The thing I found most interesting about this week's lecture was the way Steve used social media and blogging to extend his audience. As he said, Brisbane isn't exactly the media centre of Australia. Twitter and blogging sites have helped make up for this by exposing the world to his articles and opinions.
Twitter has been a huge break through in information sharing and journalism. Apart from it's ability to grow your audience, Twitter provides instantaneous information which can be used worldwide. Facebook already did this, but Twitter is more focused on text, and with only 140 characters stories can be read at a glance.
Twitter really is becoming a mass media outlet, with over 500 million accounts being used. Six months back I saw an article about a tweet Katy Perry made in which she 'un-followed' her ex husband Russell Brand after their divorce. The article stated that this act made the separation official! (as if the divorce wasn't official enough). I understand news being reported on Twitter... but when Twitter activity is deemed news I think thats going a bit far.
Another topic mentioned by Molks was the censorship of information and several high profile websites by the Chinese government, among others. Sites such as YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter have been banned in the People's Republic of China. The article below by the NY Times discusses the internet censorship in China. I believe since its release Twitter has been un-blocked by the government, though tweets mentioning banned material are blocked from being viewed in China.
Chinese Censorship: NT Times
The whole point of social media is to be able to share and connect with other people. It's unfair for a government to withhold information created by the people, from the people.
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Wk 12: Investigative Journalism
Investigative journalism is a term which inspires in me the most righteous ideals of journalism. It teaches of the values we must uphold as journalists, exposing the wrongs to the public and representing those without the power to represent themselves. It's about seeing through the agenda and news values set within our society (often by the media itself), to expose the truth, and change the world.
Investigative journalism has provided the public with many huge breakthroughs in our society. This was shown to us in our lecture in the 'historical' section with examples such as the Fitzgerald Inquiry. Another topic brought up was Julian Assange, who has been very controversial in the past for his website WikiLEAKS. I agree that this is not journalism. None of the information is filtered or interpreted as news stories are... though perhaps this is a good thing. It allows society to decide for itself.
It's strange going from agenda setting last week, to investigative journalism this week. Both show such different sides of the media today. I think it is obvious that investigative journalism is dying. It's risky and takes up a lot of time; also newsrooms are not employing as many workers, so there is less and less being discovered every day.
One investigative piece (if you can call it that) which has come through recently is the KONY 2012 film; a piece which aimed to expose and therefore stop an African warlord involved in the abduction of children for war purposes. It was the first time social media was used on such a scale to promote an investigative piece, with the video hitting over 90 million views on Youtube. For a few weeks this video swept the globe, though in the end I do not believe it has changed the world. It's an example of how the values of our society change which stories we care about, and perhaps an example of the quality of journalism today.
Renowned journalist Bob Woodward agrees that investigative journalism may be slipping in its success. The video below is an interview between him and Bill Buzenberg of the Center for Public Policy on the television show The Future of News.
This program also speaks of the possible success of Investigative Journalism in the future.
I think that the improvement of technology has made it more difficult for investigative journalism to operate, as people are now selective with what they view. It also means it is easier for people to partake in investigative reporting, however many do not for fear of legal scrutiny. These factors mean that investigative journalists, like every other type, are in decline.
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
Wk 11: Agenda Setting
Agenda setting in a very interesting
theory, though sometimes is can be a little scary. I agree with the idea that
in some ways, it is unavoidable. The events that occur in one day are endless;
it's too much to report on them all. The news outlets then have
to decide what should be reported on, and they do this using the news values
discussed in last weeks lecture (proximity, size, uniqueness etc.).
In doing this, the media tells the public what to think about. Some news outlets
take advantage of their position to create a public perception, thereby telling
the public how to think about certain
topics. This is how the media sets agendas within the public.
Agenda setting can lead to the misrepresentation of facts within a story, and may result in slandering. One example of this is the Augustine Miller case, where an eight year old girl and and thirty-eight year old man went missing in Western Australia. This case was simply a missing persons event, though exploitation of the older man's history made it appear to be an abduction of a young girl by a pedophile. The links below show examples of this happening:
These articles all express in the headlines that Mr. Miller is either a pedophile or a sex offender, and all insinuate that he was in some way directly responsible for the girl's death, when in reality she died of thirst when they were lost in the bush. Also all of the articles express in the first few sentences that the man in Aboriginal. If this man was a white Australian, his race wouldn't be of interest. The articles all use the same image, a close up of Miller's face without a smile, which looks frightening when coupled with the word 'pedophile'.
By portraying the event in this way news papers made the story much more interesting for their audience. They also partook in defamation of character, an act which is usually near impossible to get away with; though was not fought against in this case due to the financial position of the victim.
The fact is, a young girl and her stepfather going missing was not an exciting enough. It had to be beefed up with irrelevant claims and frightening images to be deemed 'newsworthy'. It's story's like this that ruin the reputation of journalists, and negatively alter the public's image of groups within our society.
