media guardian story

Incoming Observer editor John Mulholland has made his first appointment, hiring sister paper the Guardian's star columnist Catherine Bennett.

Bennett, who has worked at the Guardian since the early 1990s as a feature writer and then columnist in the G2 features section, will join the Observer in January.

Bennett: has worked at the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Times. Both titles are owned by Guardian News & Media, which also publishes the MediaGuardian website.

"This is a very exciting time to be joining the Observer, it's something new and I am really looking forward to working for John Mulholland," said Bennett. "I'm sorry to be leaving G2, having had a brilliant time there."

The hiring is Mulholland's first since the announcement in October that he would replace Roger Alton, who has edited the paper since 1998, at the end of the year.

Mulholland said: "Catherine Bennett is a fiercely intelligent and spirited columnist.

"I'm a huge fan and delighted that she is going to be both writing for the Observer and also contributing to discourse and debate on the paper at our weekly politics and leader conferences."

Bennett started her career at the now defunct magazine Honey before joining the Sunday Telegraph magazine as features editor.

She then worked at the Mail on Sunday as a reporter, Sunday Times as a feature writer, the Times as a feature writer and the Sunday Correspondent, which launched in 1989. She joined the Guardian after the Sunday paper folded one year later.

this story had other purporses,seems like it as it points out that the mail on sunday and sunday times are owned by the same company as the guardian, g2 and the guardian website. it just shows how an elite can control so much of the media, and even though bennett is moving ot a totally different paper, it is the sisiter paper of the guardian which therefore still control what she writes and what is published.

Blumler and Katz and me

Blumler + Katz (1974)

Why audience members might consume a text

4 main reasons suggested

• Diversion-as a route of escapism from reality

For myself, would be something like the Simpson’s, as it has nothing to do with reality and is a comedy therefore allows me to be easily diverted.

• Personal relationships-the audience uses the media for predominantly emotional interaction

Hmm I don’t tend to substitute my life with characters from the media

• Personal identity-constructing individual identity and characteristics from characters in the media

Erm I don’t really do that….O0O0O0O0O I would consider myself as ‘bitchy’ as Amanda from ugly Betty HAHAHA LOL I’m not that bitchy...I was joking lol :D

• Surveillance- informational programmes, such as the news…

Or a 3 minute gossip news on bubble hits called Glenda’s showbiz gossip LOL o I watch the weather OOOO I know a good one I read the newspaper!!!! I like the tube ones: D metro lite etc

Reception theory handout summary

• Extension of uses and gratifications, no text has one single meaning, therefore no one set of ideologies can be passed, down, audiences make their own interpretation

• Ignores context of everyday life, e.g. the mood someone’s in

• David Morley--- how media fits around the family and house.

Nationwide study in 1980 found 3 main types of reading

--dominant/hegemonic---preferred reading by creators

--negotiated---reader partly recognizes and agrees with the programmes values but modifies it in a way to best suit their interests

--Oppositional/counter hegemonic---reject preferred reading and adapts new interpretation

Uses and gratifications theory handout summary

• Expects the audience to be active in decision making.

• Also believes audience has a wide choice to choose from

• Blumler and Katz suggest 4 reasons why audiences may consume media texts : diversion, personal relationships, personal identity, surveillance

• Dennis mcquail had a more detailed breakdown of the blumler and Katz theory: information, learning, personal identity, integrations and social interaction, entertainment

• Richard kilborn suggested 7 main reasons for watching soaps: regular routine/reward, social interaction, individual needs, identification, escapism, moral/social issues, genre conventions

• Criticisms of U+G ----simplistic…we only have a choice of what’s on offer technically; we also may just watch a programme for the sake of it, at the end of the day.

checkpoints on the uses and gratifications and audience profiling

Uses and gratifications sheet Checkpoints

Checkpoint 1: what 4 motivations for choosing a text did Blumler and Katz suggest?

Diversion – a sort of escapism from reality

Personal relationships – substituting the media for reality. Watching hollyoaks and substituting it for personal relationships

Personal identity – creating their own identity from characters watched and perceived in the media.

Surveillance – information gathering. Watching the media for information purposes only.

Checkpoint 2: what is a cultural code?

Codes that are used to state and measure an audience. So can be social, age, sex, etc.

Audience and profiling checkpoints

Checkpoint 1: what is demographic profiling?

Grouping individuals into what they are….so gender age social class with complete disregard to opinions and lifestyle. Demographics can be age class gender geographical area economic status and religion

Checkpoint 2: what is psychographic profiling?

More in-depth audience grouping. Based on needs and desires, lifestyle etc.

Checkpoint 3: Why do you think advertisers create these niche nicknames?

