Rachael Hickton 'We media' and Democracy

During the summer I gathered information on important news stories from numerous different sources such as, friends, family, T.V and on line.  The first story I heard about, was hugely publicised, across all types of media; the death of Cilla Black, who suffered a fatal head injury after a fall.  I heard this from a friend who said they learnt about it from the BBC news app. I trusted that my friend had told me an account that was as detailed as possible, however word of mouth is never fully reliable as people forget things or can leave out details that they don't see as important.  Furthermore people can often be very biased and reflect they're opinion of the story into the telling of it.  I was very shocked by the news because just days before she was healthy and holidaying with her family. after hearing of this news I actually didn't do anything with the information because I somehow managed to hear about it a week after it happened so everyone already knew.

Another way I came across news stories over the summer was through watching BBC News. The BBC is different to ‘Big Media’ conglomerates such as Fox and Sky and ‘New Media’ (social media sites etc) because it is funded by the tax payers.  Therefore they are accountable for the public as whole, this means they can't let any political preferences influence their reports. I heard about the story of the Syrian refugees escaping their home and searching for a new one in Europe on BBC News.  After hearing the tragic story I decided to do some more research by reading articles, watching news coverage and then I decided to share some of the links on my social media accounts so others could see it.  I also read articles from years ago, from when the civil war started in 2011 because I knew nothing about it and discussed them with my family to see how others viewed the situation.  I was completely shocked and moved by the story and it made me feel very emotional.  This is probably what was intended by the articles because obviously they were biased to the authors political views and opinions on the issue. However the BBC coverage- being just facts rather than being analytical let me create my own opinion on the report.  This is an example of how The BBC is more demographic.  I definitely trust them to be accurate as their facts matched up to all the others I've seen. 

Contrastingly to the tragic story I also learnt that same sex marriage was legalised across the US.  I heard about this instantly as I refreshed my timeline on twitter just as Obama tweeted the good news.  I was really happy about this and shouted it to the rest of my family in my house, I then retweeted his tweet and tweeted about it myself.  Although I was very pleased and think it was a long time coming, I was also slightly annoyed at the worldwide response to it because I feel that people acted like because it was legalised in America that the problem was solved and forgot that people in other countries still don't have that right.  This demonstrates how social media sites like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter are often solely a representation of America rather than the world as a whole. When I saw Obama's Tweet I didn't doubt this fact or feel the need to do any research because it's Obama and he can't lie, and doesn't tweet a load of rubbish all the time like David Cameron and other British politicians.   

From my research I've noticed that Dan Gillmor (the author of 'We Media' and democracy) is correct in saying that media is changing because of the increase in democracy. Democracy enables people to post their own news stories and ideas of the story and opinions. They can also lie about a report and people will just believe what they're saying. It has become even more apparent how technology is a crucial tool to the news as it enables it to travel quickly. An example of this is how many news apps such as Fox News or the BBC news app you receive an instant notification which is useful to keep up with current events.