Rodney Glen King was an African American who became a symbol of racial tension in America, after his beating by Los Angeles police officers in 1991 was videotaped and broadcast to the nation. The officers -- Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Stacey Koon -- were charged with criminal offenses, including assault with a deadly weapon. Their trial was originally set to be held in Los Angeles, but defense attorneys successfully argued that a fair trial in Los Angeles would be impossible because of the publicity. The trial was moved to Simi Valley, a predominantly white suburb of L.A. The jury was comprised of ten white people, one Hispanic person and one Asian person, and many objected to the fact that there were no African-American jurors. The reason it was significant in relation to citizen journalism is because the footage of the beating was made by a normal citizen that just happened to be looking out of his window.
7/7 Bombings ..
The 7 July 2005 London bombings(often referred to as 7/7) were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks in London which targeted civilians using the public transport system during the morning rush hour. On the morning of Thursday, 7 July 2005, four terrorists detonated four bombs, three in quick succession aboard London Underground trains across the city and, later, a fourth on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. As well as the four bombers, 52 civilians were killed and over 700 more were injured in the United Kingdom's first suicide attacks.The explosions were caused by homemade organic peroxide–based devices packed into rucksacks. The bombings were followed two weeks later by a series of attempted attacks which failed to cause injury or damage. This relates to citizen journalism through the fact that it was record on a mobile phone seconds after the bombing had happened.
Mumbai Terrorist Attacks ..
The 2008 Mumbai attacks were twelve coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai, India's largest city by members of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Ajmal Kasab, the only attacker who was captured alive, later confessed upon interrogation that the attacks were conducted with the support of Pakistan's. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wednesday, 26 November and lasted until Saturday, 29 November 2008, killing 164 people and wounding at least 308. This relates to citizen journalism though the fact that it was recorded on tape.
Asian Tsunami ..
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquakewas an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake. The resulting tsunami was given various names, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, South Asian tsunami,Indonesian tsunami, and the Boxing Day tsunami. The earthquake was caused when the Indian Plate was deducted by the Burma Plate and triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000 people in fourteen countries. This relates to citizen journalism because it was recorded on tape again.
Virginia Tech Shooting ..
The Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting that took place on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Tech, shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others in two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, before committing suicide (another six people were injured escaping from classroom windows). The massacre is the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in U.S. history. It was the worst act of mass murder of college students since Syracuse University lost 35 students in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, and the second-deadliest act of mass murder at a U.S. school campus, behind the Bath School disaster of 1927. This relates to citizen journalism through the confession video made by the person who committed the murders, he added 20 photos of him, 18 of those photos showed him holding the gun thus showing he was the one who committed the murders.
Hudson River ..
US Airways Flight 1549 was US Airways' scheduled domestic commercial passenger flight from LaGuardia Airport in New York City to Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, and onward to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in SeaTac, Washington. On January 15, 2009, the Airbus A320-214 flying this route struck a flock of Canada Geese during its initial climb out, lost engine power, and ditched in the Hudson River off midtown Manhattan. This relates to citizen journalism though the fact that the whole incident was recorded on tape which was used after to show that the pilot saved his passengers lives.
The Sun on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror have both suffered sales drops at the weekend after their 10p cover price rises. Both newspaper have said to have had sales declines for more that 35 following the price rises and editorial revamps backed by advertising campaigns. The Sun on Sunday's circulation dropped 3.6% on the previous weekend to 1.85m copies, on 22 September, the first day of its 10p cover price rise to 70p, according to unofficial industry estimates. The weekend previously, however, when the Sunday Mirror introduced its price rise, its circulation is understood to have been about level compared to the week before.
The Sun on Sunday reported an average weekly headline circulation of 1.92m copies in August, which was down 0.56% on the previous month and down 10.17% on the year.
Trinity Mirror's Sunday Mirror, which increased its cover price from £1 to £1.10 the previous weekend, dropped 3.3% to about 1m.
In the same month, the Sunday Mirror reported a headline circulation of 1.06m, up 1.72% on July and down 3.4% on the year.
Sunday tabloid sales are understood to have been down generally last weekend, with the Daily Star Sunday dropping about 4%, the Mail on Sunday down 3% and the Sunday Express dipping 2.4%.
I personally can understand that raising the prizes of the newspapers will loose a wide range of audiences because you can get the same news online for free, not to forget that online newspapers are already more popular than the normal print newspapers, by raising the prizes just shows that slowly the print platform will die out.
Is reality becoming more real? The rise and rise of UGC ..
