News Apps

I rarelely use the Apple News App, but that is mainly because the notifications are automatic and unobtrusive so I don't feel the need to turn them off. I don't really use any News Apps because I'm not interested in current affairs or politics, and I can get information from friends as they use News Apps.

A Press Agency is an organisation that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news distributions such as;
Newspapers
Magazines
Radio broadcasters
Television broadcasters

Ideology - set of opinions, beliefs or vaules system of a particular group
Dominant ideologies are those held or accepted by the majority of people and these are very iftebn reinforced by those in power, including the news media

Mode-of-address - it's how a media product engages and speaks to its target audience, the formal and informal mode of address are present in many texts

Modes of address:
Teacher to pupil (instructional, used to educate audience)
Pupil to pupil (subject speaks to equals, informal manner, gossip magazines use this)
Parent to child (commanding and direct mode of address, literary device that shows a power structure)

Ok! Magazine:
Peer to peer
Uses lots of images and videos to explain topics
Short sentences and paragraphs, which gives a more verbal appearance - like a conversation between the reader and magazine
Informal langauge such as 'faced the boot', instead of formal language 'evicted'

BBC Website
Teacher to pupil
Also uses videos and images, but they are longer and more informative, and the captions are also informative
Proper terminology with no opinions - No reason was given for Mr Ragsdale's sacking. He has been replaced by Thomas Homan, the executive associate director of enforcement and removal. No opinions stated, just facts

Linguistic Conventions
Words and phrases used as part of a style or genre of journalism.

Colloquial terms:
Used in ordinary, familiar conversation, not formal

Why mode-of-address important in journalism?
Different target audiences respond differently to different modes of address, especially if the subject being discussed is serious or not (politics etc), so it is important to target an audience with a specific mode of address. For example, peer to peer is useful for targetting a C2DE demographic, as they are most likely to read celebrity gossip stories which this mode of address is effective in.

News Stories Examples

Top stories on 5 news sites:

BBC (broadsheet) - Government loses Brexit vote appeal - political

The Sun (tabloid) - Article 50 - political

The Daily Mail (tabloid) - Barack and Michelle Obama on holiday - celebrity gossip

The Times (broadsheet)- US urged UK to keep Trident failure secret - political

The Independent (broadsheet) - Court defies PM and hands Brexit power to government - political






https://outlook.office.com/owa/?realm=utcsheffield.org.uk&path=/attachmentlightbox

Homework - Report Introduction

Unit 7 LO1: Undestand the News Industry - Report

The news market covers a variety of mediums, with conglomerates often owning many subsidiaries in a variety of areas, as well as independent sources such as citizen journalism which operate in a variety of mediums as well.



The TV platform is host to many news broadcasters, which distribute a variety of information, with varying degrees of bias. For example, the BBC is an olitical news broadcaster as it doesn't show any political bias to anyone, and covers any worthwhile news regardless of subject. However, it focusses on worldwide news rather than the more sensational celebrity news often found on other stations. For example, Fox News, owned by News Corporation. This broadcaster focusses on celebrity news such, especially posts on social media by celebrities, and has an overtly right wing political bias.

The BBC also appears on a web platform to distribute news via articles and videos on their website and on social media. They focus on the same subjects on this platform as well, and also lack bias. Although many print distributors also have an online presence, such as the Telegraph or Guardian, websites such as the Huffington Post appear solely on the web. This service is largely impartial as well, but has articles on celebrity gossip etc. as it appears to a mass audience, which is more likely to happen on the web. This is due to technological convergence, as now everyone can access the internet and news at all times due to the interactive features of Web 2.0, web content often caters to a mass audience as many people will see it, so sensational stories are often used. The Huffington Post can be seen as evidence of this, as it's a company (owned by AOL) that acts as a news aggregate more than a newspaper, and uses citizen journalists, from blogs etc., to write articles. And also because, independent sources are also more common online, as it is very easy to distribute news and amass a large audience via social media (such as Facebook or Twitter, which is often used to amass a large following of people, as they are very popular) or blogging. This in an advantage that web has - stories can reach an audience, even if they don't usually read the publication, so they can reach a larger audience compared to print and TV platforms.

