With the Internet surpassing print as our main news source, and newspapers going bankrupt, ... Page One chronicles the media industry’s transformation and assesses the high stakes for democracy ... The film deftly makes a beeline for the eye of the storm or, depending on how you look at it, the inner sanctum of the media, gaining unprecedented access to the New York Times newsroom for a year. At the media desk, a dialectical play-within-a-play transpires as writers like salty David Carr track print journalism’s metamorphosis even as their own paper struggles to stay vital and solvent, publishing material from WikiLeaks and encouraging writers to connect more directly with their audience. Meanwhile, rigorous journalism—including vibrant cross-cubicle debate and collaboration, tenacious jockeying for on-record quotes, and skillful page-one pitching—is alive and well. The resources, intellectual capital, stamina, and self-awareness mobilized when it counts attest there are no shortcuts when analyzing and reporting complex truths.
Since the internet has developed dramatically, many newspaper organisations in US were bankrupt. Many people are worried New York Times and American journalism would come to an end very soon. In reality, the New York Times is badly affected by decreasing subscriptions and advertisement revenues. Nowadays, people can easily get plenty of free information and news from the internet. Internet can be seen as a threat to the newspaper organisations. However, at the same time, the New York Times also used internet as a new platform to report news. People can now read the news on the website of New York Times. If readers want to read all articles or get more news stories, they have to pay money. That means some newspaper organisations start charging the online readers for the purpose of surviving in the industry. Page One: Inside the New York Times is a good documentary to give a summary on how media works today and how media face challenges and difficulties in this internet era.
An investigative journalist is a man or woman whose profession it is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media may be available. The act of doing this generally is called investigative journalism and is distinct from apparently similar work done by police, lawyers, auditors and regulatory bodies.
Deeper definitions & Purpose 1. Critical and thorough journalism 2. Custodians of conscience 3. To provide a voice for those without one and to hold the powerful to account 4. Fourth Estate / Fourth Branch of Govt/ Watchdog
It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas of the message and myths that surround it. Newspapers clearly have a function beyond mere reporting and recording –a function of probing behind the straight news, or interpreting and explaining and sometimes of exposing … The press lives by disclosure. The ABC cannot simply report; its legislation clearly implies that it should also work within the best traditions of investigative journalism … systematically to pursue issues of public concern through innovative and reliable journalism.
TYPES OF INVESTIGATION INTERACTION
Interviews
Observations
Documents
Briefings
Leaks
Trespass
Theft
INVESTIGATION METHODS
Interviewing-Numerous interviews with on-the-record sources as well as, in some instances, interviews with anonymous sources eg. whistleblowers
Observing-Investigation of technical issues, scrutiny of government and business practices and their effects. Research into social and legal issues
Analysing documents-(law suits, legal docs, tax records, corporate financials, FOI (Freedom of Information) material)
PR: propaganda by truth –the selective use of ‘facts’ to present a persuasive case to the public
resistance to EXPOSURE
dodging QUESTIONS
massaging ‘talent’
cleaning up stories
Journalism: verifying the ‘facts’ in ‘the public interest’
News Values is the degree of prominence a media outlet gives to a story, and the attention that is paid by an audience.
1.IMPACT
2.AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION-news is anything that's interesting, that relates to what's happening in the world, what's happening in areas of the culture that would be of interest to your audience.
4.SOURCE INFLUENCE-journalism has never needed public relations more, and PR has never done a better job for the media.
Are News Values the same across different news services?NO – they vary across different news services. Are News Values the same across different countries / cultures?NO – they vary across different countries / cultures.
"A sense of news values" is the first quality of editors – they are the "human sieves of the torrent of news", even more important even than an ability to write or a command of language. "Journalists rely on instinct rather than logic" when it comes to the defining a sense of news values.
The additivity hypothesis that the more factors an event satisfies, the higher the probability that it becomes news. The complementarity hypothesis that the factors will tend to exclude each other. The exclusion hypothesis that events that satisfy none or very few factors will not become news.
Newsworthiness: Reviewing Galtung & Ruge 1. THE POWER ELITE. Stories concerning powerful individuals, organisations or institutions. 2. CELEBRITY. Stories concerning people who are famous. 3. ENTERTAINMENT. Stories concerning sex, showbusiness, human interest, animals, an unfolding drama, or offering opportunities for humorous treatment, entertaining photographs or witty headlines. 4. SURPRISE. Stories that have an element of surprise and / or contrast. 5. BAD NEWS. Stories with particularly negative overtones, such as conflict or tragedy. 6. GOOD NEWS. Stories with particularly positive overtones such as rescues and cures. 7. MAGNITUDE. Stories that are perceived as sufficiently significant either in the numbers of people involved or in potential impact. 8. RELEVANCE. Stories about issues, groups and nations perceived to be relevant to the audience. 9. FOLLOW-UP. Stories about subjects already in the news. 10. NEWSPAPER AGENDA. Stories that set or represent the news organisation‘s own agenda.
