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"We Media" and Democracy - Andreas

Over the summer I came across news quite easily, from social networks to the media on the TV.

However the news I came across wasn't always legitimate as some of them was just biased views towards something they strongly disagree about like the Syrian migrant crisis and how it can damage the economy and that ISIS members are hidden within them (something I disagree with) which shows that the news cant exactly be reliable.

 

One example of News however which got my attention over the summer was the chemical plant in china blowing up and causing mass fires in Shandong  which killed about 200 people and many more injured or missing, I first found this piece of news from Facebook  which is a social media website and at first i was questioning its credibility so that made me look into further detail about this and I the checked BBC news website for more information on this catastrophe and that confirmed the source on Facebook, while looking more into this piece of news I found out some amateur videos from a citizen of the explosion taking place and was filmed from a hotel room only a few miles away from the explosion radius ( Video ).

 

The Syrian migrant crisis has been portrayed in many different ways over the news from what I've found over the past month as left wing bias news (Guardian) has said these people are seeking help and its our job to provide that compensation, on the other hand right wing papers believe that they are damaging our society and are a greater threat than we think.

 

Another story I came across was the scandal between David Cameron and a pig in oxford university in which he had to do a inappropriate action with a dead pigs head to gain acknowledgement from his former 'friends' at university and join this private club, the way in which I found out about this story is through people at first then on the internet and through many tabloid papers mocking him for a instant which he describes as being stabbed in the back, the sources i gained this information from are trusted as it is everywhere and published in papers.

 

The media I come across is commonly left winged news as I consider myself to be left winged and majority are my friends are so, the main source of my information comes from the Guardian newspaper which has a left winged bias however I occasionally read BBC news which doesn't have a bias due to it being funded by the tax payers and when looking on for the news on websites it uses cookies which personalises information found and makes me have news which is somewhat similar to what I always read.     

"We media" and democracy - Frank

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

The news is a massive part of our lives it can shape change and redefine the way that we live, it influences on the choices we make and always will. I would say that I have always had ssan inkling into the news and mostly been aware of my surroundings and whats happening around me. 

I get most of my news from the Sky News app on my phone which I do feel is a trustworthy source and that it brings me the most important updates from around the world more so than other corporation and I feel that BBC cares more about the latest sportsperson to retire, however the BBC website remains the most popular online destination, used by 52% of people who go online but this could just be all of those who google it as some sort of a test to see if something works in the apple store. As the BBC is government funded it must follow the six points of the charter set out by the royal charter and agreement this may keep it fair and available to everyone but I feel it is restricted this way and is focused more on entertainment rather than news yet they still attract one out of every 28 people around the world. The main reason that I use this app is because of its accessibility and ease of use, I check it at least once a day and have alerts on. I follow sports news as well closely and have the Sky News football app however I don't feel the need to check this as often because of the influence of social media.

I do use social media as another portal to the news nominally twitter, I feel it has a wider range of opinions and makes the news more relatable to an extent an Ofcom report from 2013 found that eight out of 10 people don't trust the media to reflect their concerns and needs. Almost half (46%) thought social media more accurately represented them, compared to the 18% who favoured mainstream media. Social media served as a hub for all and spreads news faster because people are more inclined to regularly check it whilst on the move rather than the pages of news websites. In 2012 Facebook publishers sent around 62 million links but within a year it saw growth of nearly 100 million with 161 million outbound links being sent in 2013. More evidence of this change within social media was the change of the twitter prompt from ‘What are you doing?’ to ‘Whats happening?’ with people posting more newsworthy material and less about themselves. 500 million tweets are sent a day with around 13% (65 million) containing a URL. In the six months following the revolution in Egypt the amount of Facebook users rose from 450,000 to a staggering 3 million. The week before president Hosni Mubarak resignation, the total rate of tweets about political change in Egypt spiked from 2,300 a day to 230,000 a day this shows the global scale and reach that social media has. People can learn a lot from social media however I feel that the use of cookies is limiting what is immediately available to us. Cookies tailor our social media to recent searches clicks to try and bring the best and most interesting content to that particular person. Even though we are after the most relevant and interesting news and don't want to have to sift through irrelevant articles it limits the news we are actually exposed to. It now requires someone with those regards already instilled within them to seek out that news and I'm sure they hold no issue with doing this if that is their diversion, I like to delve further into the news and develop my own opinion. Twitter participation has increased 40% during the uprising in Syria,social media has quickly become a place to discover news just as it breaks, bringing the stories of those involved imminently through their own words and allowing more citizen journalists and amateur footage for example, the first person to break the news on the American force’s raid on Osama Bin Laden was his neighbour, who sent out a tweet about the commotion going on next door. This shows the great power that social media has and the influence it has on our lives. I don't find that I fend as much ’general’ news on social media I might see someone complaining about something but then this leads me to search for it myself. Twitter promotes things which are trending and this usual encompasses the football, which I do learn a lot about from twitter, and the latest celebrity to mess up. Don't get me wrong, I think social media methods are great and help me to keep on track of whats going on in the world and learn about things that aren't in the news, which are usually more interesting. 

