3 New and Digital Media News

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/10546191/Change-is-good-just-look-at-the-entertainment-industry.html

New figures from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) are proof that the internet has been anything but the curse many in the music and film industries feared it would be.

Spending on music, film and video games in the UK rose last year for the first time since 2009, thanks to big increases in digital sales and streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify.

It has taken too long for the music and film industries to embrace the internet. For many years it was seen as the enemy; record labels pursued file-sharers and resisted putting their songs online. Meanwhile, revenues declined year after year.

Consumers were always going to value the internet’s convenience, and many who were unable to buy what they wanted turned to piracy. Now, with the exception of a few outspoken musicians, the music and film industries have entered the 21st century. People can access movies and songs at the touch of the button, and are willing to pay for it.

Looking at the ERA’s figures, which show a 34pc rise in music streaming revenues and a 40pc rise in digital film sales, it is clear that the industry’s obstinance was foolish.

Summary: This article backs up the point of how technology and easier ways to access music as well as the internet generally. The future years ahead may face an increase in digital purchases opposed to physical copies. This is due to the way we can put music on laptops, tablets, phones, etc and also link these devices to portable speakers or even the car so therefore physical CDs aren't needed and therefore will face a decrease in purchases from stores. An example of this is how Beyonce released her music via iTunes.

Stats: This show a 34pc rise in music streaming revenues and a 40pc rise in digital film sales

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/10542265/Alarm-clock-gadget-most-in-danger-of-dying-out.html

The traditional alarm clock is the gadget most in danger of being made redundant by smartphones, a study claims.

Stand-alone satellite navigation systems are also at risk of becoming obsolete next year due to smartphones, according to the list of the "top 10 endangered technologies" compiled by pixmania.com.

Meanwhile the increasing popularity of retina-display tablet computers puts small-screen televisions at risk, and the DVD player is becoming less popular as consumer turn to online streaming servives such as Netflix and LoveFilm.

Docks to connect iPods to speakers are at risk as consumers instead use Bluetooth or wireless streaming services.

Laurent Cohen from Pixmania.com said: "As technology evolves and people become more comfortable with the latest tech, older gadgets are naturally pushed into retirement."

Kieran Alger, editor-in-chief at technology magazine T3 added: "It's a cliche to say technology moves fast but we're seeing that pace of change quicken.

"Technologies like Blu-ray that aren't really that old are already looking a bit beleaguered with new on-demand services coming thick and fast to take their place.

"However, at the centre of everything is the smartphone - it's the most important device we all own.

"It is single-handedly threatening a wide range of other product categories as it adds more weapons to its arsenal and grows ever more powerful."

Top 10 endangered technologies:

Alarm ClocksStand-alone sat navsiPod docksFlip camerasBlu-Ray playersDVD playersThe watchBlackberryTV Remote controlSmall Portable TVs

Summary: This article explains how the convenience of having one product with multiple abilities better than a number of products with separate abilities. A phone holds many abilities/features for example an alarm, timer, sat nav, apps to control music, calculator, etc and this means more features are being compressed to make it more accessible. This puts the stand alone devices in danger of not being bought as popularity is decreasing for them. These products are not needed because the products that feature them also feature other abilities, people tend to check their mobile phone for the time opposed to their  wrist for a watch explaining how much easier it is because they can also check for any messages or notifications also.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10548196/Facebook-mined-private-messages-to-advertisers-lawsuit-claims.html

Facebook is being sued over claims it mines users’ private messages to advertisers without their consent.

According to a complaint filed in California, the social network “misleads users into believing they have a secure, private mechanism for communication, when in fact Facebook... mines user data and profits from those data by sharing them with third parties”.

The lawsuit, brought by Facebook users Matthew Campbell and Michael Hurley, who are seeking class action status, stems from claims in 2012 that the website scans private messages for information that is used to work out how many “likes” a page has. At the time Facebook said “no private information has been exposed”.

On the latest lawsuit, a Facebook spokesman said: "We believe the allegations are without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously."

It comes less than a month a US court ruled that investors could pursue claims against the social network over its $16bn IPO in 2012.

A group of shareholders left out of pocket by the initial public offering in May last year, have spent the past year arguing that Facebook and its bankers left material information out of the “S-1” document it filed ahead of its market debut.

In particular, they claim that Facebook should have published more information about the impact growing mobile usage was likely to have on revenues at the social network, including internal forecasts which the company passed on to the banks underwriting its IPO.

Facebook and the banks involved in the legal row claim that the information was immaterial, and that it was under no obligation to make such disclosures.