An individual's conception of reality is socially constructed through a process of communication using shared language. Reality exists, but the way we come to know it, talk about it, understand it, is mediated through social life. The media play a large role in "constructing" or "mediating" the social world as we understand it.
The four agendas
PUBLIC AGENDA -the set of topis that members of the public perceive as important.
POLICY AGENDA -issues that decision makers think are salient. (i.e. legislators)
CORPORATE AGENDA -issues that big business & corporations consider important.
MEDIA AGENDA -issues discussed in the media.
These four agendas are interrelated.
Agenda setting is the process of the mass media presenting certain issues frequently and prominentlywith the result that large segments of the public come to perceive those issues as more important than others. Simply put, the more coverage an issue receives, the more important it is to people.
The Mass media do not merely reflect and report reality, they filter and shape it. Media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues.
Two main types of Agenda Setting Theory
First Level Agenda Setting Theory: This is for the most part studied by researchers and emphasizes the major issues and "the transfer of the salience of those issues." At this level the media suggest what the public should focus on through coverage.
Second Level Agenda Setting Theory: This is essentially, how the media focuses on the attributes of the issues. The media suggests how people should think about an issue.
Strengths of the Agenda Setting Theory
It has explanatory power because it explains why most people prioritize the same issues as important.
It has predictive power because it predicts that if people are exposed to the same media, they will feel the same issues are important.
It can be proven false. If people aren’t exposed to the same media, they won’t feel the same issues are important.
Its meta-theoretical assumptions are balanced on the scientific side.
It lays groundwork for further research.
It has organising power because it helps organiseexisting knowledge of media effects.
Weakness of the Agenda Setting Theory
Media users may not be as ideal as the theory assumes. People may not be well-informed, deeply engaged in public affairs, thoughtful and skeptical. Instead, they pay casual and intermittent attention to public affairs, often ignorant of the details.
For people who have made up their minds, the effect is weakened.
News cannot create and conceal problems. The effect can merely alter the awareness, priorities and salience people attach to a set of problems.
NEW MEDIA is a whole new ballgame in terms of Agenda setting
NOKIA has launched its long-awaited first Windows 7 smartphones, hoping to claw back market share it has lost in the smartphone race to chief rivals, Apple, Samsung and Google.
But some analysts say it may be too little, too late, for the world's top mobile phone maker. With price tags of $560 and $360, the Lumia 800 and 710 are based on Microsoft's operating system and come eight months after Nokia and the computing giant said they were hitching up. "Lumia is reasonably good ... but it's not an iPhone killer or a Samsung killer," Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics said. "But where Nokia does stand out is on their price - it looks like they are going to be very competitive." Lumia 800, with Carl Zeiss optics and 16GB of internal memory, will be available in selected European countries in November, including France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Britain. It will be sold in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan before the year-end. Lumia 710, with a 1.4 GHz processor, navigational applications and Nokia Music - a free, mobile music-streaming app - will first be available in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan toward the end of the year. The company's share price jumped almost 3 per cent in an otherwise depressed market on the Helsinki Stock Exchange but settled, closing almost unchanged at ($6.68). Nokia, which claims 1.3 billion daily users, has been the world's biggest handset maker since 1998, selling 432 million devices last year - more than its three closest rivals combined. But after reaching its announced global goal of 40 per cent market share in 2008, it has struggled against rivals making cheaper handsets in Asia, and its share has shrunk to 24 percent earlier this year. Worse still, Nokia's sales in the more lucrative smartphone market crashed 39 per cent in the third quarter as it continued to be squeezed in the low end by Asian manufacturers like ZTE and in the high end by the iPhone, Research in Motion's Blackberry, Korea's Samsung Electronics and Taiwan-based HTC Corp. The iPhone has set the standard for smartphones among many design-conscious consumers and the Blackberry has been the favourite of the corporate set. Google's Android software has emerged as the choice for phone makers that want to challenge the iPhone. Samsung and HTC - snapping at Nokia's heels for third place in topend smartphones behind the iPhone and Samsung - are the biggest users of the Android platform. Nokia is still operating Symbian software, older than Apple's software and considered clumsy by many, although it has been upgraded. Nokia also introduced the MeeGo platform in its flagship N9 model launched last month. Mr Elop has said Windows software will become the main platform for Nokia smartphones but that it won't stop developing Symbian or MeeGo. Mr Mawston says Nokia has been pushed