Televised news does still exist. In actual fact I do watch it. Shocking I know. Every morning I sit eating my grapefruit and slice of marmalade toast in front of Euronews, I sound like such a grandmother. I find Euronews as one of if not the best news channel on television, it brings together news from all across the world to every European . It tries to remain impartial and  give fact rather than opinion, it has one section called ‘no comment tv’ this is where it will present raw footage with, you got it, no comment. It tends to show something particularly harrowing along with the empty noise of the clip really honing in the reality of the video. In recent months this has mostly been shots following the refugees. They tend not to ask opinion but to just observe and let you form your own opinion around the events which you see, you should watch it and my description probably makes it sound very amateur and illegitimate but I’ll put a link below. In the parts in which they do speak, they try to get a wide range of presenters from all across the world, usually from the country which they are reporting. This is to give a more accurate and insightful view to what is happening even if this means doing lots of voice overs. It’s constantly rolling news and has no studio or presenters, it just has the stories playing through which are occasionally interrupted by something happening live. I get the majority of my news from this as it gives precise short insights to the mornings news which i will if I am interested in follow up and look out for them developing in the day. 

I already have a keen interest in the news and like to know what is happening around me, how my future could be and has been affected by whats happening right now in this very moment by people who have no idea of my existence. I followed the election very closely this year and previously in 2010, I think its important to develop an opinion and understand the world. I think we live in a society where people aren't bothered about whats happening in the world and may see it as boring but ultimately it could will decide how your life pans out. I think to grow up understanding your surroundings will help us further down the line in making life choices because we only learn from mistakes, and politics is full of them. Personally I enjoy that knowledge and feel it helps me in everyday life whether it’s whilst conversing with others, helping me to learn and understand something new or just to help me create educated decisions plus I like clever jokes.

The Euronews website: 

http://www.euronews.com

 And YouTube live stream:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfaVDgd17Io

We Media and Democracy -Amber Needham

We Media and Democracy

Over the summer holidays, I gathered many important news stories from various different sources. For example I gathered news stories from my friends and family – word of mouth –T.V, Online and via Social Media.

One of the stories that I heard over summer was the killing of two journalists in Virginia on August 28^th 2015. Alison Parker and Adam Ward, the journalist and cameraman of WDJB Media, were shot dead during a broadcast in America by a gunman, who later killed himself. The gunman had claimed that staff had mistreated him, and that he was a former employee. I heard the news from my Mum, who was outraged at the story. She had found out the news by watching BBC News, as they reported on it. I did trust that my mum would have given me as detailed of an account as she could, although word of mouth is not completely reliable, as my mum told me “I can’t believe it, I think it happened in New York” when this was an incorrect fact and it actually occurred in Virginia. My mum had gotten confused, as we had previously booked a holiday to New York, and therefore she was scaring herself into thinking that it had happened there, which is a natural reaction to big news like that. As well as this my mum didn’t mention the gunman’s motives for killing the news reporters, which I thought was a very important detail. This could be because she was so shocked she couldn’t process the rest of the information, or because she didn’t hear it on the television – but this just proves that word of mouth cannot be the best source of information because people can often leave out crucial details. When I heard the news I immediately went onto Google and typed in ‘Gunman Reporter Killing’ as I knew things would come up as the story was very recent. The Guardian provided a lot of information and I was able to read up more on the upsetting subject.