Using the web as a method for distributing media is effective in a number of ways. For example, as the internet is available to a large audience any news story is more likely to be spread, via social media, to others as a lot of people are likely to see it initially, which is more effective than print to spread information and reach a large audience. The ability to spread information easily, while often not going into detail or citing sources, can easily lead to Adorno and Horkheimer's Hyperdermic Syringe theory. This is because web media can easily create folk devils, which spread quickly through interactive web such as social media, so people are more likely to listen to the information as it will come from friends and 'trustworthy' sources, which is a negative effect of web media compared to other mediums.

Print is also a large platform in the news distribution market, with many newspapers delivering a variety of news. For example, the Times is a broadsheet newspaper which covers world news and political stories to attract a mainly ABC1 readership, as this demographic is most likely to be interested in this content. And it also has a right wing political bias, which these demographics are more likely to be a part of. This newspaper is part of News Corporation, and is used, along with its sister companies such as the Sunday Times, to offer a variety of information to appeal to a mass audience.

The Sun is a tabloid owned by News Corporation which also works in this way. It appeals to the C2DE audience as it primarily features celebrity gossip and uses sensational titles and text which appeals to this audience.

Although print rarely distributes to as large an audience as web stories, print has the advantage that stories can be much more detailed. This is because the audience that uses web content is more likely to want short, to the point stories without expansion, which the print does the opposite of. So print has the advantage of being able to go in depth with their stories, while web doesn't.

But these companies rarely gather news on their own. Companies such as Reuters gather information from their reporters etc., which they then sell to large conglomerates for them to use for news stories. This is because news aggregates such as Reuters rarely has a news distributor of their own, so they sell the news they find to people who will be willing to pay. Editors, who act as Gatekeepers for their companies, decide what news stories should be purchased and published, putting them in control of the news the public is exposed to.

This process does not happen for citizen journalism, however, as the stories sold are expensive and so can't be afforded by small or independent companies, which is a disadvantage of smaller companies as they can’t access the same content as larger companies. As a result, citizen journalists have to report on events locally, so they very rarely contribute to global news stories.



In conclusion, news in distributed in a variety of mediums to appeal to a variety of audiences, which conglomerates use to appear to as a large an audience as possible to make the maximum profit, but due to money constraints independent sources cannot do this to the extent as larger companies.

Homework - Comparing small news distributors to the BBC

BuzzFeed vs BBC

Trump’s Inaugural Concert Didn’t Fill The National Mall - BuzzFeed

Trump inauguration: President-elect pledges unity at concert - BBC

BuzzFeed talks specifically and at length regarding Trump's opinions about the event itself, going into details of the number of people attending and how he was incorrect in many of the statements he said, for example showing Obama's inauguration with 40,000 attendees, then showing Trump's with significantly less, proving his statement that the event was packed was wring. So BuzzFeed focusses on highlightinig opinions, rather than the facts like what happened at the event, which suggests sensationalism and a tabloid aspect.

In addition, BuzzFeed featured a whole section of the article dedicated to the Tweets of the public about the event, but only chose messages that encouraged their opinion, such as:The National Mall was sort of surreal today – a dappling of folks in red ball caps taking selfies at the Capitol but otherwise pretty empty.
— Jeffery Saddoris (@jefferysaddoris)

This can be seen as pushing their political bias, which was also seen through out the article, as they use messages and opinions from the public to encourage the notion that their opinion is the right one, encouraging other readers to also feel this way.

The BBC on the other hand didn't talk about the size or scale of the event at all. Instead, they highlighted what the President Elect said 'Donald Trump has pledged to unify America ', while only using numbers and reactions of the crowd to highlight and stress the point of the quote. This indicates that the BBC is more focussed on issues and political news, rather than personalities, and so has a more broadsheet appearance.

