Is the Social Media a Blessing or a Curse for the Newspaper Industry?

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ipad, media, new york times, newspapers, page one inside new york times, rupert murdoch, social media

I have just finished watching the documentary, ‘Page one: Inside the New York Times’. Although on the whole i found this documentary quite dry it did address a lot of issues and questions. It was one of those documentaries that left me thinking that although it did not do this in the most engaging manner. What I found distracting about this documentary was the amount of people who were being filmed; it was all a bit busy and a bit too much to take in within 90 minutes.

One of the issues  that was raised in this documentary was, is the social media a blessing or a curse? The film showed footage of people being cut from their jobs as the way people are getting their news has changed completely. Newspaper sales are declining. I can’t think of many people who I know under the age of 25 who regularly purchase a newspaper and that’s coming from someone on a journalism course. It would therefore look like journalism is a dying industry but with the rise of the social media things are changing. ‘The iPad may be the saving of the industry’ claimed Murdoch which in my eyes does reflect the truth. Although smartphones and iPad’s have ultimately taken the audiences from the traditional newspapers if people are still reading news articles on the internet there is still a market for advertising as long as news companies are willing to change where they publish their stories. As well as a tool of publishing news rooms can use the social media to actually find stories. This was something that you saw ‘The New York Times’ do in the documentary so it’s clearly an affective way of using the social media.

The documentary was dry and talked through by dreary voices so I was surprised to hear that it made 1.1 million in the US box office alone, but at the end of the day it did illustrate some interesting points; especially about the impact of the social media. In my opinion there is always going to be a need for the news, even if people have changed the way that they choose to digest it.

Edit

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Editing, Image, Manipulation, Photography

I found this image whilst researching for an essay that I’m writing on how images can be a beneficial tool for a journalist. The argument that I am making at the minute is that can you ever really trust a photograph. Who’s to say that it hasn’t been heavily edited or set up? Not that I’m against any of these things; as you can see from the picture I’ve found editing can quite simply be amazing. But when it comes to photographs in the newspaper it’s not in the readers interest for an image to be so heavily edited- newspapers are about publishing the truth to the world and if an image is extremely edited it is not portraying the truth.

I found this picture on this website:  http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/40-examples-of-incredible-photo-manipulation/ It’s really worth checking out for some amazing images and examples of editing.

Game On…

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Baking, cake, Come dine with me, cooking

Here are a few pictures from the first round of ‘Come Bake with Me’ – as you can see the standard has been set very high. The next round will be hosted tonight so more pictures to come!

Save the Internet

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PIPA, regulation of the internet, SOPA

I think today that it’s well worth a mention the campaigns that have been happening all over the web recently.Wikipedia is the main website that has ‘gone black’ in campaign against SOPA & PIPA - America organisations who are trying to control piracy through monitoring the internet. They turned their home screen black and in effect shut down for a day to show the implications come from the higher regulation of the internet.  I can obviously understand that music artists who work hard at something don’t want to give their music away for free and recognise that music piracy especially is a real problem. If PIPA (the Protect IP act) comes into place it will allow governments to take legal action against things that are published online. SOPA is the ‘Stop piracy Act’ so the explanation of that is in its name. I can’t help but think though that once a line has been drawn on something like this there will always be the temptation to move that line. This could go from the monitoring of illegal downloads to what we are or not allowed to publish on the internet. Freedom of speech is a vital aspect of democracy. The internet is a unbeliavbly massive source of freedom of speech. Things that are too biased or opinionated to be printed in newspapers can appear on blogs and nobody would batter an eyelid. Therefore this makes me against the American Government changing the way the internet works. With regulations we wouldn’t get a variety and only be hearing things from official sources and as we all know variety is the spice of life.

 

Never Let Me Go (2010)

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Andrew Garfield, Carrie Mulligan, keira knightley, Mark Romanek, Never let me go, Review, science fiction

A day sitting around waiting for my new laptop to be delivered (which never arrived) gave me the perfect opportunity watch ‘Never Let Me Go’ (directed by Mark Romanek), a film that i have wanted to see for ages but never got round to it. The film is an adaption of  Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel which i haven’t read so i didn’t have any idea of the plot before watching the film.The films short description and trailer i thought that this film was going to be your typical love story, instead i was surprised to find it is actually a science fiction film. The aspect of the film that makes it science fiction runs seamlessly with a realistic story line and script. The film starts at the end and the rest of the film is the memories of three childhood friends played by Keira Knightley, Carrie Mulligan and Andrew Garfield, who went to boarding school together. Through these memories you discover that they are not just at a boarding school, they are at school to be trained to be donors or their real life doubles. A this point as well as being shocked at the story line i was just as shocked at how this science fictional idea had been blended into a seemingly normal film. The characters accept their fate that they have been born to die. They will live until they are ‘ready’ to be used as organ donors which turns out to be somewhere in their mid-to- late twenties. The film almost had me in tears at many parts; one scene that particularly stood out was when the characters of Mulligan and Garfield who are lovers fully understand their fate and that they are going to loose one another.What i liked most about this film is the mixture of emotions i felt when i watched it. The majority of the film was very tender whilst certrain scenes seemed terrifying; terrifying because the ideas they were showing came across as being so realistic. Although this film should have left me feeling depressed when Mulligan is left with no partner and just a month left to live it made me feel bittersweet. It left me thinking about the world that we actually live in and how compared to this film how easy we have it; but at the end of the day it is only fiction.