Another way I came across important news stories during the summer holidays was via the Twitter App on my phone. Twitter is a social media platform, in which certain stories trend using the hashtag signs. The story I saw on twitter was due to the excessive amount of tweets on my timeline regarding the news story. The story was that same sex marriage was legalised across the USA, and the hashtag relating to this was #LoveWins and #MarriageEquality. When I heard the happy news I was filled with joy for all the campaigners and all of the people who this would massively affect. I tweeted about the news myself saying ……… On my Twitter feed I saw many tweets from celebrities, such as Justin Timberlake tweeting “#LoveWins” and Harry Styles tweeting “Huge day for America. Happy to see the news. All the love”. With my Twitter news feed exploding with the mass amount of support I felt very happy and relieved for many people that same sex marriage was no longer an issue. President Obama even tweeted saying “Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins” which definitely proved to me that the whole event was legitimate because the President only tweets on crucial matters in America’s society. As well as Twitter as a platform that informed me of the news, I also saw Snapchat – a popular image sharing App – had added a ‘story’ regarding the news. Snapchat created a Marriage Equality ‘story’ which is a series of images and videos taken by everyday people. A final social media platform that helped me to further understand the velocity of the decision to legalise same sex marriage was Facebook and the overwhelming amount of posts from many of my friends about the news. Facebook even created a rainbow filter which many of my friends added to their profile picture to show their support and it shows the power of social media in spreading news. The fact that there was such a positive response made the news extremely happy for many people. I do feel that the underlying issue that, not all countries have recognized same sex marriage of allowed it, is very important despite the celebrations that took place. Vietnam is just one example where it doesn’t offer legal recognition to unions of the same sex. So whilst the majority of America, and the United Kingdom and other countries celebrated the result, it could also show how sometimes our social media feeds can shadow us away from many principal issues.

I would definitely say that the news story that I came across a lot during the summer and the few months preceding August was the news of Bruce Jenner’s transition into Caitlyn Jenner which I saw on ‘Good Morning Britain’ on the television, and following that many other media platforms. Media is very powerful in this instance because when Caitlyn Jenner joined Twitter on June 1^st 2015, she was the fastest person to reach 1 million followers – beating even President Obama’s twitter record. This is due to the awareness on many different platforms of Caitlyn’s transition, and her iconic Vanity Fair cover and article. I personally am not an avid reader of Vanity Fair, or many other magazines for that matter, however due to my interest in Caitlyn’s transition, and me wanting to know a lot of information about the issues she faced – as I watched her a lot as Bruce on ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’- I bought the issue. The issue talked about Caitlyn’s decision to transition, and was released not long after her interview with Diane Sawyer. The Diane Sawyer interview attracted many high ratings as people were eager to learn, alike me, why Bruce Jenner – winner of the 1976 decathlon – wanted to transition. The decision to transition so publicly, and Jenner even has a reality series documenting her journey called ‘I Am Cait’ is both heart-warming and educational as we learn about the issues that many transgender males and females face. Due to the wide amount of sources from which information about Caitlyn is revealed, it Is hard to know which sources to trust. For example some magazine articles I wouldn’t trust, as they tend to make a lot of things up to fill up pages, whereas the Vanity Fair magazine – a well trusted source – did a personal interview exclusively with Caitlyn so I know this could be trusted. The Television show and her personal twitter are the other two main sources I would trust, as it is Caitlyn personally informing us on how things are and trying to be a voice for the transgender community. Wikipedia is a source I wouldn’t trust in this case, as it can be very easy to hack and change information on peoples Wikipedia pages therefore there could potentially be false information on there.

