Title: Impact of Social networking.
Explain why you have chosen this topic and why you think it will be rich to study this are: I have chosen this topic because with the introduction of the revolutionary web, many aspects of our everyday lives has changed. We now communicate via the web, resulting in a isolated nation, where we connect with the world.
Media texts/products that will become your primary sources: Facebook, Twitter, MSN Messenger and Skype.
1. Has new digital media had an impact upon ownership and control of the media institution(s) involved in your case study? Explain in detail any impact and what
exactly has changed.
Facebook:
Founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 whilst he was studying at Harvard. Facebook has over 1,700 employees and offices in 12 countries.
Regarding Facebook ownership, Mark Zuckerberg owns 24% of the company, Accel Partners owns 10%, Digital Sky Technologies owns 10%, Dustin Moskovitz owns 6%, Eduardo Saverin owns 5%, Sean Parker owns 4%, Peter Thiel owns 3%, Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners own between 1 to 2% each, Microsoft owns 1.3%, Li Ka-shing owns 0.75%, the Interpublic Group owns less than 0.5%, a small group of current and former employees and celebrities own less than 1% each, including Matt Cohler, Jeff Rothschild, Adam D'Angelo, Chris Hughes, and Owen Van Natta, while Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus have sizable holdings of the company, and the remaining 30% or so are owned by employees, an undisclosed number of celebrities, and outside investors.
Most of their revenue comes from advertising as they don’t charge their customers.
Twitter:
As chief executive officer, Dorsey saw the startup through two rounds of capital funding by the venture capitalists who backed the company. Williams took over the role of CEO, and Dorsey became chairman of the board. On October 4, 2010, Williams announced that he was stepping down as CEO. Dick Costolo, formerly Twitter's chief operating officer, became CEO.
MSN Messenger:
MSN Messenger was created in 1999 on web 1.0 and since then it has revived several of times to keep up with the rapidly changing technology. Each year a new version comes out, about 5 versions have been released. It’s owned by Microsoft which is one of the largest companies in the world.
Skype:
Apparently an eBay company.
2.What impact has there been on the way in which the audience now consume the media products/texts involved in your case study? How does it differ from what went before? Consider SHEP
People have now become so dependent on social networking sites. As everyone is ‘so’ busy these days people find it easier and more appropriate to contact others via networking sites as they don’t have time to go out and meet them face to face.
“ Under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, it is actually isolating us from real human interactions in a cyber- reality is a poor imitation of the real world” Sherry Turkle
“ MySpace has been sucked into its own black hole recently, cutting 500 employees and admitting that they’re no longer battling binary codes with Facebook” The online Sub- Life (Guardian)
websites can be accessed anywhere anytime, on new smart phones, laptops, computers etc. This makes it easier for people to access these websites and making them more dependent on these specific meeting sites. Skype calls can be made on the phone and are free, they also include video calls which allow users to meet face to face but not actually face to face. Before people used to go out meet with one another, but now at the comfort of their own home they can reach a wide audience.
“Traditional courtship has been negatively impacted via online dating by removing the element of conversation”
3. What impact has there been on how the media institution now has to produce the texts and the way in which the texts/products are distributed and exhibited? This should involve a detailed textual analysis of at least 3 texts to demonstrate the point
Facebook now has to be accessed through phones as well due to change in technology and rise in demand as well as Skype, MSN messenger and Twitter.
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/3/Facebook_and_Twitter_Access_via_Mobile_Browser_Grows_by_Triple-Digits
“30.8 percent of smart phone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010”
“In January 2010, 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook via their mobile browser, up 112 percent from the previous year”
“MySpace attracted 11.4 million users”
“Twitter, which has experienced tremendous growth in both mobile and PC-based visitation, attracted 4.7 million mobile users in January, up 347 percent versus year ago”.
With free signing up, all of the sites have to compete with this and try not to charge customers for using their websites.
4. Is the size of the audience any different now than before the impact of new and digital media (or has the pattern of usage changed)?