****

Artist that I’m most Looking Forward to this Year

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Lana Del Rey, Music, Review

Without a shadow of a doubt the artist that I’m most excited about this year is American songstress, Lana Del Rey.

Influenced from the likes of Elvis Presely and Bob Dylan there is defiantly hype building around this artist. It’s been a while since there was an exciting new, female solo artist on the scene- probably since the likes of Florence and the Machine.

Her songs are sad, deep and emotional, so yes, you would need to be in the right frame of mind to listen to her but there is no questioning her talent.

Her album is out on the 30th of this month and i’ll be first in line to buy it.

Public Enemies

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Anna Friel, BBC, Crime, Drama, Public Enemies

I’ve just finished watching the 3 part series, Public Enemies that was broadcast on the BBC last week.

To say the least i was very impressed.

This is coming from someone who watches a lot, maybe even too much crime drama. The series was about the reality of the lives of people who are released from prison and and how they cope in the real world. In this case, Eddie Mottram, who was released after a ten year sentence for killing his girlfriend at the age of 17.

Paula, who is played by the actor of the minute, Anna Friel, is Eddie’s probation worker and has just gone back to work after her last case ended up killing again. The relationship between these two characters is a strained one. Paula finds it hard to trust Eddie after her disastrous last case therefore in the first episode you get the impression that Eddie is going to be treated on a disadvantage on her behalf.

The first twist in this mini-series came at the end of episode one when Mottram tells Paula that he is innocent and just pleaded guilty to make his time in prison easier. My first thoughts to this were that he was just saying this to make his freedom easier.

At this point i thought the direction of the storyline would focus on Eddie trying to convince his probation worker of his innocence.  Surprisingly, and to put it bluntly, unrealisticly, she believes him fairly easily.

Normally in programmes like this i have a vague idea of what is going to happen. This programme was an exception.

While Paula and Eddie are trying to find a solicitor to help prove his innocence the farther of the girlfriend who Eddie supposedly killed confesses to her murder. The twist comes out of nowhere and at that the programme ends.

This left me thinking, had i missed any clues, and left me wanting more.

Public Enemies is defiantly a  series that i would reccomend and defiantly something that i will watch again to pick up on the things that I missed the first time around.

My Top Three Albums of 2011

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2011, Braids, Foster the People, iTunes, The Horrors, Youtube

I’m sat here giving my iTune’s a detox in preparation for of my new laptop that’s arriving this week and i can’t help but think there was not an awful lot of good music released last year. But there are a few that stood out above the rest. Here are my top three albums of last year.

1. Number one goes to ‘The Horrors’ with their third album, ‘Skying’

The band have come on a lot from their first album ‘Strange House’. Their sound today is now mature and finished. I fully started appreciating this band after watching their set at Glastonbury in 2009. I have been a big fan ever since.

2. Braids, Native Speaker. I discovered this Canadian band at the year via the NME and was blown away by their track, Lemonade. It’s well worth a listen.

3. The third spot goes to Foster the people with their debut album, Torches. You couldn’t go anywhere for months without hearing their single, ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ on the radio and with simple reason, it’s a good track.

18 Going on 80…

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Baking, Come dine with me, Detox, Friends, Socialising

Okay, so it’s the first Friday back after the Christmas break and here i am sat here in my journalism class with the girls and instead of talking about parties and the weekend ahead we are talking about tea and cake. What has happened to us over the summer? We are all acting more like eighty year olds rather than young students trying to grab every moment as it comes.

 After a week of deadlines most students would want to go straight into down and town everything in sight. Uh no. Not us.

We are currently planning our ‘Come Bake With Me’ event. Yes, ‘Come Bake With me’.

A rip off of ‘Come Dine with Me’ , where we plan to bake cakes, drink tea and undoubtably sitting around for hours chatting and watching the world go by.

My only excuse for this un-student like behaviour is that it is January.

 January is time for detox.

And yes, we are all slightly more grandma-like than we would like to admit.