To conclude, I believe that Dan Gilmor, author of “We Media and Democracy”, and his views on democracy prove to be correct. As he says that “the spreading of news will occur” often which is definitely true due to the many different platforms of media. News stories can travel within milliseconds from one side of the world to another, showing how much technology has developed and affected the media industry. Dan Gillmor also mentioned that there will be a large increase in democracy, which I believe is accurate as it allows people to share news stories and attitudes. The views could also influence others, but also due to democracy it could also test other people’s views as well.

By Amber Needham

"We Media" and Democracy - Bobby Salt

Throughout the entirety of the summer, a large sum of different news stories would have become accessible for me. Whether or not I came across just the headline or read more into the depth of the story is another case.



On an estimated basis I can presume that around 70% of the news stories coming into contact with me are sport related. This is due to my internet use having a web 3.0 concept within its capabilities, making my search engine and social media use to be suited to my interests. For instance, any adverts or recommended pages popping up on my twitter feed will be no doubt football based simply due to the majority of non-personal pages I currently follow being football related themselves. Besides social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, the only news story access I choose to have is with applications such as: Sky Sports Football News and BBC Sport and the TV channel Sky Sports News HQ. I personally chose to download, follow and regularly tune into these news bases simply for the reliability. In the past I’ve followed highly rumour based news stations/pages such as ‘Transfer News Live’ which grabbed my attention through the production of eye catching, yet completely untrue headlines. But a large sum of news pages, blogs, websites, shows etc. do this in order to just gain the page views because at the end of the day, that’s what they get paid for. There will be more information and depth beyond the rumour just to make it more believable but I can imagine the majority of readers, including myself, don’t read any further than the headline itself. Whereas Sky Sports and BBC Sport are trusted, reliable sources of high popularity, so if they were to go and post a news story made up mainly of rumours including an eye catching headline just to get page views, I can imagine the followers/fans of the site would create masses of complaints reflecting badly upon the BBC and SKY. And as both sources are open to public domain, the possibility of large quantities of complaints being made is likely if such a headline was to be published.

When going about my daily routine, not even focusing on news stories, it was hard for me to not see the transfer headline that grabbed every football fans attention: the David De Gea transfer saga story. Very long story short, Manchester United FC failed to send Real Madrid CF the official transfer paperwork on time before the deadline so David De Gea remained a Manchester United player despite fully confirmed agreements for the sale and purchasing of the player occurring. The dispute was broadcasted, televised and analysed across all football news story platforms that I follow and watch. The reliability of these sources is the primary factor as to why so many people tune into them and not some less popular source. Sky and BBC both send out camera crews and reporters to the scene of a specific news story, which in this case was Manchester United and Real Madrid’s training grounds in order to reinforce the fact that they’re as up to date as possible with the happenings of the story. As well as this, viewers at home are able to see constant updates and additional information appear upon their screens as flash update sections and side scrollers (banners). Although it won’t just be BBC and Sky that do this, sport pages, especially when it comes to stories of this magnitude, won’t go off on a tangent, they’ll stick to the key details and facts to maintain the audiences intrigued focus.



Another news story that appeared on my news feed was the announcement that Bear Grylls and Barack Obama were going to appear and take part in the popular ITV based TV show “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here”. Although the story was eventually proven to be just a rumour, I saw a large quantity of people on twitter believing the story and getting quite excited about it. Proving that an eye catching headline with no proof or evidence can still get large sums of views and openings. The reliability of the sources I read were of a low standard due to twitter allowing everyone and anyone to post and share whatever content they want. This is why I fully believe the theory put in place by Dan Gilmour that technology is making the news more democratic. In addition news stories like this reflects the point Dan Gilmour also made about us, (the public) being "monkeys" and believing anything we read online, because I must admit, although the headline seemed quite far fetched when Barack Obama get included within the shows cast, there was a hint of belief within my reading of the article. The newly introduced democracy aspect of modern news comes from the fact that the public can state their opinions on blogs, vlogs and Youtube and if an individual’s input on a story reflects a lot of other people’s opinions and gets shared across a large sum of social media platforms then that original source can be invited to share their thoughts upon a broadcasted or largely popular news source. Furthering this democracy.