Advertisers state these names for the niche audiences so they are recognized easily and are easier to define. These audiences are very specific and not jus a young male, it can be a high earning young professional single male. So it just defines a more specific audience.

media guardian story lost count of which 1

Metro 'set to overtake Mirror'

Free newspaper Metro is making in excess of £8m profit a year and will overtake the circulation of the Daily Mirror within 12 to 18 months, its managing director said today.

The national freesheet Metro, which is owned by Daily Mail parent company Associated Newspapers, boosted its distribution to 1,358,890 in October, an increase of 10.6% from the previous month. In contrast, the Daily Mirror, Britain's third biggest-selling daily, sold an average of 1,525,477 copies a day in October, a fall of 4.68% year on year.

Steve Auckland, the managing director of Associated Newspapers' free newspapers division, said today that Metro recently added 250,000 nationwide to its distribution and plans to further increase this in 12 to 18 months' time. During this period it would overtake the Mirror, he said. "We will do in this time either by us putting on copies or them losing copies," he added. "I think in the next 12 to 18 months." Auckland revealed that the free morning paper's annual profit - which is shared with its publishing partners around the country - was "slightly higher" than £8m a year.

He did not disclose details of the freesheet's planned expansion, but said it would include new geographic areas over and above its current 16 cities. However, it would not be signing deals with new distribution partners, he said. These include Associated's sister company Northcliffe, the Mirror's owner Trinity Mirror and MEN, part of the Guardian Media Group, owner of MediaGuardian.co.uk.

Auckland appeared to forecast that Associated would have to fight to retain its exclusive morning distribution contract on the London Underground when it expires in three years' time. "We can hand distribute if we need to," he said, suggesting that even if Associated lost the contract to use Tube dump bins, Metro would employ the expensive tactic of hiring people to distribute the freesheet each morning.

Auckland is also responsible for London afternoon freesheet London Lite, which is fighting News International's the London Paper. Auckland claimed that London Lite has a greater readership despite the paper's audited distribution trailing its rival by nearly 100,000 copies. London Lite's revenue has "exceeded expectations", but the paper was years away from making a profit, Auckland said. He expressed doubts about the London Paper's claim that it would move into profit in two years. "If they do that they are miracle workers," Auckland said. "We say that at Lite that will take us five years."

I chose to discuss this story because we have recently studied ownership problems within the media, and I thought this is a good way of understanding it. It’s significant because as virtually everyone reads newspapers, (whether they are bought or picked up on the tube) and this change in ownership and editing will affect what’s published therefore changing what we read into someone’s views and opinions. I think it’s a good way of metro to expand but as this is already happening with loads of other elites, it really doesn’t leave much choice for the audience, there are loads of newspapers out there but many of them carry the same ideology, this isn’t in the best interest of the consumer.

the effects theory checkpoints

Culture industry:
the media controls and and influences the culture within the societies, therefore the media almost makes the culture. this makes the audience seem passive and believe everything we see.mediation controls what we see therefore makes our culture.

Desensitised:
this is a slow process which allows audiences to be less sensitive towards a media text, for example a film like the clockwork orange which was i believe banned previously can now be aired on channel 4 without any hesitation, this makes the audience desensitised and not affected by the things in the film which were before seen as explicit

media guardian story

OK! To launch German edition
Ben Dowell Guardian Unlimited Friday November 16 2007
OK! Magazine is launching a German-language version of the title - its 14th international edition in just three years.
OK! Magazine: will appear in 16 countries with the launch of the German edition it will debut in the first half of 2008 in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland.
The magazine will be launched by a new company, OK! Verlag GmbH - a joint venture between OK!'s publisher Northern & Shell and the Klambt Group, one of Germany's oldest publishing companies.
"The German celebrity magazine market is showing very strong growth at the moment and having a German edition has long been an ambition of ours," said Christian Toksvig, the Northern & Shell international operations director.
"Klambt has successfully launched a new title this category in 2006 and has the necessary local know how to make the OK! Launch work."
Lars Rose, a managing partner of the Klambt Group which publishes more than 50 magazine titles in German, said: "OK! Is a proven concept worldwide and we're confident it will appeal to German readers and advertisers."
OK! Magazine is thought to have more than 30 million readers worldwide and, with the addition of the German edition, will now appear in 16 countries.
OK's most high-profile exclusives have included the weddings of David and Victoria Beckham, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher and, most recently, Eva Longoria and Tony Parker.
OK! Magazine is branching out worldwide allowing it to have a much larger readership and circulation. Having it global also increases chances of influencing the audience but only if they are passive and this could be in less literate countries. Overall this story is significant because this shows that the media conglomerates are taking over, all over the world. Even though OK! Magazine is known to publish exclusive interviews a lot of this can be misinterpreted and this will be broadcasted around the world. There is nothing wrong with OK! Doing this but it can lead to a hegemonic society.

weekly med guardian story.