However, Robert Sweet, US District Judge in Manhattan, sided with the investors, clearing the way for them to lodge a slew of claims against Facebook and dozens of banks, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

New and Digital Media News Post

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/dec/15/fact-and-fiction-trust-and-internet

I was sitting at a table last summer being patronised, lovingly. My friends were explaining, fact by splash of cold-water fact, how a recent TV special by a renowned celebrity hypnotist was performed by actors, and was not, in fact, magic at all. "But," I stuttered, as their mouths moued. "Then there's no point." Television itself is an illusion. To add yet more trickery – "real people" played by actors, things that say they're live but were filmed last March – defeats the purpose, wringing it of all entertainment. I went on a bit. If it's all showmanship, those men with their minds on, then it's nothing. It's air.

I was thinking about this again this week when a mean story that went viral – a man live-tweeting his interactions with a woman on the plane – was revealed to be fake. At the same time a Twitter conversation between a comedian and an American salsa brand – which appeared to result in employees being fired and had shot, sneeze-like across theinternet – was confirmed as a hoax.

I'd clicked on a Twitter link, read the BuzzFeed aggregations of screenshots, and I felt something twitch where outrage sometimes lives. A recognition that this could get annoying if repeated – a story written by a reality TV producer then reported as fact by an international media company (BuzzFeed's post got almost 1.5m views) and shared frantically by those who think it's real. Because if it hadn't been real – if, unlike the alleged non-magic of the alleged non-magician, it had advertised itself as fiction – nobody would have clicked even once. It would have fallen off the bottom of the internet within a day.

Which is not to say there's not a place in our lives for these tales. We love a good story. Endings that make you cry, twists. And the internet is where we gather to hear them today, cross-legged, with our milk. But the framing of the story is important. The point of the story is important. It's either told for the joy of telling a tale, or it's told to promote something for sale – listening to both can be a pleasure, as long as we know. As long as we know. When the truth is later revealed, it feels vaguely… evil.

It's harmless, of course – nobody was hurt, nobody will be hurt – but it does affect how we will engage online in the future. We will trust less, and enjoy less, and our lives will become fractionally worse. But the issue lies not with the storyteller – it lies with the sites that share it.

BuzzFeed is a lot of things. It's a gallery of grinning dogs. It's a thousand comedy lists about the 90s. It's a scrolling advert, a comic sports site, a politics blog, a moving newspaper, and its ad revenues this year are estimated to be $40m. As it stretches across our consciousness like clingfilm, its responsibilities are being called into question more and more. As a news organisation, profiting from the stories it shares, shouldn't it be verifying them before it publishes?

And if this continues to happen – if it repeatedly reports on fictions as if they're fact – then won't it start to lose us, its fast-clicking readers? We don't expect every story posted by a stranger on Twitter to be true, but we do expect every story reported on by a huge media organisation to be, because that's what they're for. The point of them is to filter through the daily mess of culture and to repackage it for us in witty, bite-sized, trustworthy chunks. The more they mess up, the less we'll return.

The thing is, I don't think magic is real. I don't. My dad was briefly a magician called the Great Malcomo, and I saw the safety blade on his guillotine. There are parameters to an illusion; you know where the sides are. When they fall away, it's not a magic show at all. It's just a man in a cape showing you his rabbit.

Summary:

This article from the Guardian talks about how the internet rumours spread easily. People reading a news post can instantly spread it to different social networking sites/apps and therefore spread even further.

People believe a lot of what they read on social networking without any doubt. They think if it's posted online it has to be true. An example of this is how people though celebrities such as the Rock, Jackie Chan and others were dead and this lead to trends on twitter. In addition to this, this article also includes journalists with the incident from the guardian - posting false information copied and pasted from else where.

Live tweeting incident with a man a woman on a plane was posted on twitter and got the user thousands of followers however it turned out to be a hoax and fooled many people. This affects internet users because they're in this state of mind where they think the internet is a safe and reliable source when it isn't always that case. 

Statistics:

BuzzFeed's post got almost 1.5m views

New and Digital Media Pareto's Law

1) What is Pareto's Law? Sum it up in a paragraph.
Pareto's Law (Lin Webster) suggests that 80/20 is rule that a minority of producers serve a majority of consumers, a large percentage is produced by a small percentage of producers. This Law is applied to ownership opposed to Content. For example 80% of media texts are produced by 20% of producers. This can be applied to large companies such as Google and Microsoft, accounting for most of the sites we use. 

2) What other industries or examples can you apply the 80/20 rule to?
The music industry can be used as an example as 80% of the songs in the chart hits are produced by 20% of producers.

Furthermore business management consultant Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; Pareto developed the principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in this garden contained 80% of the peas. 