 I believe people mainly use twitter or any other social media site for news stories simply because of the easily accessible nature of the applications. Especially since the development of the smart phone, every individual in possession of one is literally a few taps away from any and all news stories whether they’re local or global. I don’t find it a positive or negative fact that I don’t gain my knowledge of news stories from newspapers or TV. I believe some sources, those two in particular are losing their popularity as sources such as social media and smart phones are progressively developing. Many people will continue to watch TV and read newspapers for years to come but for me personally, applications on my smart phone are the simplest and quickest access, making them my favourite. Although I do believe this transfer from TV and newspaper to social media will cause a decline in large conglomerate sources as the public aren’t able to post and input their own opinions on TV and newspaper hardly at all. Whereas social media encourages this. An aspect that many find appealing.

"We Media" and Democracy - Max Jackson

"We Media" and Democracy

 

Over the summer holidays we were set the task of collecting several news stories as an introduction to the second year of the course. In doing so I noticed a lot about my personal media usage and where I source my news from.

The first news story as such that caught my attention was the Shoreham air show plane crash. I initially heard about this story via the BBC news app that I have on my phone, on this app I have notifications turned on to alert me when any major news stories take place. On the 22^nd August a notification came through from the BBC news app with the headline ‘Plane crash at Shoreham air show, numerous casualties and some presumed dead’. This immediately grabbed my attention upon seeing it as I was interested to see what caused the plane to crash and how many deaths were actually caused by the unfortunate event, so this made me go straight onto the app to view the story in full. Upon opening the story and reading further I discovered that the official number of deaths was believed to of reached 11 and the actually cause of the crash was due to the pilot Andy Hill performing loop-the-loop at 200ft when actually he was only licensed to perform such manoeuvres at 500ft and above and therefore this caused him to lose control and upon his descent from the manoeuvre he didn’t have enough time to level the plane off and struck the westbound carriageway of the A27. I believe the way in which I collected this news story shows a lot about my personal media usage and the way in which I obtain news because as I realised before I am very reliant on getting my news from the internet, however what I didn’t realise is that I don’t go looking for the news I either expect it to be sent to me via the BBC news app or to accidently stumble upon it on social media or other forms of news found on the internet. This shows that I don’t particularly follow the news by choice but when it is presented to me I do take an interest.

The second big news story that I came across was almost by accident. I was on Facebook just casually checking my news feed as I’m sure most people do and one of my friends had commented on a particular post by the Telegraph. The post was to do with a Virginia news reporter and cameraman being murdered during a live interview, this immediately grabbed my attention because the headline alone was shocking enough however there was a video to accompany it, of the incident taking place itself, in which distressing scenes are shown. In the video gun shots are heard during a live interview and then the camera, along with the cameraman drops to the floor. Upon watching this video it made me want to read further into why this horrible occurrence happened. I believe this particularly shows a lot about my personal media usage as again it comes back to the idea that I don’t go looking for the news however when presented with it I do take an interest. It also says a lot about how I discovered this particular piece through a social media website and my media usage is mainly based around social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. It is also very interesting that I was exposed to this news via a friend commenting on this particular piece by the Telegraph and shows that social media platforms show you what your friends have took an interest in and therefore it generates it on your news feed because it believes you will also take the same interest as your friend. I think this shows a lot about how technology is beginning to learn and adapt itself to our personal usage of the internet.

