Marxism & Pluralism: Alain de Botton on the news

1) To what extent do you agree with Alain de Botton's views on the News?
Alain de Botton proposes the agreeable idea of a 'torrent' heap of information in which the audience is essentially drowned in senselessly to the extent of not being able to keep track of what is 'important' due to a greater fascination for what is 'popular'. This provides an argument which is realistically demonstrated as such is evidenced by Twitter's generally overall fluctuating reaction to refugees from Syria. Early September witnessed an uproar within the cyber-world as Tweeters expressed their sympathy for a 3 year old victim to the death toll of war-torn Syria. As November unfolds with the Paris massacre, the focus of sympathy from the general public's viewpoint switched in favour of the Western nations as mainstream news advocated a greater support for such nations, who were posed opposingly to not just ISIS, but the religion of Islam as a whole. The radicalisation of this view has led to an ever upsurging prejudice against members of the faith worldwide as 'importance' on this is 'popularised' by the hands of Rupert Murdoch's empire. 'Searching for the Taylor Swift of the day' is a schema for developing news practiced by corporations intending to serve the agenda of partnering politicians. "A good photo is a bearer of new information". Importance of empathy, "seduced into caring". "A very particular pathology" in comment section.

2) How can you link Marxism and Hegemony to de Botton's criticisms of the News?
De Botton proposes the idea that the news is tailored according to the news provider's political ties with the proletarian governing body of Rupert Murdoch's alliances - responsible for a majority of news distribution worldwide.

3) How could you use Pluralism and new technology to challenge de Botton's views on the News?
Pluralistic ideas advocative of the freedom granted to millions of social media users are contradictory of de Botton's pessimistic criticisms. The new multimedia platforms have inspired the uprise of many left-wing movements juxtaposing hegemonic ideologies reinforced by the mainstream news.

4) Choose two news stories from the last six months - one that supports de Botton's views and one that challenges his belief that the News is used for social control. 
SUPPORT - The Sun's headline news article reinforces xenophobic ideas favourable of the Caucasian majority of Britain, particularly those middle-classed. 
CHALLENGE - The Huffington Post's web article addresses the hideousity of the article and uses social media reception from Twitter to challenge The Sun's improper content. 
 

Weekly New/Digital Media Homework 8

News Corp first quarter 2015 earnings fall 15% as advertising revenue tumbles

The transgression from print to digital advertising for many advertisers is prevalent with the recent standings of revenue for Murdoch's newspaper giant. This was clearly evident with the alternative increase in digital advertising revenue, which justifies the mass audience's digital preference greatly. 

The repercussions of this seem to be a fairly significant indicator of News Corp's forecasted longevity as a newspaper conglomerate, suggesting that they may need to eventually come to a conclusion of newspaper production after the heavy cases of mass redundancies and production costs. What will the ultimatum be for newspapers?

Paris attacks: French jets pound Islamic State in Raqqa as chaos and fear grips France's capital after false reports of fresh gunfire - latest news

Martin Rowson's depiction of the world's political climate

Following the Parisian attacks, the reporting of news has been significant in indicating the stature of TV and digital media. While many critics claim that 'TV reigns' as viewership standings rise higher than ever, it is irrefutable to acknowledge that digital integration is also highly significant. This is shown with continuous updates using all forms of media and most profoundly, the comments section as well as hyperlinks which guide readers to more sources. Such is particularly relevant in a complicated longitudal event as such which ties in with an abundance of other news stories which would otherwise be inaccessible to TV watchers. 

Empowerment of audiences?

The empowerment of audiences is considered in one stance according to the access to variously ranging views and values. The extent to which this ability is granted to UK audiences is a lot more debateable in comparison to the Stalinist model of North Korea, which has its media strictly limited to reinforcing only the views and ideologies of the dictating proletariat. The UK is commonly determined the polar opposite of this, being regarded as a population largely liberal in its ability to advocate and support ranging views, a lot of which differ from those of the governing Conservative body. New and digital media enables this output of pluralistic views on social media networks, a profound one being Twitter, which generates discussion by the use of tweets, mentions and the newly introduced ‘like’ system – indicative of support for publicised information. Opinion leaders such as Owen Jones, who are openly against the Marxist nature of the cooperation among leading governments and the Murdoch controlled media, which statistics suggest influences around 50% of the total mainstream media in the UK. This indicates a disempowerment of audiences in wholesome as half of the output is under regulation of the governing state.

 This is further justified by the Ipsos Morum poll of 2014 which finds the majority of Britain to be under the false impression that socio-political moral panics are prevalent to a much larger extent than they really are. Correlations between this and the hyperbolised representation of these panics by the mainstream media are found as debates of false benefit claim and the establishment of Islamic  beliefs in the UK are believed to be generally a lot more significant. Ultimately, the hegemonic control of the media is suggested in a cynical nature as it is found that the media defies its primitive role to inform audiences, as they do in fact misinform them with false beliefs which fuel moral panics and thus demonstrate a reinforcement of values advocated by the governing body, hence disempowering a society which is made to merely believe they are under pluralistic liberation as suggested by Rupert Murdoch's announcement insisting that "the internet has given readers much more power".

To a definitive measure, the internet continues to prove itself unsuccessful for audeience empowerment as Herman and McChesney state: "the egaliatarian potential of the technology is minimised" and instead, "global media firms (are) able to incorporate the internet and related computer networks into their empires". Such is evidently demonstrated by the wide internet-based digital technology market as institutional conglomerates such as Google and Facebook adopt smaller uprising companies.  