into a corner as Symbian was unable to compete with other operating systems and MeeGo took too long to develop. "It's a risk that they may be juggling too many balls at once," Mr Mawston said. "They were pushed into a multi-platform strategy for at least the short-term, but given the competitive situation with Symbian and MeeGo they really had no choice but to develop a third (platform) and juggle all three at once." Mr Elop described the Lumia phones as a "new dawn" for Nokia. "Lumia is light ... Lumia is the first real Windows Phone," Mr Elop declared to the London audience. He acknowledged that since he took over the Nokia leadership a year ago there had been "some difficult moments and some tough decisions to make," including more than 12,000 layoffs, but was upbeat about the future. "Eight months ago, here in London we outlined a new direction for Nokia," Mr Elop said. "Since then we've gone through a significant transition and we are playing to win - no holding back, no hesitation, no second guessing." Nokia, which according to Strategy Analytics, is the world's top seller of dual SIM card handsets, sold 18 million such devices in the third quarter. "Dual SIM is really something Nokia should have been doing in 2007 and 2008 when the market really started rocketing quite aggressively," Mr Mawston said "Like with smartphones really, they're two or three years behind and are gradually playing catch-up."
The role of public media Public media should have public value. According to the BBC that means:
Embedding a ‘public service ethos’
Value for licencefee money
'Weighing public value against market impact'
Public consultation
In 1985 the Broadcasting Research Unit defined public service broadcasting as involving:
Geographical universality
Universality of appeal
Special provision for minorities
Special relationship to the sense of national identity and community
Distanced from all vested interests
Universality of payment
Competition in good programming rather than competition for numbers
Liberate rather than restrict
Public Media Functions:
Nation Building
National Heritage
National Identity
National Conversations
"The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens". Public media is a media whose mission is to serve or engage a public. Its purpose is to serve the public, rather than make profits. In Australia, ABC and SBS are the two largest public broadcasting corporations. Due to really tight budget, public media producer or journalist has to take up serveral job duties. Therefore, producing quality media work is never easy with little money. Public media really are facing challenges to continue its run in competition with commercial media. It is difficult to avoid commercialization when getting consumers' support.
Audiences generate profit through selling advertising
Social responsibility of The Media in a Democracy:
a truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning;
a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism;
the projection of a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society;
the presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society;
full access to the day’s intelligence.
To keep it under control :
Formal State Requirements
Legal Prescription
State Oversight
Statutory
Voluntary
Functions –commercial, social AND POLICING The ‘first duty [of the media] is to shun the temptations of monopoly.Its primary office is the gathering of news.At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted.Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong.Comment is free, but factsare sacred.
Old Media=Traditional/ Heritage/ Legacy Media Example:
Newspapers
Magazines
Radio
Television
Old media (traditional media, heritage media, legacy media) are media platforms that were essentially derived from an industrial paradigm. Created and developed in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, these platforms –newspapers, magazines, radio and television –are essentially instruments of mass communication targeting large aggregated audiences, albeit within their own specific markets.
Web 1.0 –Information Web (FOCUS = Companies)
Web 1.0 (the information web), the one we all know and love, is straightforward. It’s full of content that we can surround with ads, mainly in the form of banners. Many marketers look at this as an extension of offline media –print and television. Sadly, they tend to use it the same way.
Web 2.0 –“NEW MEDIA” (FOCUS = Social Groups)
"Produsagecan be roughly defined as modes of production which are led by users or at least crucially involve users as producers -in other words, the user acts as a hybrid user/producer, or produser, virtually throughout the production process. Produsagedemonstrates the changed content production value chain model in collaborative online environments: in these environments, a strict producer/consumer dichotomy no longer applies -instead, users are almost always also able to be producers of content, and often necessarily so in the very act of using it.”
Web 3.0 –“SEMANTIC WEB” (FOCUS = Individuals)
Web 1.0, was of course, the static flat web of hyperlinks and no interaction. Web 2.0(ignoring the glossy mirrored logos and missing vowels [flickretc]) is what we currently have. It’s the interactive web of comments on blogs, social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, social networking sites such as LinkedInand Facebook, microblogging(Plurk, Twitter, and the late Pownce), and all kinds of tools that converted the static flatland of html into the scrubbed dynamic web we all know and love(?) today.