The final news story I came across was one I followed in the most detail and over the greatest period of time, this was the Premier League transfer window. The reason I followed this in more detail is because football is a big interest of mine both watching it and playing it and the summer transfer window Is always an exciting time for any football fan. The window for any transfers to happen took place from 1st July to - 1st September. As always a lot of transfers were made some bigger than others, with clubs such as Manchester City spending £124.45 million alone. All this added up to a big headline that the Premier League clubs collectively managed to brake the summer transfer window spending record, according to analysis from Deloitte. Clubs in the English top flight spent a total of £870m, up from the £835m record set last year. This to me was big news as I like to see the daft amount of money spent in football and whether or not it does actually make a difference when it comes to the football being played because as its been seen over the years these teams can spend astonishing amounts of money and still see no results come from it. My main source of information when looking into the summer transfer window was yet another social media platform, which was Twitter. Twitter is the social media platform that I use most frequently purely by choice but it was actually best to find out the latest transfers etc. Because I could set it so I could see the latest tweets from accounts such as BBC Sport and other transfer related accounts which kept me up to date with the latest news, rumours and actual transfers being made in and around the Premier League. So for me I thought instead of going out my way and looking for the information I saw it as easier to set my Twitter feed to find and bring the information directly to me. Also due to cookies being used more and more in today’s internet which is an example of Media 3.0, Twitter actually brought me news updates from accounts that I didn’t personally follow because they will have followed my interests and then filtered in related information into my feed. I think the summer transfer window linked with Twitter is a perfect example of what Dan Gillmor who is the author of ‘We Media’ said about the internet has made it easier for people to post their own content online which is an example of Media 2.0 and in some cases on twitter people have made accounts claiming to be transfer update accounts but instead created rumours and false content to receive views or in some cases just generate conversation and debate. So I think social media in some cases can be trusted however can feed lot of false news to people.

'We Media' and Democracy - Ellie Lester

Reflecting on your research from the summer: what have you learned about your own media use and how you access news content. (1000-1500)

Over the summer holidays I collected information about news stories from numerous sources, such as the news and social media, as part of my research on ‘We Media’. This gave me the opportunity to look at how I get my information about news that is transpiring locally, nationally and worldwide. When analysing the data that I collected, I discovered that the majority of my articles were from the internet on websites such as the ‘BBC News’ or ‘The Guardian’. A small proportion of my news was seen on Twitter, however I did further research on these stories on more reliable news websites. This suggests to me that perhaps I support Keens idea that ‘...these days’ people can’t tell the difference between credible news by objective professional journalists and what they read on joeshmoe.blogspot.com...' as I tend to try and gather my news from the more credible websites.

The first news story I heard about was the on-going Syrian refugee crisis in Hungary. I heard this story via the BBC news on TV, which I believe is a very reliable source. This storyline has been dominating the headlines for a long period of time, the most notable consequence of this being the death of a three year old boy who had drowned whilst trying to escape and later washed up on the Turkish coastline. The images of a police officer holding the child’s lifeless body went viral and stunned the world. This storyline was the one that caught my attention and encouraged me to read the story in depth to find out more, after hearing the story on the BBC news, I later decided to research the story even further on the BBC’s website. There are many arguments given for and against helping the refugees in Britain, however, my personal opinion is that before we open the doors to the refugees we need to have our eyes fully open and be prepared for what consequences may occur. For example, in areas across Britain (such as Bradford etc.) have very dense populations of Muslims who tend not to integrate into society. This can often lead to social tensions that cause conflicts. I think that what is happening to the refugees is awful and that nobody deserves to put through such turmoil or terror. I think that we should send as much aid as possible in order to help the refugees in the meantime while we slowly bring them to Britain and integrate them into society in order to ensure that there are no conflicts in terms of culture, which could lead to social instability. This story is an example of the power that “Big Media” has within our society today.

The second news story that I heard about was the death of two news journalists being shot and killed by an ex-colleague of theirs in the USA. I heard about this story via Twitter as somebody that I followed retweeted it. When it appeared on my timeline I wasn’t sure whether it was reliable or not, so I researched the story and came across an article on ‘The Guardian’ website called ‘Virginia TV journalists shot dead on air in attack staged by former colleague’. After reading this article I discovered that the killer, Vester Lee Flanagan II, who is black had claimed “racially toned grievances against his former employer”. Further into the article I discovered that the killer had recorded a video of himself carrying out the murders and posted it to Facebook. The story itself is very sad and upsetting, it makes me wonder how one human being can cause such pain and suffering to another human being. My opinion on this news story is that it needed to be covered in order to raise awareness to the public of what people can be capable of. I think that what the killer did is unforgiveable, whether or not his motives were real. Another part of me, whether right or wrong, feels that this whole ordeal was just used as an excuse to be in the spotlight and it worked. The video that was shot by the killer and was shared on Facebook, which has been viewed by many, sparked a lot of outrage among Americans, especially family and friends of the victims. The fact that the killer filmed the video himself and then posted it online, gives the impression that he was determined for the world to know about what he had done, it’s as if we was trying to achieve attention or fame for his crimes.

