Week 3 Story 6

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/bbc-tv-detection-vans-data-private-wi-fi-networks-iplayer-licence-a7177396.html

BBC responds to claims about how it's going to detect people using iPlayer without a licence

This article from the Independent and it talks about the conflict that the Telegraph has started with the BBC over false claims that it was going to snoop on users to detect whether they were watching BBC iplayer with out a TV license. They were going to do this by hacking into the users wifi network whilst in a mobile van. The claims were dismissed by the BBC and they called it inaccurate and that the real way wasn't far off.

Looking at the broader issue about whether people should even have to pay a TV license at all and i do believe that the BBC should look for other sources of funding it shouldn't come out of peoples pockets. It would be wise for them to move over to advertising and not only on their TV channel but even on their I player app and the BBC news website as it is the top source of online news in the UK, they could potentially be making a lot more with online advertising than they ever could with a TV license as the market of advertisements online is growing.

Week 3 Story 5

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/sep/29/daily-mail-cost-cuts-dmgt

Daily Mail owner to cut more than 400 jobs as it battles 'challenging market

This article from the Guardian says that the Daily Mail (A competitor) has to axe over 400 jobs from its human resources. This is because it has been ordered to pay fees going upwards of around £million. It says that most of it's editorial jobs will be secure as they don't want to face a slip in quality. Although this would be a large cost for DGM (Daily Mail's parent company) there ad revenues online has risen 18% since August giving them some support.

When researching this story further i noticed that the Daily Mail itself hasn't posted about it axing jobs but its competitors have, this may be because they're not proud of the fact they have to loose so many people in order to make a profit. Also the jobs being axed come from more people in marketing  and ad sales and not from there editors. In a time like this where jobs in the media are getting much more competitive because of the shrinking market it won't be unusual to see more dramatic job cuts like this.

OFCOM report: How has news changed?

2) What are the most popular platforms for audiences to access news and how has this changed in recent years

The most popular way that adults view news is through television. This ranked at around 67%, however this figure has been decreasing over the last several years and has come down from 75%.

3) How do different age demographics access news in the UK?

Those aged 55+ are more likely than those aged 16-24 to use TV, newspapers and radio for news consumption, while the opposite is true for the internet/ apps

4) Does socio-economic status change attitudes to news? If so, how?

In the report it sort of halves the socio-economic group categories into ABC1 and C2DE and says that the first group (ABC1's) rack up 53% of the viewing audience for news but this is online only and this excludes it on TV, only a third of the people from the C2DE group view their news online. Where they view it from does show that they have different attitudes towards news as online news sources

5) How many different sources of news are used on average? How does differ between different groups?

The report says that four of the main six news sources still come from TV, however this is in decline. Some of the main sources of News include BBC, with it's app and TV channel accumulating over 60% of the views. Facebook is also a rising contender, ranking fifth out of the top six news sources. Sky was also up there as their news channels including sports as well as Sky News and its successful app were mostly on the rise, apart from its TV channel.

6) How has news consumption through television changed in recent years?

Through different ages it has changed significantly. It said the each adult watched around 108 hours of TV in a year and that has decreased by around 13 hours in only 3 years . Within the older age demographic (55+) it still remains higher than adult viewing times at 189 hours however although that figure may seem high that has also decreased since 2013. The youngest recorded age demographic in the report mentioned here is people aged between 16-24 and there news consumption only amounts to 25 hours which shows younger people are prominent users of technology and may choose not to find there news on TV and would prefer to view it on social media or not even view it all.

7) How much has news consumption through newspapers declined since 2005?

The decline of the Newspaper industry which wasn't predicted although inevitable with the introduction of the digital age meant that the number of people who read newspapers would decline. This was the case as 10 years on from 2005 the percentage of people who got there news from newspapers fell from  72% to 48%  in 2015.

8) How does newspaper reach differ by age group?

Different Newspapers appealed to different age groups. It says younger people are more interested in Newspapers such as the Sun and metro which is believable as some maybe using public transport to go work and some may find aspects of the Sun such as the sports section to be more appealing. Older people of around 34+ are said to read the daily mail more, however the online version of daily mail be favoured more by younger people rather then older.


9) Which are the most popular newspapers and websites in the UK? What do you know about those newspapers' political viewpoints?

BBC still remains the most popular news, website and TV channel among all age demographics, this may because the BBC is unbiased so they don't have a political agenda and aren't bias towards any political party or issue they must cover both sides of the argument. Another popular newspaper/website is the Daily Mail which is a right wing newspaper and follows similar views to the conservative party. Sky News is another popular company, they do not publish any newspapers but there TV channels and Websites both aren't politically bias.

10) How does online news consumption differ for age, gender and socio-economic status?