Facebook has announced 400mm users, Feb 5, 2010.
Twitter themselves finally publish numbers indicating there are 50mm tweets created each day. ”Folks were tweeting 5,000 times a day in 2007. By 2008, that number was 300,000, and by 2009 it had grown to 2.5 million per day. Tweets grew 1,400% last year to 35 million per day. Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day—that’s an average of 600 tweets per second. (Yes, we have TPS reports.)”
Oct 21, 2009 - Skype’s registered users grew 41 percent to 521 million people. That’s a stunning 40 million new registered users in the past three months. Revenues grew 29 percent to $185 million
5. Who are the primary target audience now and has this changed? Who was it before and how to you know?
Facebook:
Current: 13-40
Originally: 18-25
How do you know? The site was set up to communicate with students from other universities, but the age restriction has become 13+ with parental permission.
Twitter:
Current: Mostly celebrities
Originally: Ordinary people
How do you know? Twitter was set up in order for people to communicate in groups, quickly and easier. However these days’ people use twitter to follow celebrities and see what is new with them.
MSN Messenger:
Current: 11-21
Originally: 16-24
How do you know? The age limit to owning a msn account used to be 16+ but now it’s 13+. With the introduction of Facebook, older people prefer it less to use msn messenger.
Skype
Current: 13+
Originally: 16-35
How do you know? Just cause.
6)How have the audience responded to the change? Is there more customer choice? Is there evidence of a more pluralistic model? What evidence do you have to support this?
Audiences have become more active, in the sense that they can put forward their views on Facebook statuses, through tweets. There is more customer choice, as there are so many social networking sites; it’s just that Facebook is the monopoly at the moment. There is a form of pluralistic model, people can join small groups of these sites to show their interests.
7)What concerns/ considerations are there (if any) for media institutions involved in your case study as a result of the impact of new and digital media?
The biggest problem is censorship and regulation of their websites.
“Interesting news from the world of Internet bean counters: Facebook’s growth last month stalled to virtually nothing – at least here in the US. And a number of people are pointing to the social network’s seemingly endless series of privacy and security gaffes as the culprits.”
http://www.itworld.com/internet/113310/are-privacy-problems-killing-facebook?page=0%2C0
Security is a problem with all of these networking sites.
8)What are the political and social implications of the new technologies and the methods of their consumption?
Politically people have become a bit freer, as they can put across their point of view. Socially some say that people have become isolated as they now connect via the web whereas before they would meet face to face.
9)Consider the effects so far, and possible effects in the future, on media institutions involved in your case study?
Facebook may have to somehow make their website stricter to enable younger children not signing up to it.
Skype will take over phone calls, and make people lose money.
Msn Messenger will die out.
Twitter will get immense.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Linked Articles
Media Magazine
Examples:
• Rodney King, and African- American man, caught on tape being battered 4 police men. The footage made it on to prime time news, and the explicit nature of the video raised fury among viewers which then resulted in six days of riots. The video is still available on YouTube.
• News organisations now include formats where people can join chat rooms, ask questions on Q&A’s, comment on blogs etc.
• Bebo, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook.
• Wikipedia news and Google news.
• Asian Tsunami on December 26th 2004 was caught on camera by many accidental journalists, and when people were searching for lost ones, they turned to social networking sites to spread the message.
• London bombings – first hand footage of it was seen to be more emotive and hard hitting.
• 23 year old, Seung- Hui Cho, an undergraduate from America, sent videos before his killings to the NBC news. Also during the massacre, many other people pulled out their gadgets to record it.
• Twitter and Flickr were the centre of attention when the Mumbai bombings took place in November 2008.
Theories:
Before audiences were passive, they took in what they were given and didn’t question what they saw. Now with the power to exploit whatever you want, many people have become active, they are actively taking part in the media.
Benefits to institutions:
Many big news firms can make the most of UGC to attract more audiences, make their news seem more real and raw.
