Weekly New and Digital Homework

Germany leads fightback against fake news

There was a story in Germany reported by Breitbart that a mob attacked the oldest church in the country, St Reinold's Church in Dortmund. In a subsequent article, the publisher admitted that St Reinold's actually isn't the oldest church in Germany. Fake news. Anas Modamani, a 19-year-old Syrian took a selfie with Angela Merkel and as it went viral, so too did the false claim that he was a terrorist. Fake news. Stories like this are now being used in a way that they help fulfil an agenda, in this case an anti-Islamist one, that is both divisive and just a complete misrepresentation of true events. Measures to prevent stories from disseminating though, have already been established. In Germany, Facebook employ independent, young fact-checkers part of a newsroom called Correctiv. 

I think from this story, it's clear that both the United States and Britain could take some pointers from Germany on how to combat fake news. Social media is the main territory where this news spreads, so by establishing fact-checkers within some of them like Facebook, it's a lot harder for these kind of articles to travel. However it'll have to be seen whether or not the country will be able to keep this up come election time as this is likely when stories of this nature will be at their peak.

Weekly New and Digital Homework

09/01/17 - The Sun losses exceed £60m as ad slump and hacking charges take toll (36)

Recently, it has seemed like Rupert Murdoch's The Sun just hasn't been able to catch a break. In 2016, they saw losses of more than £60 million. Although in 2015 they were at £79m, amounts like this are still huge. Contributors to it are declines in print advertising, redundancy costs and also phone-hacking charges which almost seem like they'll never leave the paper alone. How huge these losses are can be displayed particularly effective when you pit the paper against The Times. They reported a (pretax) loss of £5m in 2015 to the 3rd of July, mainly due to redundancy restructuring costs. Revenue for The Sun has also a drop of £10m, with a decline in print advertising not being able to be offset by other areas e.g. the paywall on its website (now no longer in place).

• The Sun made a loss of more than £60m last year as steep declines in print advertising, redundancy costs and phone-hacking charges battered the tabloid
• Times reported a pretax loss of £5m in the year to 3 July, down from a profit of £8.8m in 2015
• The Sun fared significantly worse, notching up a pretax loss of £62.8m for the same period last year
• The Sun narrowed its losses (£79m in 2015), mainly due to a significant reduction in charges relating to legal claims and costs relating to phone hacking
• The Sun also spent £14.8m on one-off restructuring costs and significantly boosted sales and marketing spend, from £55m to £75.9m
• Total revenues fell from £456m to £446m as a steep decline in print advertising failed to be offset by income from other areas
• The Sun said it had made £16m in profit last year, almost half the £29m in 2015
• Total revenues barely budged year-on-year, dropping from £342.5m to £341.6m
• Times Newspapers Limited, said there was a “solid” performance in print sales income, which grew to 182,000
• The Times spent almost £33m on sales and marketing last year

It'll be interesting how exactly The Sun deal with these losses this year. The introduction of a paywall definitely didn't work to be able to offset this, so what exactly will is unknown at the time. Perhaps the paper will eventually decide to take the approach of The Independent, being online only and perhaps prioritising digital media over the print counterpart and embrace more interactivity between the consumers and the paper.

Weekly New and Digital Homework

14/11/16 - Mark Zuckerberg rejects 'crazy idea' Facebook influenced US election result (19)

Post the US presidential election on November 8th, Facebook has come under fire for having fake stories which supposedly influenced the vote to encourage more of the electorate to vote for Donald Trump. While Mark Zuckerberg the co-founder of Facebook denied these claims putting votes down to the 'lived experience' of each voter, it's been said that the algorithmic approach that Facebook has to displaying stories is to blame here. A 'filter bubble,' is created in which people only get to see news stories which reflect their same views and ideologies. Zuckerberg though, has responded to this saying that it's not that the social network doesn't show users stories that differ from their views, but rather the users just don't click on them and that there's a 'diversity of information' that exists on Facebook which is something traditional media simply can't replicate.

