Year 13 Class Work Thursday November 16th

Pick one Media Debate and post information about it, texts to illustrate it, and theories that support it.    Write one paragraph summarising what the debate is all about and what your research suggests to you. 

Homework Friday November 17th  -   prepare a case study answer to this question by posting the information you will need to answer it onto your blog: 

To what extent do the products in your case study suggest that digital communication is now the main form of communication for institutions and audiences? 

Year 12 Creative response to a text:

Research a magazine aimed at teenagers and then write a magazine article in the style of that magazine about a topic to do with films.

It might be an interview with a film star, an article about women in film, an article about technology in film.  You decide!  Create it on publisher or post it, along with images, directly onto your blog.

Year 13 Homework for this week.

1.  Comment on someone else's answer for either of the questions we have done in class this week.

2.  Write out 10 bullet points, with examples, to the following question:

Do you believe that there should be more control over social Media?

Read the following article first and refer to it in your bullet points. 

A new internet age? Web users turn on 'trolls'

Two recent online 'outings' suggest that attitudes towards online anonymity may have shifted

• 

Amanda Todd killed herself, apparently as a result of years of cyberbullying

When mourners arrived at the peace park in Maple Ridge, Vancouver, to pay tribute to Amanda Todd this week, few could have realised quite how widely the effects of the 15-year-old's death were being felt.

News of her suicide, apparently as a result of years of cyberbullying, provoked the internet vigilante group Anonymous to reveal the personal details of the man it says tormented her under an online pseudonym.

It came in the same week that an American journalist outed the real-life identity of one of the "biggest trolls on the web" as Michael Brutsch, a man accused of posting sexualised images of underage girls and graphic images of domestic violence on Reddit, the hugely popular open-source website now considered so influential it recently hosted a question and answer session with Barack Obama.

Does this represent a turning point in the history of the web, when the cloak of anonymity was torn away from internet trolls?
"This has been a wake-up call to the people who participate in these online communities to really think through what their responsibilities are," said Zeynep Tufekci, of the centre for information technology policy at Princeton University. The events surrounding the exposure of Brutsch's identity, as well as that of Todd's alleged tormentor, represent a sea change, according to Tufekci. "People are realising they cannot afford to have this 'live and let live' ethos to what is posted on their site. I feel like this is a social movement on a par with the Arab spring."

Brutsch, 49, was outed as a prolifically offensive user of Reddit. Under the user name Violentacrez, he habitually published pictures of underage girls in a now defunct section called Jailbait. As well as creating forums under the names Chokeabitch, Niggerjailbait and Incest, Violentacrez was also responsible for the reviled Creepshot series, which published images of women and girls taken without their consent.

A number of recent cases in the UK and Europe have brought to light a growing division in public opinion over the murky boundary between offensive online behaviour and freedom of speech. This month a Yorkshire man who posted an offensive Facebook message following the deaths of six British soldiers was given a community order. In July, a Welsh teenager was arrested after sending abusive tweets to the Olympic diver Tom Daley, but charges were later dropped.

Adrian Chen, the journalist who exposed Brutsch, came under instant criticism from Reddit's moderators when the story broke. "We stand for free speech," said Reddit's Yishan Wong. "We are not going to ban distasteful subreddits [subsections]." But Chen, who works for Gawker, says the response to his story elsewhere has been "overwhelmingly positive".

"I thought there would be more of a backlash about the story, but people really are willing to accept that anonymity is not a given on the internet and if people use pseudonyms to publish sexualised images of women without their consent, and of underage girls, then there's not really a legitimate claim to privacy," Chen told the Guardian.

Aleks Krotoski, author of the forthcoming book Untangling the Web: What the Internet is Doing to You, believes we are entering a new phase of the internet age, one in which trolls can no longer pretend they are not part of the real world. "The rise of Facebook and Google ushered in an enormous number of people who hadn't previously used the web, and this has seen a shift in attitudes towards anonymity. Ten years ago people were used to having many different personas – at work, at home, with their friends.

"During this time, fewer people used the internet and anonymity was the norm. Now that most people have an online identity on Facebook or the like, anonymity is regarded with suspicion and associated with hackers, abusive commentators and scammers." A recent example involved a man who called himself David Rose, inventing a life online as a deaf man with quadriplegia. His Dave on Wheels blog attracted a devoted audience, but soon after it became an internet hit, Dave "died". His fans were left bereft, doubly so when the entire episode was revealed to have been faked, allegedly by a 53-year-old man from San Francisco.

"People themselves are becoming less and less inclined to be anonymous online because it is now associated with bad behaviour," said Krotoski.
Chen is keen to highlight a crucial difference in the way the man at the centre of the Amanda Todd case was outed and the story that unfolded around Michael Brutsch. "What Anonymous did by outing this guy was invite a mob response, which is no more responsible than abusing someone online in the first place," said Chen, who investigated Brutsch for many months before confronting him and Reddit. He pointed out that attacking a website which provides the structure for depravity and non-consensual sexualised imagery is very different from inviting the world to attack an individual whose guilt has not been proven. The Vancouver man named by Anonymous has denied responsibilty for the bullying.
Wendy Grossman, a technology specialist who sits on the Open Rights Group committee, pointed to other dangers if anonymity online is undermined: Outing Michael Brutsch is absolutely justified for public interest. But the Todd case is clearly complex. Say, for example, Amanda Todd had used a pseudonym to seek help from a women's forum online because she already felt too vulnerable to use her real name. She would have been entitled to that privacy."
Krotoski agreed. "Privacy is crucial to human development," she said, "but it is more and more scarce now that so much of the general population is online. But what these last few weeks show us is that we're entering a new phase of understanding about what is and isn't acceptable

New and digital media offers media institutions different ways of reaching audiences.

