Research activity

Who are the major players in terms of news providers in the UK and what exactly do they own?

News providers:

Broadcast-

·         TV- BBC news, Sky news, ITV news

·         Radio stations- BBC radio 1

Print-

·         Newspapers- The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times, Press Association, The Guardian (all owned by Murdoch’s News Corp)

E-media-

·         Social networking as a news provider (Twitter, Facebook...)

·         The online news sites such as BBC news

·         Online newspapers such as the Guardian

 

Commercial institutions want to maximise profit such as platforms like print which are newspapers like The Sun and The Guardian. The aim for News Cooperation is to make as much money as possible. Broadcasters such as Sky news also aim to maximise profit in order to produce more programmes. However the BBC is a public service broadcaster and does the same but this is because everybody has to pay for a TV license in order to watch the news which is non-biased as the BBC provides for the nation, therefore it could be classed as non-commercial. Channel 4 is a commercial public broadcaster and they also have channel 4 news.  There are now 228 radio stations with FM broadcast licenses that are licensed by Ofcom.

Non-commercial institutions such as newspapers like The Metro are provided free for the public mainly on public transport, this is because they are more interested in giving people the opportunity to read the latest news so everyone is aware of the issues going on in the nation/world as this is very important. Radio is a broadcast platform; Community radio stations typically cover a small geographical area and run on a not for profit basis. The Freeview channels are non-commercial such as Freesat, Freeview, Virgin.

 These are the major players in terms of news providers, institutions such as News Cooperation which owns the majority of the UK newspapers. The BBC broadcasts some of the most successful dramas and documentaries and is most watched for the news.

 

 

 

NDM Summary

1. 12/09/14 Fault in our stars, 
2. 12/09/14 Petition for Obama
3. 12/09/14 Top 100 Youtube Channels
4. 15/09/14 YouTube stars and Facebook, 
5. 15/09/14 Game:Destiny- huge profit,
6. 15/09/14 iPhone 6 release
7. 22/09/14 Sexism at freshers week,
8. 22/09/14 website: Alibaba worth more than Google?  
9. 26/09/14 Twitter targets film advertising,
10. 26/09/14 Problems with iPhone 6
11. 06/10/14 Sky ‘saddened’ over death of alleged McCann troll
12. 08/10/14 UK viewers ‘spend five hours a week viewing TV, clips and films online’
13. 08/10/14 BBC iPlayer catch-up window extended to 30 days
14. 08/10/14 Last.fm made loss of £2.1m last year
15. 10/10/14 Cassetteboy parodies
16. 13/10/14 Can Twitter make money out of breaking news or is it a PR platform?
17. 23/10/14 Twitter changes: 20 hits and misses from the social network's history 
18. 23/10/14 Is UKIP winning on Facebook and Twitter? 
19. 23/10/14 Facebook pays no UK corporation tax for a second year
20. 23/10/14 Media jobs website Gorkana sold to Cision in £200m deal  

articles

  

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/26/twitter-targeted-film-advertising

Twitter to target film advertising to users tweeting about related movies

This article is about Twitter bringing up a new scheme which enables them to monitor film related tweets and then sends users adverts according to their tastes.

·         Twitter is a major influence on movie choice. 

·         Targeted advertising, long used by Google via its AdWords technology, is being rolled out across social networks 

·         Not only are people hearing about new movies on Twitter, they are using it to make a decision about what to see, then sharing their experience with friends.

This article is interesting as it shows how new developments and ideas are progressing on social networking and are maximising their profit by these developments. 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/26/apple-bent-iphone-6-plus

Bend it like Apple: nine safe ways to carry an iPhone 6 Plus

This article is about how big smartphones are becoming and if people now need larger pockets for them as recently some people complained about the iPhone 6 bending in their pockets.

·         Apple claim that it received only nine complaints of bent phones, skinny jeans are just not safe for large smartphones. 

   The article gives suggestions on what kind of clothing people should buy in order to maintain their large phones, which in my opinion is taking the mick out of peoples complaints in a way. Also that phones may be becoming too big. 

Exam feedback

WWW-
Well structured and clearly expressed.

EBI-
Need more specific examples and more theory, (e.g. news values, Marxism etc.)

Grade: B

 Learner response- 
YouTube which is owned by a well known media institution, Google, provides its audience with the ability to post numerous media texts online, all of which can be produced by themselves. This links in with the two step flow model due to the fact that it allows people to form opinions and for others to access a variety of views and values. However, this may mislead the users as they may not necessarily own what they post on YouTube as the ownership and control gets passed on to YouTube without the audience knowing. This therefore agrees with Pareto's Law, that the majority of  media is still owned by the larger institutions and that 75% of the media is still only owned by 25%  of the institutions.

Articles

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/sep/19/everyday-sexism-in-freshers-week-student-university 

                         

Everyday sexism in freshers week: the fight back starts here

                                               

This article is about how males tend to treat the female students when out in the universities night life on freshers week, such as clubbing and socialising. Also those students that have been victims of harassing behaviour have not had any support.

·         37% of female and 12% of male respondents had experienced unwanted groping or inappropriate touching. (survey out of 2000 students)
 
·         36% of women had experienced unwanted sexual comments about their body (compared with 16% of men).
 
·         Two-thirds said they had seen unwanted sexual comments directed at other students, and just under a third reported gender-based verbal harassment.
 

