newspapers, a vocal minority or programme producers?
• The story taps into an idea of ‘people power’ and democracy created by the interactive potential of the internet. Have we been witness to an example of e-technology taking power away from the institutions and giving it to audience members?
For Media students investigating institutions, audiences, e-media, representations and ideologies, the events of one week in October 2008 provide ample material for further research and discussion which flags up key issues and debates within contemporary media. It’s a shame Ross himself was not a Media student as apparently he hadn’t given these issues much thought. He is quoted as saying:
you don’t realise that what you’re doing here [in the studio] has a reality outside. Cited in Harris, the Guardian, 28/10/08
This radio show, accessed by a relatively small number of the British public, has certainly shown that the reality outside the studio can sometimes be enormously wide-reaching.
Sachsgate – a timeline of events
• Sunday Oct 26th 2008: The initial Mail on Sunday report is published. There are two complaints generated by the broadcast itself.
• Monday 27th: The BBC apologises to Andrew Sachs. Complaints top 1,500.
• Tuesday 28th: The Mail runs a front page call for the sacking of Brand and Ross and included a YouTube video-link on the website. The Star prints images of granddaughter in fetish stage gear. All newspapers now report on the story; Gordon Brown and David Cameron both make statements condemning the broadcast. Complaints reach 10,500. Ofcom opens an investigation.
• Wednesday 29th: Brand and Ross are suspended by the BBC. Brand resigns his position from the BBC and releases a video apology. Complaints reach 18,000.
• Thursday 30th: Lesley Douglas, Radio 2’s Controller and Head of Popular Music, resigns. Ross told he is suspended for three months without pay.
• November 5th: Channel 5 broadcast a TV documentary on the affair which features an interview with Georgina Baillie. Complaints reach 37,500.
• November 7th: Radio 2’s Head of Specialist Music and Compliance resigns.
• November 8th: The BBC broadcast a second apology to Andrew Sachs on Radio 2. Complaints have reached 42,000.
• December 18th: The BBC demands that Ross tones down his swearing and smutty language when he returns to work.
• December 29th: Daily Mail reveals that Ross is currently joking about the situation online in his blog. It also suggests his most recent book Why do I say these things? is a flop at only 685 in the Amazon book sales charts.
• January 23rd: Ross returns to work with the line ‘Where were we?’. He apologises for his previous behaviour. Brand continues to refer to the incident in stand-up and other gigs.
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 27, February 2009.
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