Among young people, accessing the internet via smartphone is the most popular way of viewing News (42% of 16-24 year old's). People in the higher socio-economic groups (ABC1's) are more frequent viewers of news via the Internet (53%) whilst people in the lower socio-economic groups such as C2DE (32%). Men also view News more via the Internet with just under half of them viewing it in comparison to Women with a lower viewing percentage of around 30%.



11) What percentage of people use social media to access news? How does this differ by age and socio-economic status?

Around 43% of people who use the Internet for their News use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The stats show that 61% of people aged between 16 and 24 use social media for their news whilst only 25% of people aged over 55 viewed their news on the internet through social media.

12) What percentage of users only use social media sites for their news?

Like in the answer above it states that 43% of users only use social media sites for their news.

13) What are the most popular online sites for news?

Over half (56%) of online news users said they used the BBC website or app, compared to 59% in 2014. Facebook was the second most popular response, up by 12 percentage points since 2014 (from 17% to 29%). This was followed by the Google search engine (15%) and the Sky News website or app (14%).

14) What percentage of 16-24 year olds access news mostly from social media?

42% of 16-24 year old's

15) How do audiences find stories online? Do you follow links or go to the homepage of the news provider?

36% of people interviewed said that they viewed the news through an App first, around 3 in 10 (28%) said they viewed the news via a link sent for someone. Around 27% of people also said they searched the URL directly or through the search engine it self. 26% said they went though a website or an app and 22% said they viewed news via a news organisation.

16) What are the benefits for audiences from the changes new and digital media have had on the news industry?

Audiences now have a wider range of mediums in which they can view the media. They are not subject to one or two, for example a Newspaper or one TV channel. Audiences now view their news over the Internet on apps,social media and websites. This has then started to level out the percentages of people who view news through newspapers, TV and E-media, however different age groups view their news through different media platforms. For example, younger people (16-24 year olds) view more news though  E-media in particular- Apps.

17) What are the benefits for institutions from the changes new and digital media have had on the news industry?

News institutions, for example Time Warner can expand their revenue streams in hope for success and survival. E-media has opened up opportunities for News institutions has it gives them access to a wider audience and they can target specific segments through advertisements and cookies.

18) What are the downsides for audiences as a result of new and digital media in news?

Sites like Google can take advantage of its audiences and manipulate its content to show what they want their audiences to see  and now what the audiences want to view. Sponsored content can be played and shown at the top of pages which distracts audiences and takes away some of the power they have as it shows Institutions are in control of what we view.


19) What are the downsides for institutions as a result of new and digital media in news?

Although it could be argues that Institutions hold all the power, audiences can now choose what they want to view because new and digital media has given them many options for different news outlets they can look at and Institutions need to spend a lot money on advertising to make themselves known.


20) Who has benefited most from the changes new and digital media have had on the news industry - audiences or institutions?

Changes in New and digital media involve the introduction of newer technologies which include things  like Smartphones, App's and the Internet. All of these things are for-ever changing and this affects the way audiences view News and the way the Institution's provide it. Audiences have benefited from the changes new and digital media have had on the news industry, for example audiences now have a greater means of access to different news stations through different mediums. This includes, accessing the News through apps which can be done on smartphones, computers, tablets and even smart watches. The Guardian Media group have an app accessible for anyone with an Internet connection, this News app give audience instant access to everything and more in comparison to what their newspaper could give people. The advantages of viewing the news through apps is that you'l never miss a story as many are available days after the paper has been released. Also the news is available free of charge for audiences as is most news on the Internet. However there is a compromise of the News being free and the control that audiences have on viewing the news that they want to see.

The other side of the argument is that have News Institutions benefited more from developments in new and digital media on the news industry. Examples of this is because Institutions still retain control of what they show audiences as their sponsors on websites and apps can dictate what content is shown. As more companies and News institutions have jumped in on the action of producing News to be shown online bigger companies such as Google and Facebook who produce news via social media and through its search engine have taken advantage of popular start ups and have started to buy up these companies. So when audiences think that new and digital media has given them access to a greater variety of News (views and values) they are actually just subsidiaries of a larger media conglomerate.

Overall, i believe that Institutions have benefited the most from the changes of new and digital media on the news industry. This is because, money wise the gains that can be made to make up for a struggling newspaper and broadcast industry are huge; money is one of the main motivators for companies now a days as money gives you the option to expand, for example Facebook as brought other social media sites such as Instagram which hosts pages which show news stories. However, audiences still do have the choice whether or not they want to view the news they are presented with and that doesn't necessarily give them power over what they view as Institutions are still the main producers of the news.

NDM L/R

Feedback

Grade: 29=C

WWW: There the basis for a really excellent essay here and you've clear revised and tried to focus on the question. Now it's a case of building into this.

