New and digital media; News Corporation Research - mr halsey

About news corporation..
* News Corp is the world's third-largest media conglomerate.
* In the UK (under two subsidiary companies, News International and BSKYB), its news interests include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun & The Sun on Sunday (plus their online versions) in addition to Sky News & Sky Sports News.
* News Corp is a cross-platform, vertically integrated multi-media company. 
* Some of the ideas we discussed in class regarding the impact of new and digital media on News Corp included:

• Online subscriptions/paywalls
• Price promotions for newspapers
• Impact on institution content and its appeal
• Paid subscriptions for TV content
• Quality of journalism
• User generated content
• Social media/online news providers (Huff Post, Ampp3d etc.)

Tasks..

1. Research News Corporation’s response to the growth of new and digital media by listing each of the institution’s brands (Sky News, Times etc.) Have any closed, changed or been in the news in the last five years for any reason?

- There is no longer such a big demand for newspapers; falling sales cuts into profit of The Times and The Sun.

- New and digital media allows The Sun and The Times newspaper to be online; behind a paywall. E.g The Sun convinced people to come behind the paywall by using football.

- Sky news; there is so many more main news channels such as BBC news and CNN - also about three years ago Sky News went behind the paywall.

- User generated content, citizen journalism not as much demand of around the world journalists.

- The Sun on Sunday opened after News of the World was shut down; The Sun on Sunday is cheap as instead of two newspapers there is just one so more beneficial for the news corporation.

- Posting online and using new and digital media the news corporations are able to attract a wider audience; E.g The Times attracting a younger audience by posting news online

- Posting news online and targeting a wider audience could also be a disadvantage as there would be wider opinions and conflicts, for example elderly people not wanting to know about celebrity news where as teenagers and young adults may want to.

- Sky Go; TV uses on the go so people can watch their programs online or with their phones (on demand).

2. Develop examples of the impact that new and digital media has had on News Corp’s brands (paywalls, readership figures, audience share etc.)

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

New and digital media; news on the tweet - mr halsey

Read the report and answer the questions on your blog:

1. Why are respected news brands good news for Twitter?
2. Why in turn is Twitter good for respected news brands?
3. The report suggests that old and new media “are not, in fact, in direct competition, but often work extremely well together to enhance both the media eco-system and the consumer experience”. What evidence do they provide to support this idea? Do you agree with it?
4. On page 24/25 of the report, the focus turns to gossip or banter. What example tweets from journalists are used to illustrate this? 
5. Do you think the increasing amount of gossip or banter is harming the reputation of news and journalists?
6. What does the report say about trust in Twitter and journalists (look at pages 34-39)?
7. Finally, do you think new and digital media developments such as Twitter have had a positive or negative impact on traditional newspapers?
   
   
   

1. Why are respected news brands good news for Twitter?
   - Respected news brands are good news for Twitter as they are shown through Twitter's hashtags and have accounts for example; @TheGuardian, @TheSun, @TheTelegraph. Therefore for those individuals that use Twitter and would usually not read a paper copy of these news brands' newspapers are able to read and access the news through Twitter. This is good for Twitter because it means more people would use it as well as giving Twitter a more trustworthy name as reliable news is being given through this social networking site from actual news brands rather than just having random user generated information.
2. Why in turn is Twitter good for respected news brands?
   - 
3. The report suggests that old and new media “are not, in fact, in direct competition, but often work extremely well together to enhance both the media eco-system and the consumer experience”. What evidence do they provide to support this idea? Do you agree with it?
   - 

New and digital media; MY CASE STUDY - mr halsey

Smart phones and mobile apps...

Main focus

1. A study of the impact of new and digital media on smart phones and social apps.

Theories

1. Hypodermic needle: By using smart phones and using the new and digital app's people's behaviour and attitudes have changed. For example, by constantly using their iPhone's people tend to listen to their friends and allow influences such as those on Facebook influence their behaviours.
2. Representation theory: this is Stuart Hall's theory of media texts encoding and the audiences decoding. This theory can relate to smart phones and 'Apple' tend to create new iPhone's every year with new features therefore benefiting the audiences and allowing them to buy which one they'd prefer. Also, by social apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. being free it draws in the younger audience as well as older therefore giving smart phones a upper hand as it draws audiences in to buy them in order to get the advantages of socialising with their friends on the go, at no cost. 
3. Bandura's BoBo Doll: Bandura did an experiment on a bobo doll where adults beat up the doll and the kids that watched went in and did the same where as the children that didn't watch played happily with the doll. This relates to the impact that new and digital media has on smart phones and social app's as smart phones have now come in demand therefore as more people buy them and give good reviews others would also do that same. Furthermore, the purchase of new app's also causes people to purchase/download them as they want to do the same as others and see what the fuss is about. This is also beneficial on smart phone and app companies as by people copying each other and purchasing smart phone and downloading their app's these media institution are gaining users therefore gaining more money.
4. Hegemony: Gramsci's theory, is the influence that media has on audiences. It is usually one social class over the other, e.g. Rupert Murdoch/institutions over audiences. In terms of apps and social networking it could be said that despite the user generated content the social networking sites still have control over what is being said.
5. Marxism: believe that mass media are a tool used by ruling bodies to maintain hegemonic control over the masses and a class decided society. So a Marxist would say that although audiences believe that they are given the power and having their say on social networking sites due to citizen journalism and user generated content, commenting etc they are actually being controlled by the ownership of networking sites, e.g if someone was to post something negative about the social networking site the institution is likely to delete the comments and block that user. - FOR EXAMPLE, Rihanna posting naked pictures of herself on Instagram brought about a lot of negative feedback from fans and users over Twitter and instagram; causing instagram to delete Rihanna's instagram account. 
6. Pluralism:  Argue that we live in a classless society and media organisations are responsive to an audience and are economically determined. So media gives us options and we have choices. This would therefore relate to the use of the increasing choice in smart phone and social apps. Social apps have a huge impact on an individuals life however it is their choice to whether they wish to comment or download these social networking sites. 

References: 

- Twitter, Facebook and Instagram also Snapchat and the new update. 

New and digital media; stories#21 - mr halsey

Tittle: No-makeup selfies raise £8m for Cancer Research UK in six days

Link: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/25/no-makeup-selfies-cancer-charity

- Women posting bare-faced selfies online have helped a leading cancer charity raise more than £8m in six days – despite thousands of pounds being donated to Unicef by mistake.

- Cancer Research UK, which did not start the campaign, said the #nomakeupselfie trend had resulted in an unprecedented increase in donations.

- Mike Flynn, director of individual giving at Unicef UK, said there had been a "genuine mixup" and it was working with Cancer Research UK to transfer £18,625 that was donated by mistake.

- "It has been an exciting week, and we would just like to thank everyone again for their support."

New and digital media; stories#20 - mr halsey

Link: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/23/trick-or-tweet-boy-hoax-football-twitter

Tittle: Trick or tweet: the boy who hoaxed the football world

Sam Gardiner is a football-mad schoolboy, but no one took his opinions seriously. So he created a fake Twitter personality and soon was talking tactics with Premiership players. Tim Lewis meets the spoofer extraordinaire.

- Depending on how you view these things, Gardiner is either a harmless hoaxer with an opportunistic spirit, or he's a reminder of the dangers we all face now that we're taking more of our news from social media and non-traditional sources.

- Made a fake account to prove a point;; over social networking adults dont want to listen to the younger generation or take them seriously.