80% of population is served b y 20% of businesses
80% of the market share is owned by 20% of the companies
80% of complaints are from 20% of the customers
80% of value is achieved by 20% of the effort 
80% of work is completed by 20% of the team 
80% of software problems by 20% of bugs 
80% customers only use 20% of software features
80% wealth is owned by 20% of people

3) List three arguments in FAVOUR of Pareto's Law applying to the internet:
- Top 5% of all websites account for 75% of user volume

- Google own 127 sites.
Google own Google Earth, Google Map, GMail, Youtube, Blogger, Picasa, Nexus, Andriod OS and much more.

- 80% of searches are searched on the internet on 20% of the search engines.


4) List three arguments AGAINST Pareto's Law applying to the internet:
- Large companies don't own user generated content, it applies to the ownership.

- Content in YouTube videos are produced by users not by the company, Google.

- Similarly, texts and images on blogger or tumblr aren't produced by google or Yahoo but the suers themselves.
5) Even if Pareto's Law applies to internet ownership, does it still apply to the content we read online?

Ownership and Content are two different things, although the products of users is the form of text such as video or posts, etc, it isn't produced by the company but the users themselves, user generated content.

The three points for the Pareto's Law are reinforcing the ownership and the three against the Law are explaining how the companies don't own the content.  This law doesn't apply to whole internet as in media institutions. The company doesn't control what is posted or said by users.

Weekly New and Digital Media Story

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/12/02/meadow-walkers-social-network-accounts-are-fake

Paul Walker's representatives have confirmed reports suggesting a posting on Facebook from the late star's daughter is a fake.

A message attributed to 15-year-old Meadow, in which the writer recalled growing up with her late father, appeared on the social media website on Sunday, a day after Walker perished following a car crash in Valencia, California.

The post included a picture of Walker and his daughter and read, "When I was little he taught me to walk, taught me to smile, and taught me to never give up. I loved him even before I knew what love was. He was my hero. The REAL life hero! He will always be in my heart! It brings tears in my eyes as I write this. You're gone, but not forgotten! R.I.P Dad!"

However, the actor's representatives have revealed Meadow is not currently on any social media sites and they insist the heartfelt message was not written by the teen.

Representatives for Walker are working to get the imposter sites removed.

Meadow had moved to California last year to spend more time with her father.

Summary 

Fatal accident involving Paul Walker shocked millions, it was top news over the weekend with users from all different types of social networking sites posted pictures, posts about the star and to praise him for what he had accomplished in his life. 

But through this tragic event, a user had decided to use the actors daughter to attract followers and to rise to fame. This story shows how easy it is to create fake accounts that impersonate famous people, this can even happen to teenagers or anyone in the social networking world. After a tragic death of a famous actor, a fake account was created of his daughter which quickly attracted attention as users thought she was real and therefore re-tweeted or shared the messaged 'Meadow' posted publicly. 

My view

This is an example of the dangers that people could encounter if they believe a fake account is someone they know. There have been incidents with children and teenagers meeting people online and developing relationships which is a easy way of meeting new people however this could be putting them in danger due to the possibility of getting harmed or meeting a pedophile if cyber friends agree to meet up. 

Furthermore the account could say anything and cause followers to react to the posts either agree or disagreeing

there is a possibility of ruining the reputation of the famous person in this case, Meadow Walker. 

This social networking world has allowed users to post their views, opinions and allowed them to follow and keep track of other accounts, this is a great way for users to produce their own material or use the network to keep a track of their favorite famous people. As time progresses, more information is available on the internet due to the ease of finding and getting news from a range of accounts however it may not always be true but can seem to be if it is said enough times. 

This relates to the idea of 'Normal' that we discussed in class, if we see something happen in a certain way again and again and again, it become the 'Norm' and people will assume it will happen all the time, such as the common conventions of Hip-Hop and even horror movies, etc it will be expected. This can be used when we think of how news is spread, similarly to rumors or secrets in high school, it being passed on and attracting enough attention will make it seem like it is a fact when it isn't. 

Yamin (2004)

Does it offer a positive or Negative representation of British Muslims?

To what extent does it reinforce or challenge Said's theory of Oriental-ism- that the west is superior to the exotic or dangerous east?

The part of 'Yamin' we watched in class offered positive and negative representations, it was a 10 minute clip of one day showing different characters and events which we had to work out ourselves. 