Benefits to Audiences:
Audiences are able to respond to information they get, create their own content and play an active part.
a. What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?
Someone who witnesses and captures events that take place in the moment and expose the news to others via the media.
b. What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?
Footage of Rodney King being beaten up by the police.
c. List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.
Q&A’s, emails, forums.
d. What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?
UGC is more real, in the moment, raw, whereas professionally shot footage is more mediated.
e. What is a gatekeeper?
A gate keeper is someone who decides what is and isn’t worth ‘news value’.
f. How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?
Now the audiences make their own news, they are in control of what is in the media and is not.
g. What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?
Citizen Journalists.
• Rodney King, and African- American man, caught on tape being battered 4 police men. The footage made it on to prime time news, and the explicit nature of the video raised fury among viewers which then resulted in six days of riots. The video is still available on YouTube.
• News organisations now include formats where people can join chat rooms, ask questions on Q&A’s, comment on blogs etc.
• Bebo, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook.
• Wikipedia news and Google news.
• Asian Tsunami on December 26th 2004 was caught on camera by many accidental journalists, and when people were searching for lost ones, they turned to social networking sites to spread the message.
• London bombings – first hand footage of it was seen to be more emotive and hard hitting.
• 23 year old, Seung- Hui Cho, an undergraduate from America, sent videos before his killings to the NBC news. Also during the massacre, many other people pulled out their gadgets to record it.
• Twitter and Flickr were the centre of attention when the Mumbai bombings took place in November 2008.
Theories:
Before audiences were passive, they took in what they were given and didn’t question what they saw. Now with the power to exploit whatever you want, many people have become active, they are actively taking part in the media.
Benefits to institutions:
Many big news firms can make the most of UGC to attract more audiences, make their news seem more real and raw.
Benefits to Audiences:
Audiences are able to respond to information they get, create their own content and play an active part.
a. What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?
Someone who witnesses and captures events that take place in the moment and expose the news to others via the media.
b. What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?
Footage of Rodney King being beaten up by the police.
c. List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.
Q&A’s, emails, forums.
d. What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?
UGC is more real, in the moment, raw, whereas professionally shot footage is more mediated.
e. What is a gatekeeper?
A gate keeper is someone who decides what is and isn’t worth ‘news value’.
f. How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?
Now the audiences make their own news, they are in control of what is in the media and is not.
g. What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?
Citizen Journalists.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Question 6
Who are the primary target audience for each of your three media texts and how do you know?
Text:
Underage and Pregnant
Primary target audience:
Teenagers 13-17 year olds. Mainstreamers. Demographics – E.
How do you know?
BBC3 has shows which attract a youth audience such as Family Guy, Gavin and Stacey etc. In underage and pregnant they show real teenagers who are pregnant and because teenage pregnancy is a contemporary issue mainstreamers would be interested to find out.
Text:
Juno
Primary Target audience:
14-24 year olds. Teenagers because the protagonist is portrayed to be a teenager but older people may also be appealed to the movie due to its humour and the older characters within the movie. Mainstreamers, fun seekers. Demographics B, C1, C2, D and E.
How do you know?
Wide range of people would be interested in the movie because of the variety of characters there are in the movies. Such as the adoptive parents, they are well off and well educated with good jobs, whereas Juno is a teenager who has no job and her education doesn’t seem to be good. The movie also touches on themes of love, family, and teenage pregnancy.
Text:
Underage and Pregnant
Primary target audience:
Teenagers 13-17 year olds. Mainstreamers. Demographics – E.
How do you know?
BBC3 has shows which attract a youth audience such as Family Guy, Gavin and Stacey etc. In underage and pregnant they show real teenagers who are pregnant and because teenage pregnancy is a contemporary issue mainstreamers would be interested to find out.
Text:
Juno
Primary Target audience:
14-24 year olds. Teenagers because the protagonist is portrayed to be a teenager but older people may also be appealed to the movie due to its humour and the older characters within the movie. Mainstreamers, fun seekers. Demographics B, C1, C2, D and E.
