The Future of Newspapers

http://www.economist.com/node/7830218

Do you agree with its view that it is ‘a cause for concern, but not for panic’?

This article from the economist is challenging how the danger that newspaper are in are something we shouldn't worry about. It also explains that non-profit organisations will fund for the ongoing on newspapers and an example used is how the Guardian are surviving through this method also.This article also argues that good stories will benefit society which is why people will read them and therefore ensures it is a concern but not a panic for newspapers.

I disagree with this because its not a concern but more of a panic at this stage. I agree that newspapers are needed, that we should keep it going as it is more of a professional way to receive news. However newspapers partially targeting stories of politicians, taking them to public court, challenging them and informing the public of the trust through honesty and partially opinion which is why it's so important.

Newspapers are in danger and they should focus on new ways to survive opposed to ignoring it. The article says that non-profit organisations will back it and fund the papers but it doesn't mean readers will still read it. There is no guarantee that in the future the current digital generation will even want to pick up a newspaper in their middle age or older age. People like convenience, why would they get a newspaper for news when they can use digital media like phones which easier to read off and easier to choose what articles to read and which to avoid. This means it will put newspapers in danger of extinction, people using their phones or tablets would read articles and things on the internet opposed to holding a big newspaper which may feel annoying, people won't see what is being read therefore people won't be able to judge.

NewAssignment.Net is a plan to combine journalists and bloggers together - professional and amateurs - will be difficult to fund but would work out for this digital age in terms of the fact it will be read and the combination will improve news material that is being posted for the public.

Newspapers focus on local news and have sections on global news, apps and mobile sites for news have a whole range of topics to categorize types of news making it easier and better for them to use.

Impact of New Digital Media

	For News, Impact On:
Audience	Institution	Theories & debates
v  Easy access means people can read news easily at anytime  v  Information they get may be inaccurate v  Global News: Wider access and wider knowledge v  UGC: ‘Citizen Journalist’ allowing audiences to report news and record or capture at incidents where there may not be news reporters present	v  Fall in newspaper circulation  v  Fall in TV News viewing v Loss of Jobs v  Brand can be tarnished for providing inaccurate info v   Newspapers have lost advertising revenue due to New digital media like Google	v    Paretos law: 80/20  v  Globalisation v  Pluralism v  "Dumbing down of Society" v  Castell: "Ushers in the information ages" v  "The internet is the most important medium"

End of Unit Question

There are always concerns about new technology. In your view, what are the possible benefits and problems attached to the Internet? 

You must include the following:

• An introduction

• Both sides of the argument

• At least three theorists or theories (e.g. Pareto's Law)

• Your opinion

There are many benefit and drawbacks with the internet, two sides of this extraordinary ability to connect through a global network of computers that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve several billion users worldwide. The Internet uses an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web, the ability to support email, and peer-to-peer networks. 


Adv: Info on every subject on internet (Castell - an applicatiopn that will usher in the information age - 1996) - regularly updated, news regularly updated, studying resources for children to post graduate and even higher levels of education, help for homework from wiki answers etc, search engines which are very effective, ways of communicating - far distances, forums- discussion (one to many, one to one, many to many), enables people to build relationships either love or friendship over the internet, sharing abilities, internationally accessible, entrepreneurship/innovation, freedom, helps promote democracy - Arab spring, user generated content active users and producers, (beyonce)

Dis: some information may not be reliable or correct on the internet - anyone can post anything not necessarily true(Paul Walkers daughter fake accounts), addicted to internet - effect social skills, predators such as paedophiles lurking on the internet, pornography accessible by children,  makes homework and essays easy for students as there are sites with previously handed in essays available, censorship, viruses, hackers


Pareto's Law: 80/20 80% of media is produced by 20% of producers - 80% of tweets on twitter from 20% of twitter users

Bobo Doll/ CopyCat: if they see it online - london riots; cause chaos - they will want to do it 

Andrew Keen: says that web pages and blogs to the activity of a million monkeys typing nonsense in his book 'The cult of the amateur - How today's Internet is killing out culture'- Dumbing down

Sherry Turkle: Alone together - taken over, more with internet than in person - snapchat friends while sitting next to them, selfies in funerals, 
(guardian article http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/may/05/rational-heroes-sherry-turkle-mit)

Briggs and Burke: The Most important medium of the 20th Century - 2005 - important because you can access global news - update instantly/regularly. news online before printed 

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.