"We Media" and Democracy - Shaun Hardwick

What have you learned about your own media use and how you access news contact?

I have learnt from my own media use that there is a lot of news that’s broadcast every day, and no everyone has access to the news or they have their own interests in what they read from the news. Furthermore general people have their own interest in news feeds, but it’s up to them how far do they read into the story as they may only read the headline and scan-read through the article or read the article fully to have a clear understanding what the article is saying about the issue. From my summer work, I have been recording different types of news’ stories and how far did I read into the article or watch and listen to what is being shown or stated through the use of video or speak. For example, my first recorded news story I have listen to when one of my parents informed me about the George Osborn has made the university accommodation fee, that student’s get for their rent, food and travel has now become a loan. This means that university’s students has to pay this back as well as paying their tutorial fee which makes them have a bigger loan to pay back than their parents. I trust this source that one of my parents said to me to be 50/50 as I asked them where they got this information from as they stated they got this information from a newspaper, but didn’t say which one. This is why I stated that this new source to be 50/50 as I was informed about it but I didn’t read further into the source, as I didn’t know which newspaper did the article appeared in. This means that I can’t trust this news source to be 100% as there can be some other information that my parents could have not read that explains the news a bit further than just the headline and first few sentences in the article. 

Another news story source I have heard during the summer, was that a UFO was sighted on the 23rd July 2015 when a passenger on an airplane filmed it whilst they were in flight. This news source I did read a bit further into the story, as this was broadcast on my parent’s MSN homepage, as one day I decided to go onto the Internet and this source popped up on the moving slides on the main homepage. This may interest, as there was the footage that the passenger on the airplane filming on the plane recording what happening outside and this UFO appeared in the footage. I did watched the footage twice and spotted the UFO both times as the first time I thought it was a heist, but when I watched the footage again I thought differently as I also read the article underneath the footage. I trusted this source to be 75/25 as I think that maybe 75% was that the source was true as there were footage of the UFO and the ‘civilian journalist’ airplane passenger accidently caught the UFO in their holiday footage video. However the 25% I think that this could be a heist as the passenger could have easily (if they can) add a UFO model to the footage to create an audience for them and a face upon the Internet. This means that the person could be only attractive seeking to gain more viewers, as well as making a bit of profit by selling their story/footage to news organisations and become an important body on the vast Internet.

 The last news story, which I have read and watch was a tragedy story on the 29th July 2015 where a Korean woman saved her two year old child from being killed by the shopping mail’s escalators but the woman sadly lost her life. This news source I did read in depth, as I watched the video, which shows me some of the shopping mall’s security camera footage on the accident with the woman and child. As well as reading from the article about the shopping mall’s disaster. I trusted this news source to be 100%, as there were the shopping mall’s security camera footage as act as evidence to happen very happened on that day and time in the shopping mall. As this news source I access through one of my parent’s news feeds on MSN and read more in depth than just reading the headline. Furthermore when I watched the footage of the video for the shopping mall, it gives me an impress of not trusting escalators as they can extremely dangerous. Also I thought about the producer’s dominant message is that shopping mails and shops should check their lifts and escalators more offend as to see that they are still safe from customers to use. After when I watched and read the footage and article of the story, I decide to share what I have heard and watch to my parents. I told them what happened in a Korean shopping mall when the escalators killing the mother of a two year old boy and they were surprised with what happened. After weeks past since, I have decide to re-visited the news story and share it more with friends and watch the footage again but with some new information about that day and time with what happened before, during and after. For example I learnt that on that day itself about 6.6 million Koreans watched the footage and shared it on social media platforms that went globally. I accessed this information by Google searching ‘29th July 2015 Escalator incident in Korea’. And the same footage and article come up with another animated video with describing what happened on the day. The previous original video footage had a bit more to it this time as this video shown footage before the accident did occur where two shopping mall staff members spotted it before and they didn’t do anything to stop it occurring like switching off the escalators and instead they stood there telling trying to tell the woman and child but was too late.