This week was about the public media, whose mission is to 'serve or engage a public'. One thing that struck me this week was the idea that public media may be for profit as long as its ultimate goal is to serve the public (so any profit they make usually gets put back into making more documentaries, quality news). My interaction with public media in my lifetime has honestly been rather minimal (except for watching ABC cartoons in the afternoon as a kid). However, throughout this course I have started to respect and even enjoy stations such as the ABC and SBS and their productions. My favourite radio station is now Triple J, especially their science questions section.
Anyway, public media should have public value. We were given the BBC definition in the lecture, which states that it "should embed a public service ethos, have value for licence fee money, weigh public value against market impact, and have public consultation", or in other words, serve the public and keep society involved in the production of media. In serving the public it needs to be accessible to everyone geographically, in terms of being appealing and providing for minorities (whether it be ethnic or religious needs), and it cannot be biased towards a certain idea (politically, religiously, racially etc). My favourite however though is the idea that public media should liberate rather than restrict broadcasters, because the only people they have to answer to is the public. I feel as if though the public media suffers because of this: they can't be biased politically, however they rely on government funding to survive, so no wonder they find money difficult to come about.
Bruce then talked about the functions of public media, which include 'nation building' (things such as Anzac Day broadcasting), talking about our national heritage, reflecting our national identity and keeping up with the 'national conversations' so things such as sport that the country is talking about etc. Because they are not their purely for entertainment or profit value, they do miss out on a lot of audiences, and I think if people were more aware of the difference between commercial and public media they would respect public media a bit more and get involved.
Bruce explained that channels such as the ABC are trying to get 'groovy' - they are trying to make themselves relevant in today's society by producing quality media, engaging with the democratic process and being independent of any outside influences. Again these goals are tricky when they are funded by the government, however they need to keep in mind that they aren't owned by the government, but rather by the people (society, us).
This was a good lecture that really made me think about the role of public media, and supporting them a bit more in producing media that is free from pressures put on them by a company that owns them.
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Another blog review
One of the blogs that I like to visit often is Fat Mum Slim who is an Australian blogger living in Sydney. She talks a bit about her daughter and other personal things in her life, but I really enjoy her tips on blogging and the practical advice she gives. Simple things such as the most effective blogs have light backgrounds, rather than dark. Or talking about the 'rule of thirds' when taking photos. I have often applied her advice to my own blogging to try and improve page views. It is definitely a blog I would advise checking out, especially if you are a blogger yourself!
Lecture 4 - pictures!
I really enjoyed this lecture! It was about telling stories with the use of pictures. It is definitely a kind of journalism that has become more predominant in our society thanks to digital imaging and the internet.
In the lecture, Bruce talked about the origins of pictures and the importance of picture stories in history. Things such as Aboriginal cave drawings, which have existed for thousands of years and contribute to building a clearer picture of our country's history. It makes me think - are people going to look back in hundreds of years time and look in awe at the pictures that we took? (Thinking about some people's Facebook profile pictures, probably not)
Another amazing this now is how instant photos are. A news story can be created within minutes and include pictures and video straight away thanks to digital media. However, with this idea of digital imaging come issues such as digital manipulation. Photo shopping photos not only creates an inaccurate depiction of events that have occurred, but is harmful to impressionable teenagers when they manipulate photos of female celebrities to make their beauty seem even more unattainable. I think digital manipulation to the extent of fundamentally changing the whole look of a photo is wrong and there should be laws in place to stop this happening.
Another thing that new technology has brought to the media is digital publishing - so being able to download magazines on your iPad for example. It is such an easy way of creating media, and means that simple things like newspapers and magazines are now interactive. As you are 'flipping' through your magazine ads can pop up, you can click on certain words you don't understand and find the definition for it, you can click on something in a magazine that you would like to buy and it will take you to a website where you can do this. It really is amazing and very visually aesthetic.
However, with all the fantastic things that come with digital imaging and publishing, there seems to be a lack of good quality photos in the news. I'm glad that Bruce talked about what makes a good photo in our lecture. This including things such as: framing, focus, the angle and point of view, exposure (light), timing (shutter speed), and being able to "capture the moment". The last one is the 'rule of thirds', which I had actually heard about previously here (and which she then discussed on her blog yesterday). I hadn't really considered the other aspects though, and have since been trying to incorporate them into my photo taking to improve the quality of them. Similar principles apply to moving pictures, which is something I want to experiment a bit more with. So all in all, I found this lecture to be really engaging and had so many practical principles that I am going to make use of!
In the lecture, Bruce talked about the origins of pictures and the importance of picture stories in history. Things such as Aboriginal cave drawings, which have existed for thousands of years and contribute to building a clearer picture of our country's history. It makes me think - are people going to look back in hundreds of years time and look in awe at the pictures that we took? (Thinking about some people's Facebook profile pictures, probably not)
Another amazing this now is how instant photos are. A news story can be created within minutes and include pictures and video straight away thanks to digital media. However, with this idea of digital imaging come issues such as digital manipulation. Photo shopping photos not only creates an inaccurate depiction of events that have occurred, but is harmful to impressionable teenagers when they manipulate photos of female celebrities to make their beauty seem even more unattainable. I think digital manipulation to the extent of fundamentally changing the whole look of a photo is wrong and there should be laws in place to stop this happening.
Another thing that new technology has brought to the media is digital publishing - so being able to download magazines on your iPad for example. It is such an easy way of creating media, and means that simple things like newspapers and magazines are now interactive. As you are 'flipping' through your magazine ads can pop up, you can click on certain words you don't understand and find the definition for it, you can click on something in a magazine that you would like to buy and it will take you to a website where you can do this. It really is amazing and very visually aesthetic.