How do you know?
Wide range of people would be interested in the movie because of the variety of characters there are in the movies. Such as the adoptive parents, they are well off and well educated with good jobs, whereas Juno is a teenager who has no job and her education doesn’t seem to be good. The movie also touches on themes of love, family, and teenage pregnancy.
Question 5
Consider if your group of people have always been represented in the same way or has it changed over time? Give a full detail including a timeline and accounting for why it may have changed over time.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1281523/
“149/673 women born between 1968 and 1977 became pregnant when teenagers. Of these, 70 (47%) had the baby, 67 (45%) had a termination and 10 (7%) had a spontaneous miscarriage; 2 others experienced fetal loss. Of the women aged 25-29 at first conception, 127 (92%) had the baby, 6 (4%) had a termination and 5 (4%) had a miscarriage. 40 (27%) of the teenage group went on to have a second teenage pregnancy, including 12 of the 67 who had their first pregnancy terminated”
“In England and Wales at least 94 377 teenagers became pregnant in 1996 and 38% of these pregnancies were terminated”
http://www.faqs.org/childhood/So-Th/Teen-Pregnancy.html
“The most recent American teen birth rate of approximately 51.1 births per 1,000 adolescent females is consistent with historical trends and matches the 1920 figure. Nonetheless, since the 1970s, American politicians, policy makers, and social critics have condemned the perceived "epidemic of teenage pregnancy."
“Race, ethnicity, class, and region could influence individual circumstances, with rural areas experiencing the lowest age at marriage”
“Few people worried about teen pregnancy as long as the expecting mother married before giving birth. There was strong social pressure to marry before becoming a parent, but the high number of babies born less than nine months after marriage ceremonies shows that many young couples taking their marriage vows were already expecting a child”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1292228.stm
“Scientists have long argued that the age at which women have their first child is largely defined by environmental, cultural and educational factors”
“Although many women in western societies are having children later for career reasons there is a simultaneous increase in teenage pregnancies.”
The swinging 60s was named as the era of the permissive society. Many acts were made laws which gave women more freedom, especially the introduction of the contraceptive pill in 1961 which gave women more sexual freedom. New wave films and the introduction of programs such as Coronation Street showed the public raw portrayals and were said to be true representations of the society.
The permissive society then led to women being sexually objectified in the 1970’s, creating competition between women to be as sexy as possible to get the male attention. This is one of the most significant changes in the representation of women. Even today with lad mags being introduced in the 2000s, women have been represented as ornaments for viewing pleasures.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1281523/
“149/673 women born between 1968 and 1977 became pregnant when teenagers. Of these, 70 (47%) had the baby, 67 (45%) had a termination and 10 (7%) had a spontaneous miscarriage; 2 others experienced fetal loss. Of the women aged 25-29 at first conception, 127 (92%) had the baby, 6 (4%) had a termination and 5 (4%) had a miscarriage. 40 (27%) of the teenage group went on to have a second teenage pregnancy, including 12 of the 67 who had their first pregnancy terminated”
“In England and Wales at least 94 377 teenagers became pregnant in 1996 and 38% of these pregnancies were terminated”
http://www.faqs.org/childhood/So-Th/Teen-Pregnancy.html
“The most recent American teen birth rate of approximately 51.1 births per 1,000 adolescent females is consistent with historical trends and matches the 1920 figure. Nonetheless, since the 1970s, American politicians, policy makers, and social critics have condemned the perceived "epidemic of teenage pregnancy."
“Race, ethnicity, class, and region could influence individual circumstances, with rural areas experiencing the lowest age at marriage”
“Few people worried about teen pregnancy as long as the expecting mother married before giving birth. There was strong social pressure to marry before becoming a parent, but the high number of babies born less than nine months after marriage ceremonies shows that many young couples taking their marriage vows were already expecting a child”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1292228.stm
“Scientists have long argued that the age at which women have their first child is largely defined by environmental, cultural and educational factors”
“Although many women in western societies are having children later for career reasons there is a simultaneous increase in teenage pregnancies.”