Wk 9: News Values
News values are a topic I have always found
very interesting. The ways that events are selected and reported has, in the
past, given the newsrooms of the world a totalitarian structure. The public
only consumed the information newsrooms and governments felt was important.
With the introduction of the Internet and citizen journalism, news stories have
begun to change. The basic news values however have remained relatively similar
throughout time.
In this lecture I learnt that news values
will change depending on the audience. For example Fox Sports reporters will
not speak about NASA developments, and Channel Seven News won’t report on the
Gai Jatra festival in Nepal. News values are dominated by the culture and
social expectations of their audience.
Of all the sets of values shown in this
lecture, I thought the 12+ Factors drawn up by Galtung and Ruge in 1965 were
the most valid, although as we were taught sometimes certain values rule out
others. Below I have set them out with what I think are valid examples of each
news value.
1.Negativity: bad news is always rated
above good news
On the night of the Royal Wedding of Kate and William, the Morocco bombings did not even make Channel Seven News. In this case, Good news was seen as more important than bad, or perhaps the elite overruled the general public.
2.
Proximity: audiences relate to stories or people that are close to home
Eg: Allison Baden-Clay Brisbane Times vs Allison Baden-Clay BBC
This link shows the search results for 'Baden-Clay' on the Brisbane Times website and the results of the same search on the BBC's website. This shows us how proximity effects the news stories presented.
3. Recency: news rooms are always
competitive with breaking news
Eg: Program interruption for the 9/11 bombings. See 1 min 55 seconds
4. Currency: stories which have been run
may continue though uneventful.
Eg: Recaps of the Daniel Morcombe story.
This link shows a story related to the abduction of Daniel, even though he disappeared in 2003 and nothing of huge import has happened to this case for 9 years.
5. Continuity: stories which have a
continuing impact
Eg: The War in Iraq for Australians
This link shows the end of series of news stories on the Australian presence in Iraq. The stories on this war have continued due to their continual relationship and impact on Australian people.
6. Uniqueness: Stories with a WOW factor
Eg: A man eats another man's face off in Miami
7. Simplicity: Stories which are easy to
explain
8. Personality: Revolve around one person
(celebrity news)
Eg: Charlie Sheen's series of issues
9. Expectedness: News which is expected or
assumed to happen
Eg: Suicide car bomb in Baghdad
This link is an example of news which is expected, and expected to be reported on.
10. Elite: Powerful nations, people or
organisations
This link shows how stories with little proximity can become news worthy is elite nations or people are involved. Their importance makes the news important to us.
11. Exclusivity: Stories which news
channels or papers have sole rights to
Eg: Exclusive performance of a little girl on Today Tonight
To make this story seem more newsworthy, this story was deemed 'exclusive'.... even though it's just a little girl doing a dance in too much make-up.
12. Size: Size and impact, or ‘threshold’
matters to news story’s success
Eg: Obama chosen as first African-American President in America
Sunday, 3 June 2012
VANUATU!
Wow, just booked tickets to Vanuatu for the mid-semester break! With Thailand last january and Canada this November this will make it my second of three overseas trips this year.
I'm so lucky! I've put some photos of Vanuatu down below, feel free to have a scroll. Hope I pass on the travel bug :)
I'm so lucky! I've put some photos of Vanuatu down below, feel free to have a scroll. Hope I pass on the travel bug :)
Wk 8: Ethics
Ethics is complicated. This is because every person has a different set of personal beliefs, experiences and
values, which change the way they react to the world, clearly displayed in this week’s lecture about ethics. I learnt that
across the country, and indeed the world, ethical codes change drastically
depending on the values of different groups.
The first section on advertising was an eye opener. It's unbelievable what is allowed to be publicly displayed. The lecture reminded me of a German advertisement I saw once. It was eventually banned, but I thought it was hilarious... and effective!
In a world of over seven billion people, it
is impossible to construct one set of rules for all types of people, and the
rules (or laws) that are made are rarely definite. One example the lecturer
gave was the law ‘you shall not kill’.
 |
| Young Japanese soldiers |
This concept has always intrigued and
angered me. In Australia, it is illegal to take the life on another person. If
you willfully kill somebody, it means at least 25 years imprisonment. In other
countries such as America, it can mean death. The penalties for
homicide vary across the globe, though all agree that to kill another person is intolerable.
These same countries however, attach
heroism to their countrymen if they kill others in war. Suddenly the deed is
honorable, a service to their country, rather than a disgrace.
 |
| Young Australian soldiers |
I think the
positivity associated with killing for your country is disgusting.
This example made me see the relevance in the idea that ethical choices are often a 'lesser of two evils'. Although I do think there is something very consequentialist about war, in that the means are thought to justify the end.
I enjoyed this week's lecture. It made me think about what parts of our society are the most important. Globally, I don't think we will ever agree on one ethical code. There are just too many people in this world to settle for one set of
rules.
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