‘Why and with what success are traditional media institutions adapting to the challenge posed by new/digital media?’

Summary of 4 Articles

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/dec/07/news-corp-slashing-losses-times

When Rupert Murdoch acquired the titles in 1981, he promised "to preserve the separate identities of the Time and the Sunday Times". So reducing the £1m a week running costs makes sense in order to "preserve" the individuality of both titles. Murdoch's News Corporation can handle financial loses becuase of the vast amount of assets it has at its disposal; but the small publishing companies cannot cope with losing what is to them large amounts of money, especially with a decline in the number of readers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/dec/07/sunday-times-circulation-falls

News Story WEEK 11: Last.fm puts up paywall

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/dec/13/lastfm-desktop-radio-service-paywall

• Last.fm, owned by CBS is scrapping radio streaming in most countries
• They are putting up a paywall on its desktop radio service in the UK, US and Germany
• The free ad-funded online streaming service is not affected
• CBS brought it in 2007 for £225 million

The electronic music industry is dominated by 2 companies, iTunes and YouTube. And with more and more people purchasing Apple products iTunes is in great demand. People are also using YouTube which although has frustrating 30 second ads on almost all videos, is free. Giving people the option to pay for something they can have free access to is bizzare. However, it is a business and it is trying to survive so I think last.fm has every right to do so. I think last.fm needs to use VEVO's strategy and create a YouTube channel with music registered to them.

News Story WEEK 10: Leveson Report

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/dec/06/leveson-newspaper-reformed-charade

• newspaper editors want to have independent watchdog to monitor press
• David Cameron trying to push through a private deal with newspapers
• National newspapers will implement 40 out of 47 recommendations made by Lord Justice Leveson

"I would support something in law to verify that the future press regulator is actually fit for purpose. I do not believe that this can be left entirely to the owners of newspapers." - Baroness Hollins (cross-bench peer in House of Lords)

I think the press has received enough chances in the past to fix its mistakes. The expected outcome of the Leveson inquiry was for a law regulating what can and can't be published -and how information is gathered for news columns. This is what Lord Justice Leveson has recommended. Some newspaper editors are arguing that this could destroy 'free press'. This could be the case but that may be a sacrifice that has to be made to protect people's privacy. I don't think newspapers can be trusted to handle themselves after the hacking scandal. And for David Cameron trying to make a private deal, I think he is just doing it for a free promotion come the next election.

Web 2.0: Participation or Hegemony

Ian Tomlinson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECMVdl-9SQ 

Political

• During the G20 summit protests in London in 2009, an amateur video was posted online which showed Ian Tomlinson being hit by a policeman using a baton
• This emphasises how audiences challenge authority and official version of events
• The policeman(Simon Harwood) is to be tried for manslaughter
• "Technology empowers the people, who, oppressed by years of authoritarian rule, will inevitably rebel, mobilizing themselves through text messages, Facebook, Twitter…" - Morozov (2011)
• Internet has given people a powerful tool to communicate with each other
• As more and more governments are harnessing the power of the internet, 'We Media'(web 2.0) is not strong enough to allow people power to succeed
• The internet has loosened official control but has not stopped it

Zoo Visits and Laughing Babies

Trivial

• In their research into YouTube, Jean Burgess and Joshua Green (2009) found that 42% of the clips they analysed were uploaded by fans rather than the traditional media companies themselves. 
• Last two years this percentage will have increased, as YouTube has become a medium of ‘catch up’ distribution in the UK, for Channels 4 and 5.
• Burgess and Green conclude that there are two YouTubes; they argue it is ‘a space where these two categories [traditional media and home video] co-exist and collide, but do not really converge’ (41).
• Even as we become used to watching television programmes on computers, mobile phones or music players, we still experience it as television.

Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values.  To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?

Tim O'Reilly in 2005 defined Web 2.0 as a medium that allows audiences to become producers of media texts.As anyone with an internet connection can create and publish text (User Generated Content) it has increased the need for gatekeepers. And with more of the world getting connected to the internet, more gatekeepers are needed with increasing threats of terrorism and hacking. The internet has increased pluralism; it has provided people with a platform to voice their opinions. Another advantage of new and digital media is that it “interprets censorship as damage and routes around it”(John Gilmore) therefore, it allows pluralism to flourish .The views and ideologies of political leaders and governments can now be challenged through the internet, by the internet. As Al Gore called the internet “Exciting and revolutionary” and went further to say it has had a “more profound impact than the printing press.”  Since 1991, from when the first website went online, ¼ of the world is now online and this number is expanding.  As Tim Bernes Lee said ‘let the people be free’ and this is exactly what the internet has provided, freedom. Many everyday things can now be done online for example banking (97% of bank transactions are done online in Estonia). New and digital media has provided the globe with a “New World Currency.” The web collapses distances.

However, with so much freedom there must be flaws.  New and digital media has created a digital divide, the digital haves and the digital have nots.  Lee Sigel, New York writer and cultural critic, called the internet a “double edged sword”.  The web has provoked Al Qaeda & Taliban to use shock tactics as a form of propaganda. 90%of the market is Microsoft who pressurised company's to have computers with windows software preinstalled. This has shown that the online world also has a hierarchy like the real world with websites such as Google and Face Book dominating the online market. The freedom given to the audience has decreased with sites like Wikipedia now having admins to restrict and police what users post up on Wikipedia. The accuracy of information online has also caused a concern; Andrew Keen compares the people posting information on the internet to “a million of monkeys on computers”.   It is difficult to take information off the internet, someone once said… "You can't take something off the Internet - it's like taking pee out of a pool." The growth of new media has caused piracy to increase in both the film and music industry with sites such as Napster playing a major role in the increase.

Notes on Debate Article

• Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible people have an equal say in decision-making
• The digital revolution and Web 2.0 have given users (i.e. us – because we are no longer just audiences) the opportunity to communicate ideas globally through the use of social networking
• The uprisings in Egypt and Libya couldn’t have happened without the use of Twitter and Face book, with young people using social media to bypass the old regimes and organise demonstrations
• Instead of waiting for the story to be edited and mediated by news organisations with their own ideological motives, we had access to a huge range of points of view, direct and unmediated (Michael Jackson)
• Blogging is another way that the media are becoming more democratic
• The iconic video footage of the attack on the Twin Towers on 11th September 2001; the first hand reports from the Iran uprising – increasingly we are reporting and recording the news (citizen journalism and UGC)
• Citizen journalism can provide eyewitness accounts and subjective angles on stories to complement the work of professional news organisations
• We do seem to have entered a new age when audiences are producers and the traditional power structures are being forced to listen
• In the age of Media 2.0, ordinary people are no longer mere consumers of media, but also producers
• The term ‘Web 2.0’ seems to have been coined by the digital marketing entrepreneur Tim O’Reilly back in 2001
• There’s a danger of a kind of technological determinism here – the idea that technology will bring about revolutionary social change, in and of itself
• “Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media élite… now it’s the people who are taking control.” – Rupert Murdoch (2006)
• The two richest and most profitable global media corporations are now Google and Facebook
• Many well-known services – not least Twitter and Facebook – have struggled to find ways of ‘monetising’ what they do
• Marketing is now mostly ‘user-generated’ and ‘interactive’