My opinion would be to have support groups and more security around campuses and at the social events like clubs. They could introduce a ‘zero tolerance policy against sexual harassment’ in every university such as the University of Manchester did. So universities should listen and take on board what the students are saying or filing a complaint about instead of ignoring it as it could affect a student’s life.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/11109658/Alibaba-worth-231bn.html

                              

Alibaba worth $231bn

 

                                      

This article is about an online shopping company called ‘Alibaba’ becoming the richest company so far over Google and Coca-Cola.

 

·         In one night it raised $22 billion making it worth $170 billion altogether making it a record for any American company ever.

 

·         The next day it made $231 billion after trading at the New York stock exchange.

 

·         The owner of the company was inspired by the movie ‘Forrest Gump’.

 

·         Coca-Cola is worth just shy of $184bn

This shows that companies like Google and Coca-Cola now have some serious competition and it would be interesting to see how they will compete after such an unknown company could overtake in just a matter of days. 

Essay plan

• Internet access in households was lower in the past, there was a digital divide. is this democratic? 

• Pluralism links in with audiences having a greater variety of views and values, therefore audiences can be empowered.

• Elitism- e.g. Murdoch owns many newspapers and TV channels so there is not much of a variety of views. (Pareto's law)

• Developments such as social media e.g. Twitter are to do with user generated content which helps to get views across. 

• Audiences can be empowered by this to an extent if they read or watch biased news. 

• Accuracy of online information. 'Andrew Keen'- there are too many webpages which seem to be created by the activity of a million monkeys typing nonsense. 

• Misinformation- Wikipedia

• There is a greater variety of views and values in this case. 

• Audiences are empowered as they can create their own websites and blogs.

• Audiences dis-empowered- phones being hacked. 

• Pareto's law- a majority of media institutions are owned by a minority. 
• being 'dumbed down' - dis-empowered.
• Gatekeepers (editors) control the media. 

Articles

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/15/youtube-stars-facebook-news-feed 

YouTube stars and shows may be heading to your Facebook news feed

   

This article is about how Facebook are trying to come into a deal with YouTube for them to become a part of their online video distribution network. Facebook have hired staff from Los Angeles to court these companies and their stars. Facebook are also working on ways to gain more revenue from advertising to beat YouTube. Facebook also joined Yahoo as a tactic to compete with YouTube.

·         The top 100 YouTube channels generated 9.46bn video views in July 2014.

·         Facebook made $2.68bn from advertising, up 67% year-on-year.

·         YouTube’s advertising revenues will rise from $5.9bn in 2014 to $8.9bn in 2016.

This article engaged me because according to these statistics more brands will divert money away from broadcast TV to online video which I think is possible. Overall it suggests that even though Facebook is such a big organization and is very well known, it still has a lot of competition and statistically showing they need YouTube’s help.  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11092000/How-video-games-like-Destiny-are-making-a-huge-profit.html

How video games like Destiny are making a huge profit

This article is about how ‘Destiny’ could be one of the most successful games in history as the start has been really successful.  Most games of the first person shooter genre are known to be the most popular.

·         It is the most pre-ordered game in history that is not a sequel.
 
·         Almost 40% of sales for the first year are generated within first five days of release.
 
·         Last year’s Grand Theft Auto V generated $800m (approximately £49m) worldwide on its first day.
 

In my opinion nowadays gaming is a big part of a child/teenagers life as this is a major part of their entertainment. Therefore games like ‘Destiny’ are bound to be popular for the latest consoles out such as the PS4 and Xbox one. Social media also has a role to play for the game to be so popular such as Twitter.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/15/apple-iphone-6-plus-pre-orders

Apple reveals 4m pre-orders for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in first 24 hours

To summarize, this article is about customers not being able to receive their pre-ordered iPhones until October after the record first day sales. These phones are off to a record breaking start already having 4 million pre-orders within the first 24 hours.

·         2m first-day pre-orders of the iPhone 5 in September 2012, which it said then was double the previous record of 1m units set by the iPhone 4s in 2011. 
 
·         Some analysts reckon that in the Christmas quarter, from October to the end of December, Apple could sell 60m iPhones, compared with 51m the year before.

·         China is Apple’s largest market, ahead of the US, and demand for the larger iPhone 6 Plus is expected to be high.

Apple is a very widely marketed brand which has many loyal customers as proved in this article, however in my opinion the biggest rivalry is with Android and Samsung’s as the new Galaxy note 4 is set for release in October which is only a month after the iPhone 6 is released.

Articles

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/04/the-fault-in-our-stars-hit-summer-social-media-john-green

The Fault in Our Stars was named the hit of the summer on social media. It reached five million mentions on Twitter and Facebook.  This film topped some high grossing movies such as Godzilla and 22 Jump Street. The film was decided to be made after the book was such a hit and had a popular fan base after it was very well received and anticipated.  It is now set to get a Bollywood remake. Personally I would say ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ was not the best movie, there were many more that would get a higher rating such as Godzilla.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/sep/08/press-freedom-barack-obama

A petition has been released that calls on president Obama to respect the rights of journalists to do their jobs. The petition is called ‘Right to report in the digital age’ which makes three key demands of the US government; it should prohibit the hacking and surveillance of journalists and media organisations, it must limit prosecutions that trap journalists and intimidate whistle-blowers and must stop the harassment of journalists at US borders. I agree that journalists should not need to go to extremes to report certain stories if it means risking their lives. Many organisations have signed this petition such as Amnesty International, Boomerang news and Freedom of the press organisation. 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/01/youtube-top-100-channels-pewdiepie-videos 

Views for the top 100 YouTube channels have grown 80% in a year. This article suggests that the internet is almost like a necessity to most people nowadays. If something goes viral then a lot of people make it even more popular by viewing and sharing videos. The three most popular categories are music, gaming and comedy.