citizen journalism, UGC, digital Renaissance

Citizen journalism and UGC (user-generated content)

...2.) examples

• divergence and surveillance to real objective evidence
• consumers having an influence in news presentation
• 26th December 2004 Tsunami
• London Bombings July 5th 2005
• Late November 2008 Mumbai bombings
• Benefits to institutions : see the real and unbiased side that the media may not always show, and UGC enables this

3.) A 'citizen journalist' is a person that generates objective sources for news, or as the article states they're known as 'accidental' and 'grassroots' journalists. However they do not present it; the media do, and this may have a negative effect in the sense that what is presented may be twisted and untruthful, purely for reasons such as making headline hits. These citizen journalists are then responsible for how the news pans out, seeing that they're the ones holding concrete evidence from video, audio, etc.

4.) The first examples of news being generated were only a year after the rise of technology in 1991, and this says something about the impact it has on news on a universal level. A reported riot clash in 1992 where "There were six days of riots, 53 people died, and around 4000 people were injured."

5.) As with online news, there are these formats that it is presented in:

• Glanced at headlines
• Read story
• Video clips
• Live video
• TV news programme 
• Live radio
• Podcast
• Live news page
• Read blog

6.) As a media student to say, one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and UGC is that there is a clear distinction of how consumers can make out the information presented. For example, UGC may be shot with a bad camera, and this has an effect in certain situations such as identifying an object (license plates, etc) that is hard to see. On the other hand, if it was professionally recorded, then there would be such problems. However, professionally shot footage may still be subject to bias, in the sense that only footage for their support but not of their opposition.

7.) The formal definition of a gatekeeper is that "Gatekeeping is the process through which information is filtered for dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication."

8.) Gatekeepers are being changed as a result now due to the constant change in news dynamics from consumers themselves having a strong influence on insitutions.

9.) The primary concerns for journalists from the rise of UGC are:

• Jobs for journalism are being declined in the competitive industry
• Irrelevant/obsolete news having to be presented

10.) What impact is new/digital media having on:

• news stories : news can now be shared, consumed, and presented in different formats for people's convenience, and is sometimes free. Also in correlation to the rise of new digital media, there is also a rise in UGC, therefore news being presented is also influenced by consumers themselves as they're the people that supply information and evidence.
• the news agenda (the choice of stories that make up the news) : Similar to news stories, UGC being submitted to companies may be obsolete and irrelevant, and is more influenced by people's trivial interests rather than the grand picture of world affairs for example.
• the role of professionals in news : As stated before with news stories, there is sort of a bias influence in the sense that consumers are the ones supplying information.

Hyper-reality and the digital renaissance

...2.) 

• Positive aspects of new technology : Internet convenience - free
• Internet access and right to information
• Negative aspects of new technology : Too much information being presented, whether they confidential regarding greater risks i.e. politic related
• Bauldrillard : defined "hyperreality" as "the generation by models of a real without origin or reality;" hyperreality is a representation, a sign, without an original referent.

3.) Instagram, also owned by Facebook, has a unique leading social network that is used to share pictures, and this is a digital renaissance in the sense that there has been no other more successful picture sharing network like Instagram itself. 
Twitter also has a unique usability that makes it a digital renaissance. Users can for example retweet to highlight something that interests them, and this creates a ciruclation on any issues that makes them feel like it is worth being acknolwedged. 
And finally there is Periscope, a live streaming app that is able to present information in real time without any preventions like censorship.

4.) Social networks such as the live streaming Periscope and Facebook LIVE apps have sort of pioneered UGC being streamed without consent and without censorship, and purely displays what there is without any restrictions, e.g. news companies refining information that they want/don't want to present due to several legal reasons i.e. censorship. 

5.) 'Digital renaissance' can be linked to our case study on news in the sense that there is a pivotal point and a new pioneering in the new digital media that impacts the news industry, whether it is causing a decline or a benefit

NDM story index

#1&#2 "What does an Internet feminist look like"
#3 "The impact of Google"
#4"Are mobiles changing how we shop?"
#5"Reality television shows such as Big Brother might be scripted"
#6"Facebook reunites Syrian refugee and co-worker"
#7"The Sunday Sport bans ads despite censorship claim"
#8"Thieves use social network to track down Kim K and finesse her"
#9"Social media making private breakups into a celebrity spat" 
#10"World media needs to know freedom of press is being curbed in Pakistan"
#11"Nigeria's youth use social media to report FGM: Activists"
#12&13"Ethiopia bans social media as suspected to be giving out information to terrorists"
#14"Newspapers and media in general should or should not cover statements made by presidential candidates"
#15"Were newspaper publishers wrong to go digital?"
#16"India's newspapers banned in Kashmir city due to protests"
#17"Can social media call the election?"
#18"Stop media bans"

The decline in newspapers: MM case studies

The New Day

'The New Day' was served as a catalyst to circulate the newspaper industry again by increasing sales as a result, having been described 'the first new standalone daily UK national newspaper for 30 years'.

