Marxism & Pluralism ''To What Extent..''

Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values. To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?

1)I do agree with Alain de Botton's views on the news to some extent in that the news is changing due to the media, by this I mean that the news is interpreted in different ways due to the media and links in with bias which I also agree with in that most likely there aren't two sided arguments to a news story.I believe that audiences are dis empowered by the developments in new and digital media to a large extent. 

2)You can link marxism and hegemony to Alain's criticisms of the news in that that broadcasting programmes such as BBC are bias, are not being fair and may give information that the viewers want this then allows them to get the power over other organisations due to their popularity because they don't not get paid by posting adverts.

3)The news now gives us many different platforms in which we can access the news whether its on the go or at home we can access the news at any time. This also allows us to get news that we want to hear and any type of news such as technology to sport news.

NDMS

Jennifer Lawrence: 'I will never get Twitter. The internet has scorned me'

This article is about Jennifer Lawrence stating that she is not active on social media, two months after nude pictures of her were leaked online.

• In an interview with BBC Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw, Lawrence was asked by a fan: “Why don’t you have Twitter and will you ever get it?” To which the star emphatically and quickly answered: “I will never get Twitter.” Sitting alongside her co-stars Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson, she elaborated: “I’m not very good on phones or technology. I can not really keep up with emails, so the idea of Twitter is so unthinkable to me. I don’t really understand what it is, it’s this weird enigma that people talk about. And it’s fine, I respect that, but no, I will never get a Twitter. “And if you ever see a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram that says it’s me; it most certainly is not”.

 I think that it is impossible for celebrities to fully avoid social media sites as they will always be a source of entertainment upon these platforms, however because jennifer lawrence is already so popular due to various films being released, she does not necessarily need to keep intact with her fans at the moment because she is almost always in the limelight at the moment. I think that as her career starts to slow down she may start to use social media to maintain a brand image. 

NDMS

Vine shifts from comedy clips to a valid journalistic tool

This article is about  Channel 4’s Alex Thomson filmed some emotive Vines about Ebola in Sierra Leone.

• Vine is mainly used for visual gags and comedy
• Vines have been used to report on stories from the riots in Ferguson  to and the Scottish referendum to last week’s student protests in London. 
• Thomson’s Vines from Sierra Leone caused a stir on Twitter.

I think that this new type of media (apart of Youtube) is finally getting used in a way. This could be great for more updates and breaking news and journalists should make a snapchat too because you can put text on the video or the time.

Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony

Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values. To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?

Audiences are empowered by user generated content for instance the Nina Gross who has tweeted as BBC question time for talking about the Alice gross story in a political aspect. Nine then tweeted stating for BBC to leave her family alone and allow them to be able to grieve without creating more drama and using the death as a gain in order to change or introduce new changes. BBC then later apologised.

Audiences are dis-empowered through music streaming services such as Spotify, as people like Taylor swift has taken her music of form the streaming service. This links to Marxism as Spotify want to control what audiences are listening to but Taylor Swift has taken her music away. This is limiting the control that spotify have therefore are showing that the power does not lie in big powerful companies. 

Audiences are dis-empowered by the likes of YouTube as content creators such as pewdiepie who has controlled and regulated the comment that are made on his video. He has the ability to be able to delete comments or to even block all comments from being made which is what he did. This is an example of how YouTube have given an illusion that the audience have power however this is not true.

NDMS

Spotify and Uber team up for in-car streaming music

This article is about customers of smartphone taxi app Uber will soon be able to stream music from Spotify during rides, after the two companies announced a partnership.

• Uber users who link their Spotify account to their Uber account can basically push a button and get a ride, and get into the car, and in the car their Spotify music, their Spotify station is playing
• The feature will be available in 10 cities: London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney and Toronto
• Spotify and Uber are holding launch parties on Friday 21 November in those cities, featuring artists including Andrew WK, Professor Green and Diplo.
• News of the partnership had leaked out over the weekend, after Uber sent invitations to journalists promising “a first-of-its-kind partnership”, complete with an illustration of musical notes.

I don't know if this is going to work as much as Uber and Spotify hope for because not everyone has spotify but Spotify is the leading company when it comes to streaming music .Youtube's new streaming music system comes out (Youtube Key), is this going to work? How would this make artists feel as people use stream to listen favourite songs instead of the radio as new artists produce new music and put on radio. 

NDMS

Uber executive apologises after suggesting the firm dig dirt on hostile journalists

This article was about the firm Uber, that was forced to apologise after a senior executive suggested the company hire a team of opposition researchers to dig up dirt on hostile journalists.