For negtive representation the clip followed Fanon's theory of putting on a white mask as the Muslim girl changes her clothes outside from her traditional clothes into common English clothing such as jeans. She is a married woman but is unfaithful, possibly escaping Muslim lifestyle, a double life which includes hiding the change, her 'other life' and taking off her hijab to fit it which acts as a 'white mask'. She is seen in a car listening to English music while people from her religion are praying, she is with a white man for her western part of her day then goes to the pub with him, a place where she gets looked at in a disgusted or angry way by other people present, although she is getting a non-alcoholic drink the point of being there goes against what her family believe as she is unfaithful to her religion. White British culture puts British Muslims through a bad portrayal using medium close up reinforcing the shot of how they judge Muslims making the audience feel uneasy for her. 

The negative representation shows the east as uncivilized through how the character of a Muslim man is presented as poor by eating out of a jar and using his hands which isn't something people are use to seeing as they have cutlery and proper balanced meals in comparison to scraping a finger inside the jar and licking it off. The uncivilized idea is supported through the man who is portrayed in this manner through several indications. He uses an outside cooker showing he doesn't have a working one, speaking in a different language when getting angry at a kid in a different language telling him to go away, he also seems to have no skills as he is working as a mechanic, it is a labor job which shows he is not educated  as he doesn't have a skilled job.

Positive representations is also shown through the clip as we see a father and his son praying in the morning showing their religion and showing it is important. They are seen as calm and peaceful people as they were vandalized yet responded to the incident of the work 'Paki' on their shop shutters by acting calm and cleaning it off as if it didn't affect them emotionally. 

The woman who was seen as negative for a portion dong things that seemed odd and shifty, bumped into the police on her way back and out right told the officer all her details, proving her innocence proving she is not a person who would do anything bad and appears to be friendly. She gave her details including her address, she came across as tolerant and didn't challenge the police officer as the stereotype of Muslims being terrorist causes suspicion and bad views by people from other religions

Said's theory focuses on the difference between west and eat, the way this 10 minute clip of one day supports it is by showing one person the woman, from one culture to another. The portrayal of two lifestyles of two cultures which reinforces the fact that there is a barrier where she switched between the two from being in the Muslim culture, western then back to Muslim again. 

Top Boy Opening

The opening of Top Boy presented many negative and positive points, focusing on the representation of the youth in this opening I identified a range of both through the clip we watched in class. An example of negative representation was the swearing, the image they had shown with their uniform being untidy even if they were at home. Some people see the untidy way they wore their uniform as being relaxed at home, however they walked into the home looking like that therefore indicating they walked home like they, we do not know if they looked untidy in or outside school. Furthermore they swore in the opening clip indicating they say rude things regularly as it seemed like they were speaking normally to each other, they may swore often at school or with more of their friends which is unknown to us but overall swearing gives an impression that a youth may be aggressive or rude and could speak directly at anyone using that language.

Some positive representation included how the young boy cared and worried for his mother as it was the first thing he thought of when he walked in, searching and checking in each room for her or signs of her. Once the boy told his friend he wanted to wait for his mother, he offered to accompany him like a good caring friend which shows how strong and friendly their relationship is. Showing these positive characteristics through the way he stayed with his friend as he waited for her to come home indicates there is good behind a sterotype that has been shown and assumed about the youth.

Top Boy the program itself involves swearing, reference to drugs and therefore create a bad image to the audience. The audience would assume the TV program is a normal TV show about the youth and to each individual normal is different. Normal is when they see the same thing again and again that it becomes expected and 'normal' and when something out of the blue occurs it throws people off. The audience for Top Boy would automatically assume characters they normally see through stereotypes. Medhurst would use stereotypes for a identification, to get a character type across quickly the audience however Alvarado's four stereo types of people from the black community being either Pity, Humorous, Dangerous or Exotic. Being in and urban area in England the audience would see them as dangerous which is giving them a false view upon people and could affect their attitude towards people they see everyday or in situations where they encounter an innocent black person but assume they are one of the four stereotypes in the theory. Perkins theory of how there is some truth behind a stereotype in many situation prove to be true however not every time which is negative as it may influence their view and opinions the entire black community to only fit into one or more of those four stereotype placing them into a box like figment of their mind and become 'normal' to viewers opposed to bringing equality and the idea of everyone being different.

Theories

Fanon

Non-whites have to put on a "white mask", adopting the western culture and lifestyle to be accepted within society. e.g. President Obama, a black male president according to Fanon had to adopt the western white culture and adapt himself to live in America and eventually become president. He'd have to dress smart and have similar mannerism to that of a White American.

Alvarado

 Black people are stereotypically placed in four categories:

- Pitied e.g. Slavery- Humorous e.g. Black comedy- Dangerous e.g. Ghetto areas within America- Exotic e.g. Caribbean

Edward Said

Orientalism, West = superior and civilised while East = dangerous and uncivilised  e.g. Rules in the West to follow; East has wars and terrorism.