The article states that '...six million people buy a newspaper in Britain everyday', however obviously as a result of the industry's evolution, there has been a decline. A decline that resulted in a literal one million people turning away from newspapers and instead turning heads to the online world in the last two years, where news is more convenient and free.

The New Day also targeted both males and females from around the age range of 35-55. Their justification for this categorization was because they wanted a more 'modern' audience to perhaps collect these kind of people that have more of an interest and understanding, rather than per say, an 80 year old person.

The New Day however, had failed to reach their target of a 200,000 sales, where they had initially scored a top of 150,000 however that then also too fell to 90,000, and even more to the point that they had to shutdown. The obvious reason for this is the fact other platforms have simply taken over and made things more convenient, cheaper and sometimes free. People would chose to consume news free rather than paying as less as 25p, but as the article states their increase to 50p was 'too much', and this resulted in people not buying their newspapers.

The Guardian

• 120 million monthly unique browsers - third most read in the world
• June 2016 daily average of almost 9 million unique browsers - only a third are from the UK - MailOnline with 14 million - Telegraph with 4 million
• Print circulation of The Guardian is only 161,000 - Daily Telegraph with 472,000 - recently closed The Independent with only 54,000
• The Guardian lost around £70 million in 2015 

As a result of The Guardian's decline, they intended to combat this by introducing cutbacks up to 20% and planning community events, relying on the investments of The Scott Trust to keep it running as a result too.

The Global website strategy as a result, introducing The Guardian online, may help to some extents, however if they're looking to make revenue from ads, and ads alone, it might not suffice, acknowledging that the majority of users would have ad block enabled. Introducing paywalls on the other hand, might have a more significant impact. The fact that The Guardian have already gathered a loyal user base, means that to an extent they might be willing to subscribe, given that they know getting news from an established institution is much more definitive, reliable, and professional as opposed to any random news page in the Internet.

Kashmir newspaper ban criticised

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-37559679

The article discusses how peaceful protesters in northern India, Kashmir, have been criticizing the authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir for shutting down a newspaper accused of "inciting violence". The government said the Kashmir Reader (well known newspaper in the region)"contains such material and content which tends to incite acts of violence and disturb public peace and tranquillity". This essentially summarizes how even in some countries the media is limited to things such as even not being allowed to present peaceful protests that do not provoke destruction and propaganda. 

Facts:

• More than 80 people have been killed in clashes between protesters and security forces and thousands more have been injured in Kashmir

This article is a perfect demonstration of some of the content in media being covered or completely removed as a result of confidential information being released or due to natural censorship. It sort of takes away the moral panic of perhaps needing to know the causes of the protests around them, why its happening, where the source is to all of this, etc. This is especially more significant in 3rd world countries, not specifically India, but to those who are foreign to the digital world and instead consume information from newspapers. But if newspapers are being controlled too, then the information is obsolete in the print industry therefore some consumers may never know of a particular event. 

Back to the future: were newspaper publishers wrong to go digital?

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/oct/19/back-to-the-future-were-newspaper-publishers-wrong-to-go-digital

The article discusses in how in theory turning to digital news instead of staying with newspapers might have been a bad idea. The article presents objective statements using facts such as "US newspaper industry digital advertising revenue increased from $3bn to only $3.5bn from 2010 to 2014." as opposed to "... print revenues plunged from $22.8bn to $16.4 bn over the same period, they still represented 82% of total newspaper revenue." Comments were made, describing newspaper websites to be "less than satisfactory" and that it would essentially fail to "sustain our culture". 