Consider how and why media institutions are using these techniques. (48 marks)

• Media can use the internet to you interact with their audience, to promote or improve their film or to get feedback. 
• Can reach a younger audience as there are lots of teenagers on the internet. 
• You can target teens by advertising on facebook, Twitter, youtube.  (EXAMPLE)
• Allows more people to access what institutions want us to see.
• Different platforms can be used to promote a film for example APPS (EXAMPLE) 
• Faster to communicate with audiences.
• Mass promotion between institutions - teaming up to promote something.
• Niche and specific audience. 
• Customers can be made to feel special, like a priority.
• Audience can access the media at any time because of the availability of the internet. 
• E4+1 anmd dejavu - audiences are more up to date.
• Audience have freedom.
• 'The audience narrative has changed as they are able to enjoy a very specific diet of programmes or films that they are interested in.'
• Can access MEdia anytime anywhere and therefore people are able to see new promotions etc immedietly.
• Direct interaction with fanbase eg:  email subscriptions.
• online services  - version online.
• Love Film - promotions offered to entice customers in. 
• Once customers are signed up for something, their details are there for institutions. 
• Websites are becoming more advanced in their ways of interacting with consumers. (EXAMPLE)

New and digital media offers media institutions different ways of reaching audiences.
Consider how and why media institutions are using these techniques. (48 marks)

To connect, to create, to share creativity or thought, to discuss, to collaborate, to form
groups or to combine with others in mutual interests or passions. If you can’t see the
point of any of those things, you will not see the point of Facebook.’
(www.guardian.co.uk)
What opportunities and/or disadvantages do new and digital media have for audiences?(48 marks

New and digital media has offered significant advantages and disadvantages for audiences, and in the last 20 years the advances that is has made have resulted in society being connected in a way that it never has been before.  I am going to write with a focus on how new and digital media have impacted on the film industry audience, and what sorts of opportunities it has offered them.

One advantage that new and digital media offers film audiences is the chance to see things that are more technologically advanced, for example 3D and HD offer the audience a different and perhaps more exciting experience.  IMAX screenings of the new Bond film were booked out almost 3 months in advance for its' opening weekend, and Skyfall took £53.4 million in its' first 10 days:  a record that beat the previous winner The Dark Knight Rises.  Audiences go to the cinema to be entertained and to escape, and IMAX offers them this on a different level.

Audiences are able to interact with other members of the public more reguarly and in more depth now, and whereas previously discussions about films would be between friends and would take place in person, they now take place on the internet.  Youtube offers a forum for fans to discuss (U+G social interaction) and find out what other people think, and under trailers fans often contribute their thoughts and engage in debates and discussions about ideas.  For example, people commented on how 'awesome' Taken 2 was, and two people had begun a conversation about it and a discussion about which was better, Taken 1 or Taken 2.  In essence, this is an example of free marketing, as the audiences themselves are chatting about the films and therefore are likely to go on to have real conversations about it, or to post something on a social media site where likeminded people would also be keen to watch it.  Interestingly, in this same example, one person had gone on to post a site where you could watch the entire leaked film.  This exposes a disadvantage of new and digitla media as it means people can view films online and illegally and therefore could mean that people don't pay to go and see it at the cinema, which could have a negative impact on its' takings. 

Access to Media is now much easier, and this makes watching films and trailers much easier.  People are able to download films or to sign up to companies such as 'Love Film' and they never have to leave their homes to visit a shop to rent or buy a DVD if they don't want to!  This is obviously an advantage for audiences as it means they can be more flexibile and they can acquire films more easily.  This is also a disadvtange as it impacts on shops and businesses and means that audiences miss out on human contact in some way.

This is a key disadvtange of new and digital Media:  it means that audiences no longer need to have contact with anyone, ever, at any point.  This means that they are able to live a life encased in their own world, and to create any persona for themselves, and interact with people on a daily basis, whilst never actually meeting up with anyone.  The dangers of this are clear as it means that people sometimes believe that they can act in any way that they please and are able to say whatever they want.   Internet trolls have become more and more present in recent years and this is largely due to people believing that the internet is a kind of cloak over who they really are.  Therefore whilst the internet has offered a certain amount of freedom to audiences and has given them more power to interact with the things that they love and meet new people, it has also given people the power to be anyone that they want, and this can be a dangerous thing. 

To connect, to create, to share creativity or thought, to discuss, to collaborate, to form
groups or to combine with others in mutual interests or passions. If you can’t see the
point of any of those things, you will not see the point of Facebook.’
(www.guardian.co.uk)
What opportunities and/or disadvantages do new and digital media have for audiences?(48 marks)

Advantages

1. Easier for the regular person to voice their opinion.  For example with trailers and comments on youtube.  SPECIFIC EXAMPLE FROM YOUR CASE STUDY.
2. find out information more easily eg:  views, trivia, information about the films.  For example, wikapedia articles.  IMDB for miscellaneous information. 
3. You can share your life with people.  For example on Twitter and with photos.  Social interaction and discussion.
4. Validation of your existence and self esteem booster.
5. if you want to be famous it's easier.
6. You can share your interests and meet other people who have the same passions as you.  youtube posting comments back and forth.  Vital BMX - so people with a similar niche interest can easily find groups of likeminded people. 
7. For some people they may see it  as freedom to act in a way that they want and to be able to say what they want.   Gives people confidence because they can be anyone that they want.
8. Allows another platform to access Media - you can watch things on the internet more easily.