However, with all the fantastic things that come with digital imaging and publishing, there seems to be a lack of good quality photos in the news. I'm glad that Bruce talked about what makes a good photo in our lecture. This including things such as: framing, focus, the angle and point of view, exposure (light), timing (shutter speed), and being able to "capture the moment". The last one is the 'rule of thirds', which I had actually heard about previously here (and which she then discussed on her blog yesterday). I hadn't really considered the other aspects though, and have since been trying to incorporate them into my photo taking to improve the quality of them. Similar principles apply to moving pictures, which is something I want to experiment a bit more with. So all in all, I found this lecture to be really engaging and had so many practical principles that I am going to make use of!
week 6 lecture - Commercial Media
This week was about commercial media which includes TV channels such as 7,9,10, Go, Gem, 7Two, 7Mate... you get the picture. Commercial media is media that is run for profit, and either survives or fails depending on business success. Basically, without an audience to take in the information and be exposed to the advertising, it would fail. It comes in three main forms: subscription, sponsored or subsidised. How I understand it: Foxtel, advertising or government funding. Because it is heavily sponsored, it's main functions include propaganda (think Fox news) and delivering news and information to the mass quickly. I mean, let's be honest, people are far more likely to watch channel 9 news than the ABC, purely for it's entertainment value.
Bruce then talked about social responsibility of the media in a democracy, which calls for media to be:
- truthful, comprehensive and an accurate depiction of the day's news
- a forum for the exchange of debate
- an accurate representation of society
- to give the public full access to 'the day's intelligence', so keeping politicians honest
I feel as if in commercial media a lot of this social responsibility is lost or neglected, despite the fact that there are legal implications for ignoring their responsibility. One example that Bruce gave where legal principles were applied was the issue with Kyle Sandilands, who is now bound by ACMA to say nothing that may be deemed offensive to women or girls.
This idea that I discussed was then gone on to be described by Bruce, who explained that with commercial media focussing on advertising and sales, and social media being an editorial forum, what occurs is an 'Ethical Wall' between the two (like the separation of church and state in a political sense).
Even though I believe that commercial media can neglect it's social responsibility, I understand it has other functions that serve society well. One we learnt about was that commercial media aims to reduce the temptations of a monopoly within the media, where all the news and information that a country gets does not just come from the one source. However, this isn't really happening in Australia, as a large percentage of news is owned by Murdoch, and the supply of news should not be tainted by money or power. This is possibly why the style of commercial media was described in the lecture as corrupt, lacking quality and lacking social responsibility, which in turn results in this "dumbing down" theory or "Mickey Mouse news": the more entertaining (and perhaps less factual) the news is, the bigger audience they are likely to attract, which means money for the news companies.
Some challenges of commercial media talked about in the lecture were ideas that I had not thought about prior to starting this course. The fact that there is a "fragmentation of the audience", and different channels are becoming more and more specific to smaller groups of people makes it difficult to attract large audiences and the kind of profit that the larger companies want. This also attributes to this "dumbing down" theory, as there is less money for quality production which results in cheap, nasty reality TV shows for example.
I quite enjoyed this lecture. It made me think about a lot of the issues that exist in commercial media that need to be either stopped or fixed. For example the monopolisation of Australian news. Hopefully over the next few years other commercial media companies will have the opportunity to create more of the media that we consume as society, to create better quality media and a more equal view of the whole of Australia.
Bruce then talked about social responsibility of the media in a democracy, which calls for media to be:
- truthful, comprehensive and an accurate depiction of the day's news
- a forum for the exchange of debate
- an accurate representation of society
- to give the public full access to 'the day's intelligence', so keeping politicians honest
I feel as if in commercial media a lot of this social responsibility is lost or neglected, despite the fact that there are legal implications for ignoring their responsibility. One example that Bruce gave where legal principles were applied was the issue with Kyle Sandilands, who is now bound by ACMA to say nothing that may be deemed offensive to women or girls.
This idea that I discussed was then gone on to be described by Bruce, who explained that with commercial media focussing on advertising and sales, and social media being an editorial forum, what occurs is an 'Ethical Wall' between the two (like the separation of church and state in a political sense).
Even though I believe that commercial media can neglect it's social responsibility, I understand it has other functions that serve society well. One we learnt about was that commercial media aims to reduce the temptations of a monopoly within the media, where all the news and information that a country gets does not just come from the one source. However, this isn't really happening in Australia, as a large percentage of news is owned by Murdoch, and the supply of news should not be tainted by money or power. This is possibly why the style of commercial media was described in the lecture as corrupt, lacking quality and lacking social responsibility, which in turn results in this "dumbing down" theory or "Mickey Mouse news": the more entertaining (and perhaps less factual) the news is, the bigger audience they are likely to attract, which means money for the news companies.
Some challenges of commercial media talked about in the lecture were ideas that I had not thought about prior to starting this course. The fact that there is a "fragmentation of the audience", and different channels are becoming more and more specific to smaller groups of people makes it difficult to attract large audiences and the kind of profit that the larger companies want. This also attributes to this "dumbing down" theory, as there is less money for quality production which results in cheap, nasty reality TV shows for example.
I quite enjoyed this lecture. It made me think about a lot of the issues that exist in commercial media that need to be either stopped or fixed. For example the monopolisation of Australian news. Hopefully over the next few years other commercial media companies will have the opportunity to create more of the media that we consume as society, to create better quality media and a more equal view of the whole of Australia.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)