EBI: 

• Your intro needs work, you need to offer a little more then basically writing the question
• I'd like to see your great arguments develop a lot more, further examples and theories
• you mention but don't truly explore the other side of the argument, the idea that audiences are not empowered by NDM

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?

Learner response paragraph

One criticism about NDM and how it may not empower audiences is the conflict it could cause by giving people access to different views and values as it could interfere with a countries political agenda. This is evident in countries such as China which has a communist leadership. The introduction of the social media platform and apps like Facebook and snapchat has meant that anyone can now share and find their own views and values on various topics which may go against a countries belief. Current technology in China has changed the social environment as every person as a microphone or a camera so every person is a "news center". However in countries like China where people are not at all empowered by developments in New and digital media, viewing views and values could be punishable and this is caused by NDM. NDM may be the only other way for the people of China to view other views and values which aren't provided to them by the state. One group called CCTV (China Central Television) who own 45 channels across China and is available to over 1 billion people in China, don't really have any competition from other media outlets as it is owned by the state and is told what it can and can't air. We can link this to the theory about the "hypodermic needle model" as the Chinese audience aren't empowered but are just being injected with information and not being told anything different. This also links to censorship among the media as not only in places like China where people are not allowed to view certain content, media institutions in the West now seem to be doing the same. Recently a Facebook editor decided to take down a picture from the Vietnam war, because it went against Facebook's terms of service. This then is argued that even in the free world audiences still aren't empowered by developments in New and Digital media as Institutions remain in control.

Week 2 story 4

Revenues from TV advertising exceeds $5bn for the first time...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/02/23/tv-advertising-exceeds-5bn-for-first-time/

The TV advertising market has once again gotten larger as more companies are spending more money on advertising. It is the fifth consecutive year that money spent on TV advertising has risen. Big spender include companies like Google and Facebook with spending going into the Billions. The figures are based on the UK TV market for last year.

• Facebook spent close £11mil on advertising 
• Sky totalled up around 22bn views on advertisements
• Advertising on TV is now 30% cheaper than it was 10 years ago

I think this is a good thing that money spent on advertising has gone up as Broadcast media is now becoming more and more out of use every year, the funding from the advertisements keeps the channels running so people can still enjoy it and people who are on the other side of the digital divide still have a chance to enjoy the media.  

Week 2 story 3

Why Facebook is "Public enemy number 1" for newspapers and journalism

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/sep/20/why-facebook-is-public-enemy-number-one-for-newspapers-and-journalism

This post by the Guardian argues that Facebook is the reason to why the newspaper industry is dying out. One quote reads "She writes: “It is likely that protecting journalism is not a priority for Facebook, where engineers hold the power and the solution is nearly always sought through technology.”. This is in favour of new and digital media developments but it does show how easy some jobs can me made redundant.

The article also goes on to say that with the use of new technology, Facebook are almost forcing people what to read with the introduction of the "trending section", this directs peoples attention away from other news stories to what their algorithms and systems think you would want. This raises privacy concerns as to what companies like Facebook are allowed and what we allow to take from us.

I do agree with most of the issues raised in the article, including the main one, although it was inevitable that the use of new machines and technology would change the media and start making jobs redundant but not much can be done as people who use the internet aren't speaking out about the decline in newspapers and journalists.

week 1 story 2

Robots will eliminate 6% of US jobs by 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/13/artificial-intelligence-robots-threat-jobs-forrester-report

The Guardian report on robots taking over blue collar jobs, particular in the US and how citizens are worried and how this will have wider effects on the economy, politics, social and environmental factors.

6% could be taken over by robots
increase in unemployment-increase in violence
increase in poverty


I think that this is possible in the US, however in the UK i think it will happen as we are bound to follow America but it will take longer for us to adapt to the change and accept that our jobs will be redundant. This will  be a big problem in the UK as a lot of jobs are involved in agriculture and this can easily be replaced by robots, also the UK has many factories such as the Mini factory which has already replaced half of its workforce with robots as they are more efficient.

New and Digital Media: News case study introduction

This is ITN, the parent company behind the ITV channels. ITN has separate divisions that deal with things like News,Productions and source. ITN is now more comamanly known by it's brand name of ITV. ITV has many channels such as ITV 1,2,3,4 and plus 1 channels (including HD).

ITV is free to watch for everyone who has a TV license and can be viewed on catch up on its ITV player app. It is not a government funded organisation and operated independently; gaining funds through showing advertisements between shows.

As mentioned above ITV is available to watch online through its app and has a daily news show on its ITV 1 channel, it is shown multiple times a day at peak times.