In contrast with BuzzFeed, the BBC shows a variety of facts, which can be seen as coming from both sides of the politcal spectrum, for example 'Mr Trump has asked about 50 senior Obama administration officials to stay on until they are replaced, spokesman Sean Spicer told a news conference.' This differs from BuzzFeed because no bias or opinion was stated, implicitely or explicitely, and other statements were also included to show other things both Obama and Trump had done.This is important, as showing the activities of both political parties caters to both political viewpoints, encouraging a mixed audience rather than BuzzFeed's encouragement to think one way.

Citizen Journalism

It's when citizens play an active role of collecting, reporting and analysing news and information

When members of the public, people who aren't paid to do it, create news articles and videos to express their views on current events and news. Can come from a variety of places, such as videos on Youtube and Vimeo, blogs. social media and appearing on talk shows such as Question Time.

It is important because it gives the public a chance to speak and say their opinion, which otherwise wouldn't be voiced as big news distributors usually reflect the opinions of the majority, not niche opinions. This is necessary, so people know that they're not alone in their opinion, and gives others the opportunity to hear other opinions and appreciate other points of view.


Dan Gillmor

Writes about citizen journalism, and observes that the public, through (mainly social) media such as Twitter access news before TV News and main channels of distribution. Also talks about how big media companies have massive control over how the population sees and discovers news, and discusses how we can take back some of this control, i.e. citizen journalism.

From his website:

The new project reflects my strong belief that we need turn media “consumers” into active (even activist) users instead of passive receptacles.

Two books he created:

We the Media

Mediactive - Trying to turn consumers into active participants in the collecting and distribution of news.

News Ownership

2 News Conglomerates:
News Corporation - FOX News, Sky News, The Times
Guardian Media Group - Guardian and Observer


Examples of possible political bias:

The Sun about Donald Trump

Uses positive and sensational language such as 'Day of the Donald' in the title, which hints at support for him, so a right wing bias.

The Guardian about Donald Trump and Theresa May

Doesn't show bias in the text, but chooses quotes from the expert that supports a left wing, anti Trump and May point of view, such as  “would-be dictator” who is “going to fail” about Trump.

LO1 - 10 News Providers (Different Mediums)

TV

ITV News
BBC News
Channel 4
Channel 5
CNN
Fox News
NBC
ABC News
Sky News
ESP News
CBS News
Al Jazeera

All parts of conglomerates, some from the same one (e.g. Fox and Sky in News Corp)

Radio

Similar to TV
Radio UK
Radio Today
TalkSport - Wireless Group (sports)
Classic FM
Apple Music
Capital FM - Global Media (celebrity gosisp)
Hallam FM - Bower Media (local news, celebrity gossip)

Print

Britain:

•Guardian (general news) – Guardian Media Group

•Telegraph (general news, broadsheet) – Freedom Communications

•Times, Sun - News Corp

USA:

•Wall Street Journal (focuses on business news, broadsheet), LA Times – News Corp

•USA Today – Gannett Company

•The Washington Post – Nash Holdings LLC

Australia:

Herald Sun (celebrity news and gossip, tabloid)

Tabloids - smaller and less serious, social, celebrity, sport

Broadsheet - larger, talks about more serious issues), politics

Web

Other main providers are big comglomerates, e.g. BBC, Sky etc.
Daily Mail becoming most accessed news site


Citizen Journalism
When non-professionals write news, e.g:
Huffington Post (less biased - plurality in the media)
BuzzFeed (gossip website) (owned by AOL - America Online)
Wired (technology)
Independent.co.uk

Social Media

Major Conglomerates also have social media accounts, to direct news straight to consumers, and to engage with the audience
Snapchat - Used by: Daily Mirror, Hallam FM, the Sun
Mainly funded through advertising, so commercial companies

Press Association

Gathers news, then sells is to other companies, operates primarily in the UK and Ireland

Getty Images

Stock image and footage company, collects and buys images to sell to consumers and companies

Reuters

Gathers global news and sells it to broadcasters