The swinging 60s was named as the era of the permissive society. Many acts were made laws which gave women more freedom, especially the introduction of the contraceptive pill in 1961 which gave women more sexual freedom. New wave films and the introduction of programs such as Coronation Street showed the public raw portrayals and were said to be true representations of the society.
The permissive society then led to women being sexually objectified in the 1970’s, creating competition between women to be as sexy as possible to get the male attention. This is one of the most significant changes in the representation of women. Even today with lad mags being introduced in the 2000s, women have been represented as ornaments for viewing pleasures.
Question 4
Is there evidence of any alternative representations of this group of people/place in the media, perhaps in different genres? If not, why do you think this is the case?
Even in celebrity lives we see the issue of teenage pregnancy, when Jamie Lynn Spears fell pregnant last year at the age of 18, her whole family name had been affected alongside Britney spears’ shenanigans.
Predominantly the representation of pregnant teens is negative. The topic of teenage pregnancy has consumed up most of media, from newspapers to music videos, from magazines to movies. All the pregnant teens that are shown in these platforms are shown to be immature people who are not ready to have children yet want to prove their maturity by having a pregnant.
Asian cultures are still very strict on their rules of sex, and we barely see any Asian pregnant teens in the media, whereas the western society is much more open on the topic of sex, and more comfortable about talking about it and accepting sex before marriage in this day and age.
Even in celebrity lives we see the issue of teenage pregnancy, when Jamie Lynn Spears fell pregnant last year at the age of 18, her whole family name had been affected alongside Britney spears’ shenanigans.
Predominantly the representation of pregnant teens is negative. The topic of teenage pregnancy has consumed up most of media, from newspapers to music videos, from magazines to movies. All the pregnant teens that are shown in these platforms are shown to be immature people who are not ready to have children yet want to prove their maturity by having a pregnant.
Asian cultures are still very strict on their rules of sex, and we barely see any Asian pregnant teens in the media, whereas the western society is much more open on the topic of sex, and more comfortable about talking about it and accepting sex before marriage in this day and age.
Question 3
What other reasons might there be for why your group of people/ place is represented the way it is? Consider the role of politics and the media e.g. hegemonic structures and why it might be in the interests of the media/ hegemonic society to represent them/ it in this way.
Since the introduction of the pill and the divorce law, and the desensitisation of sex in the media, the belief in religion has decreased rapidly. Teenage pregnancy has always been around, in some cultures many people get married when they are merely teenagers, in other cultures teenage pregnancy is frowned upon; however this does not affect the increase in teenage pregnancies. Society has become sex obsessed, every show has some sort of sex scene, and being provocative and sexual has become more accepted in society. Alongside that, sex education is being taught to younger children now, exploiting them to sex, which is meant to get them ready but not persuade them to have sex at a young age. I think that in today’s society, with upper class and middle class dominating, people feel dominant and teenage pregnancy is categorised under the subordinate group, of wild and promiscuous people. But where the Caucasian race would be in the dominant group, we still see them commonly associated with the issue of teenage pregnancy.
Since the introduction of the pill and the divorce law, and the desensitisation of sex in the media, the belief in religion has decreased rapidly. Teenage pregnancy has always been around, in some cultures many people get married when they are merely teenagers, in other cultures teenage pregnancy is frowned upon; however this does not affect the increase in teenage pregnancies. Society has become sex obsessed, every show has some sort of sex scene, and being provocative and sexual has become more accepted in society. Alongside that, sex education is being taught to younger children now, exploiting them to sex, which is meant to get them ready but not persuade them to have sex at a young age. I think that in today’s society, with upper class and middle class dominating, people feel dominant and teenage pregnancy is categorised under the subordinate group, of wild and promiscuous people. But where the Caucasian race would be in the dominant group, we still see them commonly associated with the issue of teenage pregnancy.
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