NDM Story 12: Apple News arrives in the UK with 14 newspaper and magazine partners

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/22/apple-news-uk-newspapers-ios-91

Apple News has launched in the UK with a total of 14 news partners such as the Financial Times, the Economist and the Daily Mirror. Apple aims to create a service that acts as a gateway for several news sites to make reading news from different institutions, considerably easier. It also personalises readers news stories and display news that would most likely appeal to the reader as well as offering a wider choice of news in one single app. This service, replaces Apple's previous app, news stand with the new update of IOS 9.1.

• Launched with 14 UK newspaper and magazine publishers.
• UK magazine companies on board at launch include Vanity Fair owner Condé Nast, Top Gear and Radio Times publisher Immediate Media, Cosmopolitan and Esquire parent Hearst and Marie Claire publisher Time Inc.
• Trinity Mirror said that it is putting 27 of its national and regional titles on service, including the Mirror, Daily Record, Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo.

I think this is a very useful app as it provides readers with free news and allows them to easily browse through news and find information that is of interest to them.

NDM Story 11: Disney to launch UK film and TV streaming service for £9.99 a month

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/22/disney-uk-film-tv-streaming-disneylife-frozen-toy-story

Disney Life is an app that will launch next month and it will give subscribers access to a wide variety of Disney movies for £9.99 a month. "Families are accessing entertainment in completely new ways but their love for Disney and our unique characters and stories remains the same." says chairman and chief executive, Bob Iger. However with the several services already available and vastly popular such as Netflix, Amazon and Now TV, families are roughly estimated to be paying a massive £450 a year to appease everyone's taste. Disney's specific target is youth and it is estimated to reach about 1 million paying subscribers, slightly less than the total subscribers for Netflix (4.5m), Amazon Prime (1.5m) and Now TV (1.2m). 

• Netflix: £5.99 per month 

4.5m subs
Titles: House of Cards, Narcos, Orange is the New Black

• Amazon Prime Instant Video: £79 per year (£6.58 per month) 

1.5m subs
Titles: Hand of God, Transparent, Vikings

• Sky’s Now TV: £6.99 a month plus £9.99 a month for films

1.2m subs
Titles: Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Walking Dead

• DisneyLife: £9.99 per month

Launching next month
Titles: The Lion King, Toy Story, The Jungle Book

I think that Disney's new app would not reach the anticipated subscribers as there may already be many Disney movies available on other apps such as Netflix. Current subscribers of other services may not bother spending more money on the disney app as it is already available on another service. Also, it is becoming easier to find good quality films online, causing less people to rely on such services.

Fran Unsworth Questions

1) Other than turning BBC3 into an online service, are there any other ways to attract the younger demographic (16-34)?

2) What would be the positive effects of the reduction of senior and middle managers?

3) Are there any other channels that you believe should become online only?

4) Has the BBC considered cutting unpopular TV shows across all channels in an attempt to save money?

5) What do you think is the biggest negative effect of cutting BBC3

10 Examples of Citizen journalism

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/03/womans-racist-abuse-filmed-on-packed-train-in-sydney

A woman on a train in Australia became very abusive to children who didn't give up their seat for her on the train and when other travellers began to film the scene, she started to use racist and derogatory terms towards those filming her in particular, a chinese woman. 

This is significant, as incidents that happen in unlikely places such as public transport would be very unlikely to be filmed professionally. This is also an impending issue in countries especially Australia due to their previous records of incidents that include racism.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3269659/Honestly-saved-life-Blind-high-school-student-thanks-hero-boy-jumped-stopped-bully-beating-up.html

A blind student in an American school is beaten by a bully but a few moments later, another male steps in and stops the bully from further attacking the visually impaired boy. This student has been named a hero due to his brave and moral actions.

Professional cameras would be highly unlikely to capture this scene as it is happening in school. This story is very relevant as bullying is a predicament world wide and the fact that the victim has a disability makes the bullying worse.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2611159/Haunting-images-memorial-victims-South-Korea-ferry-disaster-photographs-left-loved-ones-identified.html

The video is shows footage from students' phones while the Sewol ferry in South Korea, was sinking. The video shows how the students were relatively calm as they were unaware of their impending death. It also shows the public the condition of the ferry and how much it was tilting.