The final piece of news that I came across was about the death of a lion named Cecil who was shot dead in Zimbabwe by Walter James Palmer. I found out about this story via my Dad, who told me about the story after hearing about it on the radio. I was intrigued by the storyline and also heartbroken, so I decided to do some further research into it to find out more. I looked on the BBC news website which I trust to be a reliable and accurate source. I discovered that Cecil the lion was well-known and lived in the Hwange National Park in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe and was 13 years old when he was killed. He was a major attraction at the park and was being studied and tracked by the University of Oxford as part of a larger study. An article that I read on the BBC’s website was called ‘Cecil the lion killer, Walter Palmer, to return to work’ which talks about the fact that the killer of Cecil has been allowed to return to his job as a dentist. This story has created an outbreak of anger amongst Zimbabweans as well as the world, as many people believe that Palmer has not been punished enough for his crimes. However he claims that he “he had been unaware of the animal's significance”, despite this fact he still paid a whopping £32,000 to kill Cecil, whether he knew he was important or not means nothing in my opinion. Poaching is a horrible and cruel act that should be banned altogether. Palmer’s actions have caused such anger that his family have also been put at risk, as he revealed that his wife and daughter have been subjected to intimidation as well as himself. "They've been threatened in the social media, and again … I don't understand that level of humanity to come after people not involved at all," he said. On a personal level, this quote agitated me a great deal because Palmer preached about the lack of ‘humanity’ in targeting who he seems to believe are innocent people, yet he shot dead a beautiful and innocent creature, where is the humanity in that? Overall, my opinion is that Palmer did not get the sufficient punishment that he deserved.

To conclude, my summer work has taught me that I get my news from a wide variety of sources, however if I believe that a source may be unreliable I tend to do my own further research. My news stories also differ in terms of their content which shows me that I take an interest in a wider variety of news topics rather than just sticking to one theme such as news on politics or celebrity gossip. I have also learnt that I tend to pick up a lot information about news stories from my parents and then if I find any of it interesting I will go and research it.

‘We Media’ and Democracy Analysis - Calum McDermott.

Throughout the six weeks of the School summer holiday I collected information on how I viewed news stories from different sources. These included television programmes, social media, online newspapers and actual newspapers.



Social media was a predominant news source since within seconds of refreshing my Facebook or Twitter newsfeeds series of news stories would appear instantaneously. One of these involved being unfortunately informed of Cilla Black’s death on Twitter. Different tweets delivered different information, some were detailed, whilst others lacked detail. If someone just viewed these, it could be misconstrued that this news story was false if they gave a limited insight into the story. However, if they were more detailed and since they all focused on Cilla dying, it seemed a more reliable source. This is especially the case if they were tweeted by a news company’s account and contained a link to an article on their website. This news also spread quickly and began circulating on other websites such as Facebook, online newspapers like the Daily Mail and in newspapers the next day such as The Sun. This confirmed that anyone who was suspicious the story was false, was obviously wrong and in my opinion emphasised how powerful news is spread on the internet and social media platforms.

More evidence which I think proves social media is an incredibly powerful and increasingly easy way to spread and access information is another example involving Twitter and celebrities. This news story involved singers Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift engaging in a misunderstanding over their VMA nominations, or lack of. It started by Nicki tweeting, "If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year." Taylor, who thought she was being "called out," replied, "I've done nothing but love & support you. It's unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..." Within seconds, these tweets gained the attention of the world. This is a result of Nicki sharing her tweet to her 20 million followers and Taylor sharing hers to her 60 million followers who continually made comments, judgements and shared what they had said.