With all the allegations that there have been regarding the role of Facebook in the election, I believe it really is time for them to change their approach to displaying stories. The algorithmic method began causing controversy a few weeks ago, however it's surprising that it's even being suggested as a contributor the election result. And while it may also be true that audiences just don't click on these stories and create their own filter bubble of news, perhaps these more oppositional news pieces need to be presented in a much clearer manner.

Weekly New and Digital Homework

                 Snapchat rising: is the youthful app headed for Facebook-sized success?

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/02/snapchat-evan-spiegel-growth-facebook-ipo-analysis

Summary:

Snap Inc ave out together paperwork that holds and interest in public offering. This in turn will value the company between 20bn-25bn (billion), making it one of the biggest technological offerings in recent years. In the early years of the apps creation, it was being used as a platform for users to send nude pictures. They believed that the ability to have a non-trackable online record when posting, allowed users to be more honest about themselves. 

Own view: 

I do believe that Snapchat is worth a lot, but didn't seem to expect it to be worth so much- $20 billion. This shows how the unniqueness and gap in the market of an app has revolutionised the social media market place. Something that was used for selfies and blown up and reached tens of thousands of users, creating a platform for a new experience. 

Weekly New and Digital Homework

Denzel Washington schools journalists everywhere with response to red carpet 'fake news' question

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/denzel-washington-fences-red-carpet-interview-fake-news-media-a7472521.html

Summary:

He states that when one reads a news paper they are mis-informed, if they don't on the other hand, they are un-informed. Denzel Washington comes out to speak his mind regarding the recent outbreak of fake news stories. He has come up with his perception and theory of why such things are happening. 

Statistics:

• No stats

Own view:

The strive and goals that such businesses had was to provide society with information, however it has changed tremendously since then and is now more of a competitive field rather than a priority. I believe that Denzel Washington's view on the fake news outbreak is true to a large extent. Institutions are seeing this platform as a competition to see who can publish the story 'first' rather than being factual and pure truthful information. 

Weekly New and Digital Homework

                  Snapchat shares soar 44% to value loss-making company at $28bn

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/02/snapchat-ipo-valuation-evan-spiegel-bobby-murphy-snap-inc

Summary:

Snapchat had been valued at $28 bn, where the stock market closed the price per share for Snapchat was $26.05 a piece. This had resulted in investors feeling more comfortable with Snapchat's ability to 'push'a new generation of successful firms.  

Statistics:

• it reached $26.05 and a market value of $29.1bn
• 158 million people use the service each day and create 2.5bn “snaps” between them
• Growth has slowed recently (to “just” 48% year-on-year) 
• the company’s share price rose 41% from its guide price of $17 a share to an opening price of $24

Own view:

It seems that Snapchat is the future of both tech as well as social media. It has rather become the centre of the picture and seems to have taken Facebook's place. Snapchat is now aiming to become a bigger tech firm with all the revenue/profits it is making, which in turn can allow it to compete with other conglomerates such as Google.

Weekly New and Digital Homework

Friends’ pictures on social media have biggest impact on body image

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/05/friends-pictures-on-social-media-biggest-impact-body-image

Summary:

The academics will be publishing a magazine for schools to teach young people on how to react to posts and comments on social media, which are aimed to harm their self-esteem. Academics found that young women are likely to compare images of themselves amongst their peers rather than celebrities. Women are also more likely to diet and do exercise when negative comparisons take place on sites such as Facebook or Instagram.

Statistics:

• Around 70% of women aged 18 to 35 regularly edit their images before posting them
• The study, which questioned about 150 young women who completed five daily surveys over a five-day period

Own view:

The bigger picture is, for what intention? Is it for their own health? Or is it for their social media portrayal, to aim and get as many likes, comments and followers as possible? This desire of sorts has become the norm, as social media such as Instagram are filled with this type of content. Their has also been a notice of this form of content, and has been subjected to a meme. The influence that the internet has on people's lives has now gone to the next level; it is changing the way are seen as well as the ways their live their lives. This is apparent through largely social media, where numerous posts of young people and adults surround the content with their body, showing their curves or muscles.