All American Muslim - Advertisers and Representation

The American TV market is much more aggressively commercial than in Britain but this story illustrates how advertisers can potentially exert pressure on broadcasters to represent different communities in a particular way.  It also shows the power of the web and social media in both the creation of reaction to this storm.  Read the attached BBC article (link embedded in title of post) and google "All American Muslim" for more.  There's a lot more to this story than I can write here. Explore for yourself.

Putting It All Together - Social Media and News Reporting

 

Riot Cleaner Flashmob (Photo courtesy Guardian/Matt Dunham/AP)

 Pete Fraser's blog is a great place to start when thinking about the impact of social ("We") media on news reporting and consumption.  He focuses particularly on the events of Summer 2011 but all of the ideas are relevant to most contemporary news story.  Go read now and get a jump on the We Media unit.

Can being 'networked' really change the world?

If you haven't been watching Adam Curtis's excellent new series "All Watched Over by Machine's of Loving Grace" - BBC2 Mondays at 9pm - you should try to catch up on iPlayer (click on title above).  In tonight's episode he questions the thinking that underlies much of the belief that the internet will make us free and change the world for the better. If you can't cope with the whole doc, at least watch the last 20 mins of episode 2 where he looks at what has happened in the post Soviet nations and like Georgia after their 'internet organised' revolutions had promised great change and democracy.

Will our virtual and real selves merge?

Click on the title above to find out more about the possibilities of Web 3.0.  What effect would the merging of our virtual and real selves have on our democratic rights?  Think Minority Report!

Journalism - the internet effect

As promised, click on the title above to read Aleks Krotoski's article on the effect of the internet on journalistic practices.  There are some really useful qoutes and pieces of evidence in here that you could use in your answer.

What motivates Facebook's modesty?

The New York Times has an interesting article about Facebook's reluctance to acknowledge its part in the popular protests in Tunisia and Egypt. It seems that fears that other regimes, like that in Syria, may curtail the service are behind their modesty. It's well worth a read as it raises interesting questions about how a business can help to promote social change. As we were reading today, Marxist critics, like Adorno and Horkeimer, wondered whether the media industry, as part of the capitalist establishment, can really promote change.

We Media , Social Media, Whatjamacallit Media...

I just came across this video which is full of statistics that should get you thinking about how profound the impact of social media is. It seems to be authored by Erik Qualman who's written a book called Socialnomics, exploring the impact of social media.