This video shows the accident from the perspectives of those who were in the situation. This is another situation where it is impossible to have footage like this from professional journalists.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2950663/Driven-violence-Motorist-films-shocking-moment-thug-PUNCHES-passenger-window-screaming-abuse-road-rage-row.html

The video shows a man with a case of great road rage. Despite stating that his child was in the car, he proves himself as a terrible role model when he smashes the window with one punch and walks away.

It is significant as it portrays the escalation of normal everyday possible occurrences that are unlikely to happen.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/08/texas-pool-party-police-dajerria-becton-eric-casebolt-rude

The police are shown in the video to be disturbing a bunch of teenagers, who are supposedly having a pool party due to their attire. The video does not tell the viewers why the police were there in the first place however, the police officer is shown to violently push and drag a black girl who did not show any violence to the officer herself.

This is very important as similarly to Australia, America is another country with great problems with racism. It also acts as evidence to testify against the particular police officer as there are many cases that the police manages to be excused from any error they commit,  making them too powerful and arrogant.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fire-at-disney-world-rollercoaster-set-ablaze-in-fireworks-show-gone-wrong-9834206.html

The simple video shows a fire in the distance. The article confirms that the fire is coming from a famous ride, The Seven Dwarves' Mine Train, in the renowned Disney World.

It is very shocking for the public as this is a very serious incident in one of the world's best theme parks. Disney is an institution associated with children and their dreams and aspirations. Having this accident occur would have had a massive, yet short term effect on the business of the particular park.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3224718/Watch-Korean-pop-group-Gfriend-repeatedly-face-plant-wet-stage-dancing-happened.html

GFriend, a rookie Korean Pop group are shown to be having a performance on an outdoor stage, however they are continuously falling due to the wet stage, which creates many flaws in their normally completely in-sync choreography.


This would be quite surprising to many viewers as the girls instantaneously stand up when they fall, despite the falls looking quite hard and painful. This amy be also used as a good representation of South Korea's hardcore training as it is very apparent that the phrase "the show must go in" is strongly ingrained into the girls heads.

http://www.theguardian.com/travel/live/2015/jun/02/alton-towers-crash-four-teenagers-seriously-injured-smiler-ride-live-updates

Another case of a very serious and critical accident is the crash of popular ride, Smiler, at Alton Towers. The video show one of the trains ricking back and forth on the tracks while some screams are heard from the riders as some of them plead for help to take them of the ride.

This is significant as similarly to Disney World, Alton Towers is a very popular theme park in Britain and this accident has massively impacted their number of customers. 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/20/colorado-theater-shooting-dark-knight

The video is taken outside the cinema where the batman massacre took place. While watching The Dark Knight Rises, suddenly, someone came into the theatre and began shooting. The video displays the hectic nature of the scene and there are even some victims who were shot that appear on the video.

This is incredibly significant as it shows the negative affects that the media and entertainment have on the audiences. 

http://kxan.com/2015/05/28/blanco-river-floods-into-cabin-as-rescued-woman-records/

The video hows a woman's house being completely taken over by violent floods in texas. The video was taken in the night and the woman's shocked and terrified voice can be heard amidst the sounds of thrashing water.

This gives a singular account of how the flood affected one of the citizens in Texas and allows other readers to have a vague understanding of the difficulties that the flood is causing the people of Texas.

NDM Story 10: Ofcom to take on regulation of video-on-demand services

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/14/video-on-demand-ofcom-atvod

Video on demand services such as Channel4's all4 and sky's now tv, will now be overlooked by ofcom. Tv-like services used to be overlooked by the authority for television on demand (ATVOD) but it is now going to be regulated by ofcom with similar rules as ATVOD. The change will come about in January and as ofcom is a bigger institution, there will be a larger workforce to tend to video on demand issues. Taking over this new role will not significantly affect ofcoms work load as there isn't much content that needs to be regulated. The majority of the work is regulating adult content. Services such as you tube or Netflix does not include in the remit of what ofcom needs to deal with.