These tweets were retweeted (shared) thousands of times on thousands of profiles which lead to more and more people seeing what they said. This resulted in news companies writing articles and also tweeting about it, continually branding the misunderstanding as an "argument," which gained more attention. As a result, this label tricked people into believing they were fighting. Instead of people viewing their other tweets until later on to see that Taylor then realised she misinterpreted what Nicki had said, which was actually a statement on the discrimination of women, the argumentative label stuck with them and overshadowed the truth due to the initial labelling and power of social media which shared negative opinions and news articles. The whole concept of celebrities creating their own news by sharing their lives and thoughts on profiles such as Twitter is also hugely significant. This is since, as evident, they are viewed and shared by fans which shows how modern ways of sharing news and accessing it has evolved drastically. Instead of accessing news simplistically in day to day newspapers, news is made, shared and viewed instantaneously on the web and then printed in real life format newspapers the day after, such as with this example.

Another example of an internet new source, is the online newspaper the Daily Mail. As a regular viewer of the paper, I know it can be updated within minutes of a new story breaking, which results in an article being made. One of these stories was the horrific shooting of the two news reporters. This occurred in Virginia, America, as a result of a previous news reporter who was fired shooting his ex-co-workers in a jealous and revenge filled attack. Apparently, the man who shot them was also inspired by Charleston church killings, had written a suicide note and claimed he had been the victim of racist abuse. Although, the Daily Mail is privately owned and could reflect the views of it’s owners, I believed it was a trustworthy news article since it provided footage of the incident. This video clip showed how the event was aired live on TV and how the news reporters were suddenly taken air when they were shot. A shocked news reporter in the studio then slowly mentioned to the viewers that they were going to find out what happened. This was shockingly rare example which showed how the news could in fact create more news about itself, this is because the news story gained automatic attention and was shared by other news companies, as the Daily Mail shows.

I’ve also noticed that Daily Mail articles provide viewers to sign up, become users and share their opinions and views in the comments sections. This is an example of how people are free to express their views without restriction which can be negative, positive or collectively share a similar response as with the murder of the news reporters. However, an example of the owners of the news company having an impact on it’s viewers which reflects their views, is when they deny people the opportunity to leave comments on their articles because users may not necessarily say what they want them too. I also saw that the headlines have an impact on viewer’s responses, for example, if a negative headline is used, the majority of people may comment negative things which I believe is an effect of social desirability. However, due to freedom of speech and the usual democratic comment system the newspaper has to offer, people may also challenge the viewers represented by the newspaper.

The BBC one news channel also informed me of a very well-known news story which was about the Syrian refugees. Since the BBC are a public-service broadcaster I believe that news stories such as this don’t reflect the views of a certain person or group of people and instead is useful to educate everyone. For example, every day they mentioned a new insight into the catastrophic events the Syrian refugees were facing, like if they could travel, where they were travelling to, what decisions would be made by and which country to help them and let them stay in their countries.

I believe this is an example of how debates can be formed by viewers and how they can fit into different subcultures of beliefs. For example, some viewers may fit into a category that a country should help the Syrian refugees, whereas others may not. This again, is a reference to democracy and may result in people freely sharing their beliefs online. Again, social media therefore has the biggest impact I belief, since I also noticed Facebook also helped to spread news in connection with this story too. The image of the boy who had drowned was shared over and over again on my Facebook newsfeed. This was obviously a very emotive image and because there are so many Facebook users it was spread easily from person to person by them sharing it which informed people of the latest tragic event of the Syrian refugee crisis.

In conclusion, I believe the theorist Dan Gillmor who is the author of “We Media” and shared beliefs on democracy is correct. This is because he believed that “the spreading of news will occur” more frequently. As proven with my different examples, this is very much the case, since a news story can be spread all over the world, shared on different social media sites and online newspapers and then broadcast by thousands of TV news companies and printed in newspapers. Therefore people can easily access news stories more quickly and easily than ever before within seconds.

He also mentioned that there would be an increase in democracy. As a result of my analysis, I also believe this is the case overall. This is since it allows people to share news stories and share their opinions with ease and a fast speed too. These opinions could also influence others greatly, such as how I mentioned with the headlines newspapers create, but as a result of democracy and freedom of speech, I believe people can challenge other people’s views as well. I have therefore recognised technology has tremendously advanced and how it can significantly impact “We media” and democracy.