Media Studies Blog 1

John Oliver on journalism British comedian John Oliver presents a show called Last Week Tonight on HBO in America. In a previous episode, he put together a report on the decline of journalism in America and its replacement by 'clickbait' stories rather than real news. Watch it here: Clay Shirky on news: don’t build a paywall around a public good Clay Shirky is a professor at NYU (New York University) and a worldwide expert on digital and social media. He's a named media theorist for A Level Media and he makes a compelling argument for the role news plays in society. Interestingly, he argues against paywalls - the subscription model that some newspapers use to make money in the digital age - and says that news is a 'public good' that is vital in a healthy democracy.  Blog tasks Go to the  Nieman Lab webpage (part of Harvard university) and watch the video of Clay Shirky presenting to Harvard students . The video is also available on YouTube below but the Nieman

Lindsay Lohan punched in the face after she tries to take refugee  She was out in Moscow and saw what seemed to be a homeless family on the streets who she says are "Syrian refugees" and she said she as "really worried about" them. She offers to take them two young sons to a hotel to watch a film because they should not be on the streets. The mother rejects her offer and then Lindsay Lohan tells the mother that she "should be doing what [she] can for [her] children, so they have a better life". The family then gather their belongings and walk away from Lindsay, when she then shouts to the boys "I won'y leave until I take you" and she tells the adults "Now I know who you are. Don't f*** with me".  She accuses the couple of child trafficking, she shouts "You're taking these children, they want to go. I'm with you boys, don't worry, the whole world is seeing this right now." After a little whil

Model in the picture on the let claims that Cristiano Ronaldo raped her in 2009  Kathryn Mayorga, a 34-year-old teacher who had dreams of becoming a model at the time she says she was raped says that Cristiano Renaldo had raped her in a bathroom in a hotel suite (Las Vegas). After he had raped her she claims that he said  'sorry, I'm usually a gentleman'.  Cristiano Ronaldo spoke upon the situation on an Instagram video saying : ‘No, no, no, no, no. What they said today? Fake, fake news', ‘They want to promote [themselves by using] my name.' The situation was taken to court by Kathryn Mayorga and unfortunately she says that she was left with suicidal thoughts after. Is this soft news or hard news? I feel as if this has features from both hard and soft news seeing as it is about a celebrity which is soft and involves gossip however it also involves the accusation of a very serious crime which is hard news News Values: Elite Nations or

Jeremy Corbyn would back a second Brexit referendum if Labour  activists   support it After there had been a people's vote march outside the Labour conference venue,  Jeremy  Corbyn supported the idea of a second referendum 100%. He stated that he was " bound by the democracy"  on the Brexit negotiations. His party are in favour of a second vote  which implies that he is listening to what the people want. A survey was taken and resulted in 86% of Labour members wanting a referendum Jeremy Corbyn states that he would much rather prefer a general election over a referendum. Is this soft news or hard news? This is hard news seeing as it is about politics and this is a serious subject which could affect many peoples life. This will appeal to an audience (especially people affected by Brexit) seeing as they also have an opinion and some people may be in favour of a second referendum or very much against this idea. Surveillance: P

British boxer is banned from the ring after inducing drug addict to punch stranger in the face in return for some crack cocaine. The professional British boxer, aged 29, thought it was amusing to make a drug addict punch a stranger in the face and act like he was a paedophile. At first the boxer asked the drug addict to do inappropriate favours to his friend in order for the "crack worth £150" and then he told her to harm the innocent passer by. The woman did exactly what she was told which angered the innocent stranger, thinking she would get her drugs, Billy Joe Saunders drives off. This lead to him being banned from boxing and he is also under police investigation seeing as he claimed to have Class A drugs in his possession. The boxer wrote on Twitter that the video was only banter and that he "cant do anything but be sorry" .  This is an example of soft news seeing as it is nothing life changing to everyone and it is more to do with the interest o

The death of print media is a critical contemporary media debate. It is highly relevant to our work both on magazines ( Men's Health  and  Oh Comely ) as well as the current topic of newspapers. Complete the blog tasks below linked to the useful Media Factsheet 165: The death of print media. The death of print media: Factsheet blog tasks Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 165: The death of print media . Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks: 1) What has happened to print media in the last 30 years? New digital media has become so useful to us which has made the print media industry decline dramatically leaving it at a very bad place seeing as it is not used enough. 2) Why is the  Independent  newspaper such a good case study for the decline in print media? At its peak during the late 90s, the Independent generally

Our next topic is newspapers: an industry that has changed hugely in the last 20 years due to the impact of the internet. In the lesson, we looked at the history of the newspaper and some key terminology we need to learn: Newspapers: hard and soft news Newspapers cover a range of stories that are generally divided into two categories: Hard news :  stories related to current affairs, politics, economics, wars and other serious news. Soft news :  stories related to entertainment, sport, celebrities, gossip, scandal and human interest/lifestyle topics. Newspapers: tabloid and broadsheet Newspapers were traditionally available in two sizes: tabloid and broadsheet. Today, most newspapers are in the smaller broadsheet size but the terms are still used to describe the style of paper: Tabloid :  focusing largely on soft news, famous examples include the Sun and the Mirror. Generally read by more working class audience. Mid-market tabloids are a middle ground betwe

“No online news sources are entirely trust worthy” In my opinion I feel that most online news sources are not very reliable because they all have competition with each other to get more and more people than the other. This could cause some online news sources to exaggerate and add onto to stories so it seems much more exciting for an reader to want to see and this would lead to an audience believing a piece of information which is not accurate. Another problem cause by competition could be that they would rush to release a news story so that they can be the first news source with a certain story however this could mean that the story has not properly been investigated and they have not had enough time to find out the facts about the story.