• ATVOD only covers TV-like services based in the UK
• The change, which will come into force in January

In my opinion, I don't see the particular need for ofcom to take over ATVOD's role as it will make many people redundant without much positive effect for either the institution or the audience. Despite this meaning an increase in income for some of the workers dealing with ATVOD related work, this increase is very minor and ineffective.

NDM Story 9: Twitter slashes global workforce as it struggles for growth

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/13/twitter-job-losses-global-restructuring-plan-jack-dorsey

Since the co founder of Twitter, jack Dorsey became the new chief editor, he is planning to make 8% of their global workforce redundant in order to encourage growth. The majority of the reduced will come from the product and engineering sections as they are the biggest sections in the company. They believe that the section will work better with fewer people while still retaining its position as the largest sector. Many changes have been made over the past few months to help the company grow as despite having around 300 million users, this greatly falls behind the number of users for Facebook.

• about 300 million users
• n July, it revealed the slowest rise in monthly average users since it went public in 2013. 
• Twitter has about 4,100 staff globally. 
• expects the redundancies to cost between $10m and $20m (£6.5m-£13m) in severance money and another $5m-$15m in restructuring costs.
• Twitter shares had risen 4.9% to more than $30 by noon on Tuesday
• Up to Monday’s close, its shares had fallen by about 20% this year. 

I believe that this will be a positive change for Twitter as it will give them the opportunity to grow. Despite being very unfortunate to be put in the position of being redundant, the company needs to do whatever they can in order to increase the growth of Twitter.

NDM News: Citizen journalism

Notes

• Examples:

Rodney King  Asian Tsunami, London Bombings 5th July 2015, Seung Hui Cho, Mumbai Bombings, Hudson River Plane Crash

• Theory (audience reception etc.) : 

Hypodermic Model, user generated content, gatekeepers

• Benefits to Institutions 

Institutions can access reports from incidents where they normally may not have been able to be. They have larger audience participation. 

• Benefits to Audience :

Audiences now create their own content and voice opinions and ideologies

• Wider Issues and Debates 

Many professionals may be kicked out of their profession. Institutions may rely purely on UGC. Is there a way to monetize UGC to benefit both the institution and the citizens.

• SHEP

Since 1991, UGC is on the verge of completely transforming the format of the news as well as the variety of news and the content of the news. Massive radical change from the traditional journalists. 

1) What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?

The term citizen journalist is used for non-professionals (ordinary citizens) who reports, analyses and disseminates news or information.

2) What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?

In 1991, someone managed to film a scene of 4 police officers in Los Angeles who surrounded tasered and beat up Rodney King with clubs after a high speed chase.

3) List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organizations.

• Message boards  
• Chat Rooms
• Q&A
• Polls
• Have your says
• blogs

4) What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?

The main difference between professionally shot footage and UGC footage is that it is considerably lower quality than professional. However, with the rise in technology and the updates of cameras,many UGC footage can be as clear as professionally filmed footage.

5) What is a gatekeeper?

A gatekeeper is a professional decision maker who has the ability to control and and edit information to make it relevant and accurate.

6) How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?

Gatekeepers roles have intensified as with the introduction of new and digital media as well as citizen journalism, has made it increasingly difficult to filter information. Gatekeepers now have to deal with much more ludicrous conspiracy theories on a much wider scale, making it almost impossible to find completely reliable information

7) What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?

One of the primary concerns is that there will be fewer and fewer permanent staff in organizations, leaving only a very small work force to manage and assess the UGC.

8) Finally, consider the following questions and answer each bullet point in the same blogpost:

What impact is new/digital media having on the following:

• news stories

New and digital media is making it easier for ordinary citizens to put their input into the news. They have the ability to film incidents instantaneously which will allow journalists to write a more truthful and accurate account of events. 

• the news agenda (the choice of stories that make up the news)

It will  give news institutions more of a variety of news stories to include as their will be more reliable evidence to allow them to add detail to stories that may not have had much substance to begin with. 

• the role of professionals in news

In the near future, there is a high likelihood that there will no longer be a need for an abundance of professionals in the news as most of there content would be UGC. As the article states, there will come a time where the only professionals needed in an institution are gatekeepers who can assess and edit the user generated news in order to make it appropriate to be broadcasted to the public.