This is Viacom, they have many divisions and this one in particular operates across Europe managing its brands, for example Channel 5 which is known for presenting channel 5 news.

Channel 5 news is the lowest viewed news outlet of the big 4 on TV (BBC,ITV,Chanel 4).

Channel 5 news is only broadcast on live TV and is not involved in the print industry, They do not own a website to go with the news channel, however Channel 5 do have social media accounts in which some of the news stories to make it on to,


The Guardian Media group are the ones responsible for the Guardian newspaper, The Observer and The Guardian weekly. They make up £254 millions pounds worth of revenue annually.

The Guardian like most other news outlets to rely heavily on advertisements, however some to branch out and look for additional funding, for example GMG media have gained the funding from many foundations to help them develop.


Sky News is a 24 hour channel run by Sky. It is quite a new channel in comparison to others like BBC News. It has become quite popular with viewers because of its sister channels such as Sky Sports.

Sky's parent company is Fox Networks which own Sky's whole operation in the UK. Fox Networks however, is a subsidiary of it's much larger parent company 21'st century fox which is half of the massive media enterprise of Time Warner.

Sky has taken advantage of new and digital media and has expanded online. They've created various successful apps and are especially renowned for the news app for being the quickest to bring out breaking news.


Channel 4 news is produced by ITN (mentioned above) but was first set up a the Government an NPO to provide a public service.

Channel 4 isn't as popular as BBC news and ITV news but over the years it has raised more controversial stories.

Channel 4 is only involved in the Broadcast platform and like ITV news it also has a limited use website which is attached to its main website Channel 4..

Google

1) Why has Google led to the decline of the newspaper industry?

In the early 2000's the Newspaper industry had hit its peak with advertising revenues, however shortly after, as the internet became more prominent, companies such as Google took a lot of their advertising.

2) Find a statistic from the article that illustrates the decline of traditional news media.

In the year 2000, the print industry hit it's peak of advertisement revenues at around $60 billion. However soon after online ads started taking a large stake of that. Google picked up a large stake in advertising and took around $44 billion from the the print industry.

3) Looking at the graph featured in the article, what period has seen the steepest decline in newspaper advertising revenue? 

Between 2000-3 was the first sudden drop, however it stayed stable through this period, but looking at the graph almost immediately as it hit 2004 the revenue streams went into a slump and continued for over a decade until it finally started to slow down.

4)Do you personally think Google is to blame for newspapers closing and journalists losing their jobs? Why?

No, i dont think Google is to blame, as it says in the article "Google didn't create the internet". They are for sure one of the biggest companies on the internet just like News Corp was one of the biggest print companies, however the reason why print is in decline is because times change and new and digital media take over.

5) Read the comments below the article. Pick one comment you agree with and one you disagree with and justify your opinions in detail.

"The vast majority of Google’s revenue comes from searches with commercial intent I.e. “cheapest coffeemaker” or “Miami hotels”. They dont earn very much from news related searches like “benghazi interviews”. I would argue they make their money on the backs of commercial enterprise, not journalists. Sergey and Larry owe the news industry nothing."

This comment is partly true, however there would be little and poor quality content if there no reporters or journalists to portray the stories in terms of the values and ideologies

"Obviously, Google is not to blame. I don’t think it’s about blame. I think the Internet is incredibly poorly designed. Rather than being free, everything on it should cost something in order to compensate creators. We have a proven system for doing this through organizations like ASCAP and BMI. The principal of royalties for profiting from the content of others is well established. Google came along, and, at least in the case of Youtube, knowingly robbed content creators for years in order to build up the business. The ideal system would be one in which every click resulted in a nano-charge on your phone bill, maybe 1/1000 of a cent for a news story, for example. Sites like Google that link to other sites could also pay in very tiny increments."

I do agree with this comment as people work hard to create content and spend time setting things up so they should be rewarded and a multi billion dollar company such as Google can afford to remunerate its partners.

Week 1 story 1

New and Digital media

Liberty Media plan to buy majority shares in Formula 1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37303230





Liberty media, an American media investment firm who have stock holdings in Time Warner and Viacom are interested in buying the majority stock holdings in Formula 1 (32%) for approximately $8 billion dollars. Liberty media also have investments in  other sport ventures such as MLB teams. Liberty media will be a good addition to the Formula 1 brand name, with their experience in the media world, they will hopefully be able to help boost falling TV ratings. They will be taking over from Chinese investment firm CVC who over recent years have been said to of taken the fun out of the sport and not put enough back in.

32% shares of Formula 1
$8 billion-£6 billion
Deal has been negotiated for years

I think that would be a good idea for Liberty media to take over the majority of Formula 1 as they will be able to invest more into the sport and make it more exciting again, especially for TV viewers as it is to commercial and expensive to watch.