1. What is meant by the term 'citizen journalist'?
The audience have become 'users' and the users have become publishers. Audiences now create their own content. We're in the era of user generated content (UGC) where the old divide between institution and audience is being eroded.
2. What was one of the first examples of news being generated by 'ordinary people'?
The first example of news being generated by ordinary people was way back in 1991 when someone recorded Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King, an African-American after a high speed chase, the surrounded him, tasered him and beat him with clubs 53 times. This whole event was filmed by an onlooker from his apartment window. The home-video footage made prime-time news became an international media sensation, and a focus for complaints about police racism towards African-Americans.
3. List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.
Most news organisations include formats for participation:
Message boards
Chat rooms
Q&A
Polls
Have your says
Blogs with comments enabled.
4. What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?
The main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand is the fact that a lot of the time the first-hand footage is raw and uncompromising and also it's more "hard-hitting" and emotive. An audience used to relatively unmediated reality through the prevalence of reality TV can now see similarly unmediated footage on the news.
5. What is a gatekeeper?
Gatekeepers are the editors and journalist, they decided what's news worthy, they get to decided what news is or isn't is and that's what they put on their newspapers or websites or television. If they believe a story isn't important they won't put it in the news, they have control over everything.
6. How has the role of a gate keeper changed?
The role of a gate keeper has changed though user generated content, a lot of people can now just over look the journalist and editors and put their stores online, social networking sites, blogs or even chat rooms.
7. What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?
In the future there will be fewer and fewer permanent trained staff at news organisations, leaving a smaller core staff who will manage and process UGC from citizen journalists, sometimes known as 'crowd soucing.' Some believe that the mediators and moderators might eventually disappear too, leaving a world where the media is, finally, unmediated.
8. Notes ..
Without moderation sites could be overrun by bigots or fools, by those who shout loudest, and those who have little else to do but make posts.
The risk of being dominated by defamatory or racist or other hate-fuelled content raises questions about unmoderated content: ‘free speech’ is great as long as you agree with what everybody is saying!
If there will be fewer jobs for trained journalists, will there also be less profit for the big institutions? This seems unlikely. Although how to ‘monetarise’ UGC – how to make money for both the generator and the host of the content – is still being debated, bigger institutions have been buying up social networking sites for the last few years. Rather than launch their own challenge, they simply buy the site. Flickr is now owned by Yahoo!, YouTube was bought by Google, Microsoft invested in Facebook, and News Corp., owned by Murdoch, bought MySpace.
Apple says it will fix an embarrassing security flaw on it's new iOS 7 software which hackers showed can bypass the lockscreen and access personal data. The flaw, discovered within hours of iOS 7 becoming publicly available, can be exploited on the iPhone 4S and 5 and gives access to personal data including email, photos, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. It is exploited via the Control Center function, which is found by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. That offers access to the phone user's alarms, a calculator, and the camera, as well as frequently-used settings such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Airplane mode. From the alarms screen, a hacker can use a combination of button presses to access the multitasking manager, bypassing the lockscreen. That offers access to some user data including photos, email, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr accounts: an intruder can email or delete photos, send tweets, read and make Facebook posts and messages, and send text messages, though not read email. "Apple takes user security very seriously," an Apple spokesman told the Guardian. "We are aware of this issue, and will deliver a fix in a future software update."
Typically, Apple has taken at least two weeks to fix such flaws when they have been found.
Security flaws have been found previously in Apple's iOS mobile operating system on both the iPhone 4 in 2010 and the iPad in 2011 that had to be fixed by a security update.
Apple released iOS 7 as a free update for existing iPhone owners on 18 September, causing a surge in UK and German internet traffic.
The Guardian reviewed iOS 7 on 19 September.
There isn't much to agree on however, I think it's embarrassing how Apple was so hyped up about the new iOS 7 which turned out to have problems which now they've started to fix. In some ways this is kind of a deja vu because the iphone 5 also had many problems and bad comments hence they had to straight away make the iphone 5S and C.
Cable News Network is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner. The cable news channel was found 1980 by American Media mogul Ted Turner. Upon it's launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States. CNN is the one TV news brand that understands today's "now" consumer. The "now" consumer is upscale, educated, tech-savvy and has made on-demand content a part of daily life. The impact of new/digital media on this website is the fact that's quick to update news, breaking stories. They have the news from all over the world thus helping people find out the news quickly.
Print -
The Guardian ...