• Ian Osborne, the company’s head of business, Emil Michael, singled out Sarah Lacy, the editor of tech news site PandoDaily, as somebody who could be targeted by the researchers
• Michael has since released a statement saying that he believed the dinner was off the record
• While Lacy has long been a critic of Uber, she says that Michael’s comments demonstrate that “the company still has the ability to shock and horrify me”
• Lots of journalists and the public want Emil Michael fired.

I think that Uber should fire Emil Michael because people are not boycotting the app and at the end of the day Uber is a business that needs to make money.

NDMS

Spotify CEO speaks out on Taylor Swift albums removal: 'I'm really frustrated'

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/11/spotify-ceo-taylor-swift-albums-daniel-ek

This was about the CEO of Spotify making his first comment about the Taylor Swift situation.

• Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek has responded to Taylor Swift’s decision to remove her albums from the streaming service with a blog post tackling what he describes as the “myths” of streaming music.
• In his post, Ek announced that Spotify now has 50 million active users, with 12.5 million of them paying for a monthly subscription.
• He added that Spotify has now paid out more than $2bn in royalties to labels and publishers.
• Ek also defended Spotify’s “blend” of free and subscription music, with Swift having removed her albums because the company refused to only make them available to its paying subscribers.
• Ek also claimed that a top artist like Taylor Swift can expect to earn $6 a year from Spotify streams

I think what Taylor Swift and her label did was not clever.They were making a lot of money out of this online streaming system and if they don't like that - well they have too because thats were the music industry has gone to now. 

NDMS

Video games are not making us more violent, study shows

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/10/video-games-violent-study-finds

This article was is about Long-term research into homicide rates and depictions of violence in video games, movies and how they have no relationships with each other.

• The research mainly targeted 12-17 year olds.
• The research tool 20 years long
• The study concluded that playing video games coincided with a fall in violent crime perpetrated by those in the 12-17 age group.
• The research paper also questions the validity of previous studies into links between real-life and screened violence, which have largely relied on laboratory testing.

I think that article makes a lot of sense and this supports new technology which is quite rare in situation like this. 

Index

1. 16/09/2014 :Steve Jobs' office 
2.  23/09/2014: FIfa 15 review - not Flawless, but still the best football game.
3. 30/09/2017: Microsoft unveils Windows 10 not Windows 9
4. 21/10/2014: Taylor Swift Single out everywhere except UK
5. 4/11/2014: Oculus warns Sony to solve motion sickness before launch
6. 4/11/2014: Taylor Swift removes songs from Spotify
7. 11/11/2014: Video games are not making us more violent, study shows
8. 11/11/2014: Spotify CEO speaks out on Taylor Swift albums removal: "I'm really frustrated"
9. 18/11/2014: Uber executive apologises after suggesting the firm dig dirt on hostile journalists
10. 18/11/2014: Spotify and Uber team up for in-car streaming music

    
    

    
    

NDMS

Taylor Swift v Spotify: back catalogue removed from streaming services

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/03/taylor-swift-spotify-artists-discography-streaming-services

This article was about how Taylor Swift withheld her new album 1989 from music streaming services, and has now removed all her albums from Spotify.

• Swift and her label Big Machine Music have yet to comment
• Spotify broke the news in a blog post
•  Red’s tracks had been played more than 260m times on the service since the album was made available to stream in May 2013, eight months after it first went on sale
• Spotify have made it cleared that they want her back.

I think that this is very big news to anyone because she is so big in the music industry and nobody still knows why she took away her songs off Spotify, but this is all in the air right now because we haven't heard from Taylor Swift or her Label about this. 

NDMS

Oculus warns Sony to solve motion sickness before launching a VR headset

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/04/oculus-sony-motion-sickness-virtual-reality

This article was about the Facebook-owned Oculus Rift won't launch until it has solved motion-sickness problem and it warns Sony to solve it before the main headset it released.

• The chief executive of Facebook-owned virtual reality firm Oculus VR has warned rival Sony not to launch a VR headset until it has solved problems of motion sickness
• Oculus has grown from 50 people at the start of 2014 to more than 200 
• Iribe described VR as a “brand new industry… we’re just at the beginning
• Oculus boss said that since being bought for $2bn by Facebook earlier in the year, his company has focused on recruitment

I think that motion sickness is a problem that should be held before the headset is released to everyone. I think Sony have the money and resources to fix this problem as quick as possible because people have already seen popular gamers use it on YouTube.