Web 3.0takes all this a step further adding machine-readable meaning to the packets of information. It is thus known to the technically minded as the semantic web. Once it is manifest the semantic web will take us to within a gnat’s whisker of that utopia in which you have the exact change for a trip from MorningtonCrescent to LAX via JFK.
Before we get there though, there is the not-so-simple matter of enabling meaning within information sources. This concept brings us full circle to the early days of web design when every tool stressed the importance of meta tags.
Newspapers
Cheap
Everywhere
Serve their purpose
WEB NEWS
Cheap
Available
But, it's time to pay!
Question:Will people pay for something they believe they are entitled to continue to have for free?
The success of Apple's iPad isn't just drawing more competition to the tablet market. It's attracting thousands of counterfeit and knockoff products.
On a single day in July, almost 18,000 fakes and clones resembling the iPad and Android devices were available for sale on 23 e-commerce sites, according to MarkMonitor, a San Francisco-based firm that helps companies protect their brands.
The tablets can be illegal - for instance, if they have a bogus Apple logo - and often they don't work well and have no warranty protection, said Fred Felman, chief marketing officer of MarkMonitor. The copycat products and suspected counterfeits found in MarkMonitor's survey were offered by more than 5000 sellers, many of them located in China.
Knockoff iPads may proliferate during the year-end holiday season, as shoppers beset by the economic slump go hunting for bargains. That's creating more competition for Apple, even if many consumers only buy the tablets because they believe they're getting the real thing. Apple's advantage is its software is hard to replicate, said Francis Sideco, an analyst at research firm IHS Inc.
“You can only copy to a certain degree,” he said. For instance, knockoff tablets may not connect to Apple's iTunes and App Store. “It's not necessarily about hardware but the software, and it's very difficult to copy that,” Sideco said.
Trudy Muller, an Apple spokeswoman, declined to comment.
A $US6.9b per quarter product
Apple released the iPad in April 2010, and it quickly emerged as the company's number two product category behind the iPhone. The tablet generated $US6.9 billion for Cupertino, California-based Apple last quarter, out of a total of $28.3 billion.
The device has attracted scads of legitimate competitors, with many manufacturers using Google's Android software. Amazon.com also is jumping into the market this holiday season. It will release its $US199 Kindle Fire tablet later this month, aiming to undercut the iPad, which starts in the US at $US499.
Counterfeiters are increasingly focusing on mobile technology after years of copying pharmaceuticals, handbags, software and other products. Tablets are obvious targets because they're the most-desired technology gifts this holiday season - beating out laptops, televisions, e-readers and video-game consoles, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.
To avoid getting cheated, shoppers should stick with retail sites they know, Felman said. A dramatically low price is another red flag, he said. The clone tablets in MarkMonitor's survey were typically 69 per cent less than the retail price of the genuine item.
Higher prices, meanwhile, often can signal that shoppers are dealing with gray-market goods -- genuine tablets that haven't been authorized for sale in a given country. Buyers of such devices typically pay a 15 per cent premium, and then risk having no warranty or a way to resolve technical problems. More than 5500 gray-market tablets were offered for sale on the day in July when MarkMonitor conducted its study.
“It's very important for consumers to understand as they go into the holiday season, there's a very high likelihood there are scammers out there,” Felman said.
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google is thinking of getting into the pay television business as modern lifestyles increasingly turn to the Internet for entertainment, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal cited unnamed sources as disclosing that Google is considering adding cable-style television programming as well as telephone features to a high-speed Internet project in Kansas City, Missouri. Google has discussed the idea with major television firms but no deals have been made, according to the Journal. The company declined to comment on what it referred to as speculation. The unconfirmed news came as Google set out to breathe new life into its moribund Internet television platform with the roll-out of second-generation Google TV software. Google is among technology firms betting that the future of home entertainment is films, television shows and other video content streamed on demand over the Internet. The California Internet titan last year launched Google TV, which is powered by Android software and Chrome Web browser and can be accessed using Sony TVs or set-top boxes from Logitech that route Web content to existing television sets. Sony and Logitech have both slashed prices on Google TV offerings in the face of disappointing sales. Updated Google TV software seeks to make it easier and more intuitive for viewers to find online video. "The Internet marks a new chapter for television," Google said in a blog post. "This chapter is not about replacing broadcast or cable TV; it's not about replicating what's on TV to the Web. "It's about bringing millions of new channels to your TV from the next generation of creators, application developers and networks." Google owned online video venue YouTube is adding about 100 channels of original programming to the globally popular online venue for video sharing. YouTube's dive into original content includes deals with celebrity partners such as pop music star Madonna and actor Ashton Kutcher. "Even more talented creators and original entertainment will soon join YouTube's existing channel lineup," YouTube global head of content partnerships Robert Kyncl said in a blog post last week. Google reportedly laid out more than $100 million to establish the partnerships, which come as it tries to become a preferred source of content for Internet-linked televisions. "These channels will have something for everyone, whether you're a mom, a comedy fan, a sports nut, a music lover or a pop-culture maven," Kyncl said. The first of the original channels will appear on YouTube this month with more added through the coming year.