Facts:

• US newspaper digital advertising revenue went from $3bn to only $3.5bn in a 4 year gap between 2010 - 2014
• US newspaper print revenues decreased frm $22.8bn to $16.4bn over the same period
• Facts were based on 51 leading US regional newspaper institutions 
•  25-35% profit margins will never return and be happy with the 5% margins common in other companies

It is without a doubt that an 'only' half a billion in digital advertising revenue between a 4 year period seems to not translate to their linear growth that we would expect as with their presence the digital age that they've taken by storm, but this is most influenced and declined by ad blocks as we know, which news websites can't do anything about as the option to turn it off or on it up to the user. However again, this doesn't conclude with this one reason to mean that going digital wasn't necessarily a good idea, but that it was at least a good move to change with the times and dynamics, and evolve the industry.

1. ) Clay Shirky stresses how much 'accountability journalism' is, because the fact that news presented needs to have credibility, accurateness, and editorial judgement with no bias in order to have an ethical share of knowledge and without a definitive answer in a sense.
2. ) He states that advertisers were not 'overcharged' but instead 'underserved'. As a result for newspapers, Shirky still stands by his opinion that they're irreplaceable, however if advertisers' revenue sparks up then it is an issue for newspapers as the dynamics change, therefore they have to change as a result too.
3. ) Shirky states that newspapers sometimes don't make sense in what the user wants to consume, meaning for example the jump from one topic to another, as with his analogy; "they just done a crossword puzzle and they seem to really like it, what’s the next thing you’re gonna show them? Is it news from Tegucigalpa? No. It’s another crossword puzzle, because that’s the only thing you can..." Ultimately, people's consumption tend to be more specific as they'd want to for example consume news on the latest attacks in country x, but instead news institutions present different stories, and this just influences the barrier from credible news from established sources to news in the digital age, where they have access in the realm of the Internet to anything else.
4. ) Shirky explains how news presented before the digital age didn't have much of an impact, that they were forgotten after a few weeks. He uses examples such as a priest molesters crime in 1992, where the offender made victim to almost a hundred boys. Essentially, his point is that if the Internet circulated as much as it does now in comparison, the story would be immensely more widespread.
5. ) Shirky most disproves paywalls as he sees it to barrier news consumption on a human level, that people should have the right to acknowledge regardless if they've paid for it or not. He states that it "damages" general news and benefits financial news.
6. ) Social good is a presentation of information being widespread, and this information constitutes people's rights of knowledge as humans, example they should have the right to know that there is a local threat in their area, whether they've paid to consume news or not, or any political event taking place that influences them or others.
7. ) As far as Shirky says, he states that newspapers are 'irreplaceable', however if they are to change the media landscape of things, they will need to 'experiment' things in their next step. Perhaps to pioneer another platform for the newspaper industry, rather than to completely get rid of them.
8. ) I think it's very important that brands such as New York Times and The Guardian as a whole to stay in the industry, especially because they're such credible institutions that have a history, and this history reflects their professionalism are reliability that consumers have, and to take this away would be to strip people of their knowledge on a human level.   

Trump, Clinton Supporters Differ on How Media Should Cover Controversial Statements

http://www.journalism.org/2016/10/17/trump-clinton-supporters-differ-on-how-media-should-cover-controversial-statements/

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters are asked whether controversial statements made from both candidates should be blurred out or emphasized more, whether it's offensive and derogatory or not. However instead, both parties have said that news media should draw attention more to the inaccurate statements made, as we know the media to have twisted stories in the past. Voters also feel that news media have given Trump and Clinton too much coverage, and as a result may feel the need to present the truth and only the truth.

• 6 in 10 voters favor the media emphasizing offensive statements (49% Trump),
• 45% of Clinton supporters DO NOT want emphasis on offensive statements
• 77% overall of both Clinton and Trump supporters want inaccurate statements to be emphasized 

It seems that the audience want there to be a clear and fair confrontation, especially regarding politics that shape the future of America as both candidates fight for president. Journalists that have conducted the research also perhaps want to present liable information regarding a serious and 'hard news' topic with no bias. And I think this is perfect in the sense that peoples' true colors in both parties are being shown with these facts and figures that have credentiality, do not lie, and is purely made into results from an objective standpoint. Example, commonly believed that Trump supporters are ruthless, racist, ignorant white people, mostly from the Southern, and fit into the 'offensive' category, while the Clinton supports are thought to be exactly the opposite of this, but shockingly as shown with statistics they are parallel, where nearly three-in-four support the fact that offensive statements need to be emphasized, and all these highlight the negativity.