Weekly New/Digital Media homework 8

Can dropping the paywall and upping the story count boost Sun’s website?

Murdoch's tabloid online service aims to drop the paywall to boost figures. Demonstrating failure of strategy to try and justify payment - improving content. 

BuzzFeed changes editorial standards to allow sponsorships in entertainment programmingThe online news service chooses to adapt to commercially satisfying standards towards online subscribed users. This highlights alignment of news alongside advertisement in the industry - now demonstrating a higher focus. 

Web 2.0: Participation or Hegemony?

Web 2.0: Participation or Hegemony?

1) Research the Ian Tomlinson case. What would the traditional, hegemonic view of the police be in a case like this? How did new and digital media create a different story? What does the police officer's subsequent aquittal suggest about the power of new and digital media?

Hegemonic views preach the corruption of the police as an authoritative force which is pardoned for brazen conduct by mainstream media. 

2) What does the author argue regarding whether hegemony is being challenged by Web 2.0? 

The author debates between the view of hegemony being challenged greatly by the idea of providing masses the mouthpiece for speech and channels for user-generated content. However, this may've led to the 'cult of the amateur' which reinforces the ultimate upper-hand of mainstream platforms in the media. 

3) In your opinion, does new and digital media reinforce dominant hegemonic views or give the audience a platform to challenge them?

My beliefs reside with the idea that new and digital media offers audiences more of an influence over decisions and views in the media, as they can openly challenge them and raise awareness to alternative perspectives. However, ultimately, the mainstream succeeds to make the important decisions in industries and governing bodies, and therefore hegemonic views can only be challenged by becoming the aggressor of hegemony in the systematic socialisation of views and ideologies. 

Weekly New/Digital Media homework 7

Snapchat Responds To Chatter About Privacy Policy Change

This story demonstrates the amusing influence of social media in creating and distributing false information which then evolve into corporation-enticing hoaxes.

FACEBOOK’S INSTAGRAM TAKES ON SNAPCHAT AND TWITTER WITH CURATED VIDEO CHANNEL

This new Instagram feature is an attempt from Facebook to compete with Snapchat’s Discover feature, and the recently launched Live Stories. The feature shows topics and events with participants that broadcast videos and photos to the rest of the community - a new way of crowdsourcing to collect news stories. Product of competition in new and digital media to gain producing audiences which rejoice in service use.

Galtung and Ruge | NDM News Values

Immediacy: has it happened recently?
Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
Frequency: does the event happen fairly regularly?
Ambiguity: is it clear and definite?
Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?
Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?
Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
Negativity: is it bad news?
Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.

How has new and digital media technology changed each of Galtung and Ruge’s news values and how would you update them for 2015's NDM?

Immediacy: With the prevalence of smart devices becoming increasingly integral in the lifestyles of first-world masses, news is instantly accessible to audiences in many multimedia formats. This leads to traditional newspapers needing to adopt a different angle (content is predominantly based on views and opinions rather than information as this is already available by the time newspapers are distributed)

Familiarity: Audiences are now able to familiarise themselves with foreign cultures which may not necessarily be relevant to them, because of the worldwide web and social media networks.  This is demonstrated by the influence of Southern American urban culture which is imitated by the urban London scene (music, clothing and dialect). The way news is reported now is in an abundance of ways which leads to the selection of no single stream of content which is necessarily already familiar to the audience. 

Amplitude: Among the millions of stories shared by the hour, the amplitude of events being reported is always a factor for selectivity and ranking by all news agents, regardless of the platform. Such is demonstrated even on Snapchat as large events will receive exclusive coverage from official 'stories', supported by UGC. 

Frequency: Local news providers tend to report frequent events more than wider-regional news services, this is usually due to the concern of residents who require information on the regular events. This includes traffic updates provided by apps and other digital news servers. 

Ambiguity: The fact that digital content is amendable and less costly allows news providers to speculate on uncertain stories before they are confirmed. This is used to generate debate within the news (opinion leaders, voice figures, journalists), as well as among news recipients via online forums and social media. 

Predictability/Surprise: Shocking news stories, by default, always make for more intriguing headlines and cause more of a buzz across new and digital media alongside the critical support (views and opinions) by newspapers. Without a doubt however, new and digital media proves to be more dominant in providing unpredictable news stories due to the audience's engagement and involvement. 

Continuity: 'Debuting' news stories which have not been previously reported will gain more momentum through traditional platforms but decrease to less predominance in the papers as it is continuously updated. This seems to differ for new and digital media platforms however which (on platforms inc. Twitter) use trending tactics to continuously discuss stories and provide in-depth analysis. 

Elite nations and people: Celebrities now receive higher attention than ever as the people choose to consciously stay tuned to their favoured public figures. National socio-political stories of elite nations receive the most coverage (adhering to Perkin's law: power to the producer) as they are prioritised above third-world national stories. 

Negativity: As ever, audiences would rather hear a story about "teens going wild" rather than "teens sitting down and studying". This reflects the nature of thrill and shock value that actually increases with the role of new and digital media due to the reactions from digital masses (parodies, memes etc)

Balance: It seems that there is no particular agenda to the balance of stories, however it is noteworthy that positive news is reported to higher extents on social media platforms as studies have proven that exposure to positivity results to correspondent feedback from audiences.