The Guardian is a British national daily newspaper. Currently edited by Alan Rusbridger, it has gown from a 19th-century local paper to a national paper associated with a complex organisational structure and international multimedia and web presence. In August 2013, The Guardian in paper form had an average daily circulation of 189 thousand copies, behind The Daily Telegraph and The Time. The Newspaper's online offering was the third most widely read in the world as of June 2012. The Guardian Newspaper's main focus is about the world and politics thus attracting a more intellectual target audience (A/B class) who would be more interested in the text than the images. The impact of new/digital media on this newspaper is the fact that nobody actually reads the newspapers anymore, it's a slower way for news to travel, as mentioned above the Guardian online is more popular.
Broadcast -
Sky News ...
Sky News is a 24-hour, multi-media news operation based in Britain, It provides non-stop rolling news on television, online and on a range of mobile devices - as well as delivering a service of national and international radio news to commercial radio stations in the UK. The news service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Having launched as a 24-hour television news channel, Sky News has grown into a digital operation through it's websites and mobile apps. Sky News now has a tailored selection targeted towards each demographic of it's audience. Majority of Sky New's audience is adults however a lot of the news is also seen by teenagers and young adults. The impact of new/digital on this broadcast is the fact that a lot of the news is still seen though television however again as mentioned above it's connected to E-media, online Sky News websites.
The article speaks about a woman who made a film about a group of teenagers who spent all their time online. She claimed how it had been months since she saw them without their phones."Nearly every girl I met talked of the social pressure: the demand to be constantly in touch; the problems of "unfriending"; being in the gaze of people they have barely met; the anxieties about their image; and the horror of looking in while being left out"
The article goes on to express the teenagers anger who, in turn felt abandoned by their parents whose own eyes were fixed on their electronic devices. She then compared the children to an alcoholic, asking a young person to put down their Xbox, shut their computer or stop looking at their smartphone is like asking an alcoholic to put down their drink.
Young people are addicted to a virtual world that is designed to keep them hooked with little care for collateral damage
Everything a teenager does, says or looks at, however transitory, contributes to an aggregated virtual self that might one day have consequences for its real-life counterpart.
I personally agree with this story, many people are too obsessed with their mobile phones, they can't do anything without them, so many people have become so dependent on their electronic devices that they can't go a day without using them.
Who are the major players in term of news providers in the UK and what exactly do they own?
Broadcast Media ..
Channel 4 News
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster, it's a non-commercial institution, they make no profit, their purpose is to Inform, Educate and Entertain.The main presenters for the channel 4 news are, Jon Snow, Krishnan Guru Murthy and Cathy Newmen. Channel 4 News is owned by "Channel Four Television Corporation" which was found in 1982 as Channel Four Television Company Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority, it became an independent Statutory Corporation, a corporation created by Statue.
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. He department's annual budget is £350 million; it has 3,500 staff, 2,000 of whom are journalists.
A strategy review of the BBC in March 2010 confirmed that having "the best journalism in the world" would form one of five key editorial policies, as part of changes subject to public consultation and BBC Trust approval.
Print Media ..
The Sun
The Sun is a daily tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is published by the News Group Newspapersdivision of News UK, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Rupert Murdoch owns many institutions, thus being very popular.The Sun switched support to Labour on 18 March 1997, six weeks before the General Election victory which saw Labour leader Tony Blair become Prime Minister with a large parliamentary majority, despite the paper having attacked Blair and New Labour up to a month earlier. Its front page headline read THE SUN BACKS BLAIR and its front page editorial made clear that while it still opposed some New Labour policies.
Metro
Metro Newspapers is an Americannewspaper company based in San Jose, California. It currently publishes three free alternative weekly newspapers in Northern California: Metro Silicon Valley, Santa Cruz Weekly and the North Bay Bohemian. Together, the publications reach a weekly audience of about half a million people, according to The Media Audit.
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 byLord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper afterThe Sun.Its sister paperThe Mail on Sundaywas launched in 1982. Scottish and Irish editions of the daily paper were launched in 1947 and 2006 respectively. TheDaily Mailwas Britain's first daily newspaper aimed at the newly literate "lower-middle class market resulting frommass education, combining a low retail price with plenty of competitions, prizes and promotional gimmicks",and the first British paper to sell a million copies a day.
E-Media ..
CCN News
Cable News Network (CNN) is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner. The cable news channel was founded in 1980 by American media mogulTed Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hourtelevision news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States.
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager, who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes; while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main anchor, Scott Pelley.
Google News
Google News is a free news aggregator provided and operated by Google Inc, selecting most up-to-date information from thousands of publications by an automatic aggregation algorithm. Launched in September 2002, the service was tagged as abeta testfor over three years until January 2006.The initial idea was developed byKrishna Bharat.