Online lecture comprising of interview with two radio presenters from ABC Local Radio; Richard Fidler & Steve Austin
When I listened to the audio clip, I took some notes about the interview. Radio producers have to find stories before having a successful interview. It would be easier to finish the task if the topic of the interview is what we are interested in. The interviewer can guide the conversation, but space should be given to the interviewee. Interviewee would feel free to talk if he/ she is situated in a safe environment. In general, radio has a big difference from TV. Radio is maintaining its value all the time even other media keep changing. It's mainly because radio fits in with our daily life. It is important for the radio presenters to put wants of the audiences first. A golden rule is very useful to all of us, that is "talk less, but listen more". We should respect the person who is talking, and get his/ her main ideas by listening patiently. To be a journalist in radio, students have to stay immersed in news and the globe. Last but not least, we can keep an open mind to understand others' opinion in order to get more ideas.
Laura Anderson Yahoo!7 Charter aviation company Strategic Airlines has grabbed the opportunity to launch a new domestic and regional airline, to be branded ‘Air Australia’ in the wake of the Qantas debacle.
The airline launched this morning, withthe company’s chief commercial officer Damien Vasta denying that the launch was timed to benefit from the Qantas grounding crisis.
In perhaps a contradiction to the denial Vasta said “"They need to see thatthere's options out there because they don't want to be dependent on one airline. Because as you know things do happen that stop airlines from flying. Strategic has traditionally specialized in regional flights, servicing major mining towns, departing from the major hubs of Brisbane and Perth.
Growing from a solely contract-based model to passenger flights in 2009, the airline has reached the point where they feel confident they can now compete with other domestic carriers.
"Strategic Airlines will retire its name, red white and blue brand and full service business model commencing from 15 November 2011 to become Air Australia, a new international and domestic low-cost carrier," the firm said.
The new airline will expand its routes to involve flights between Melbourne and Brisbane and will include Strategic’s existing flights between Australia and Bali and Phuket, and eventually hopes to offer a service to Honolulu.
Vasta claims that with Air Australia they hope to offer Aussies another option when choosing a domestic and Asia carrier, with competitive fares that will result in overseas destinations being more affordable for Australians.
A big part of my trip to Spain has concerned eating and drinking. A culinary wonderland, each if its cities has its own specialties and character. Sevilla and Granada in the south are both amazing places to enjoy tapas in its original form.
Sevilla Life in Sevilla is about enjoying yourself. The capital of the Andalucia region in southern Spain, Sevilla endures summer temperatures of 45˚C and above, so exerting oneself is not high on the list of a sevillano’s priorities. In the old city, narrow streets and rows of orange trees (the fruit too sour to eat) work to keep the city cool, and hundreds of tapas bars and restaurants fill the streets.
Sevilla is one of the best places in Spain to enjoy tapas (small dishes named for the Spanish word for ‘lids’ or‘covers’), and my favourite – of many – was a small place calledBar Alfalfa (Calle Candilejo, 1). Typically Iberian in style, with walls covered in bottles of vino tinto and hanging jamon, Bar Alfalfa serves wonderfully fresh plates of bruschettas and salad, which make a welcome alternative to the often fried and potato-heavy fare commonly found in Spanish restaurants.
Hangingjamón Some specialties to look out for are grilled seafood, particularly gambas (prawns) and calamar (squid), from the nearby coastal areas of Huelva and Cadiz, and jamón ibérico, the ubiquitous ham you’ll seeing hanging in bars and restaurants throughout Spain. Another delicious local dish isespinacas con garbanzos, a borderline healthy mix of spinach with chickpeas.
Granada
Granada, two hours’ drive from Sevilla, is famous for the tradition in its bars and restaurants of serving free tapas with drinks (Australian tapas bars take note!). It’s a wonderful idea that makes a night out on the town a culinary treat. Another benefit of the practice becomes clear at around midnight on a Friday when the bars and streets are buzzing with people and no one appears too drunk.