Radiohead fans pay £2.90 for digital albumAlexandra ToppingWednesday November 7, 2007the Guardian
When Radiohead invited their fans to pay as much - or as little - as they liked for a digital download of their new album, In Rainbows, it was hailed as the beginning of a new era for the struggling record industry. So what then, were the ultimate value of the ground-breaking album and its test of the constraints of the digital age? Around £2.90, it would seem.
Research revealed yesterday that a mere 38% of people downloading the album were willing to part with anything at all. Two thirds paid only the 45p charge for handling, according to ComScore, a digital measurement group.
The company said the average amount that less frugal fans were willing to pay was still a paltry $6 (£2.90) - far below the price of a CD or the amount a digital album would cost to download from the Apple iTunes store.
During the first 29 days of October, 1.2 million people worldwide visited the In Rainbows site, with a significant percentage of visitors ultimately downloading the album. The study showed that 38% of global downloader’s of the album willingly paid to do so, with the remaining 62% choosing to pay nothing. The percentage downloading for free in the US (60%) is only marginally lower than in the rest of the world (64 %).
The Radiohead "honesty box" experiment has been closely watched by other artists, their record labels and management companies. It was widely seen as the most high-profile attempt yet to restructure the economics of a music industry struggling with the effects of digital piracy. Despite a booming live scene, CD sales are less profitable than ever thanks to increased competition and piracy.
Industry bodies have estimated that worldwide, people download 20 tracks illegally for every digital download they pay for, which may suggest Radiohead has surpassed most other artists in this particular experiment.

the media is selling out....for FREE.its madness. first of all i picked this story because i thought it stood out and was really shocking that they are literally giving albums away from free. what i don't understand is how are they supposed to make a profit out of this if people aren't buying the albums. Cd's have dropped their sales massively since the internet wth downloading and pirate coies of the discs.

ALAN RUSBRIDGER

Alan rusbridger is the editor for guardian he went to Cambridge University and received a BA in English and is also the executive editor for the observer. He started writing for the guardian in 1979 and was a reporter. He soon advanced to the level where he launched the g2 section of the guardian and guardian unlimited. He faced a lot of court cases against the guardian and soon saw the re-launch of the times and the independent by becoming a “Berliner” (slightly larger than A4). He is also a professor at Queen Mary’s. He’s also written 3 kids books.
“Unlike a traditional newspaper proprietor, the roles of the Scott Trust do not include influencing editorial content.” Rusbridger believes his actions and his work doesn’t influence anything but as editor he decides what goes in the paper and what doesn’t.
"Every other paper is looking at what the Guardian does online," said another panelist. This is influencing what other papers write in order to compete with the guardian which instinctively has an ideology passed through it.
"Five years ago, time was wasted listening to the deniers. Now there are very few, the nature of the problem has dawned on everyone."

the marxist pluralist game

As a pluralist I believe we have a diverse range of media texts to choose from (print/radio/internet/TV) we choose whether we watch read or believe something…we are not forced.

How can we choose what we watch because there is elite who controls what we do…Rupert Murdoch owns TV stations newspapers and is able to influence our opinion

Whilst this is true it is necessary to consider the extent of their influence. Google owns all the blog’s but does it impose any restrictions on the material it can publish? No it seems that whilst there is a single figure of authority his/her influence is extremely limited. This allows the theory of pluralism to flourish

We cannot rely on Google how do we know that other institutions pay Google to put their sites first as we search everything is influenced.

?

I agree with the comment above can’t think of nothing

No but if we don’t feed the audience with the ideologies and issues who will? If the audience chooses what they believe then they might be choosing the wrong method they feed-we read.

No people can read and watch and make up their own minds up. If you are intelligent enough you will be able to figure out what is corrupt.

If this was a debate this would be absolutely pathetic the arguments in this are so weak….LOL sorry guys but we as a class could do so much better. Media terminology…hardly anything there the only people that used a few terms are nemo and vishna… (Omg I think I sound like a teacher) erm yeah so much terminology like media literate, conglomerates, false consciousness, hegemony, active, passive no one even used the words Marxist or pluralist.
Had no use of theorists gramsci adorno althusser etc. we have talked about these in lesson…we cant rely on 4 people from our class on our media debate… we need practice…Mr bush I think we should use our lessons more productively and you should make us debate because the arguments are quite weak. (Omg especially if nilz isn’t going to be there LOL) erm yeah ISA RSA hypodermic needle and uses and gratifications…and we need to stop saying I AGREE because in debates you don’t agree LOOOL okey dokey I think I’m done LOL

HW MUCH OF A PLURALIST AM I?

(Even though I believe I am more of a Marxist than I am a pluralist, which makes me sound pessimistic LOL I swear down Marxist sounds like sum random rude swear word LOL )
As a pluralist I believe that as individuals and specific audiences we pick what we watch as we have a diverse range of programmes to watch or not watch. We have different media texts to pick from, from moving texts (TV) to radio to the internet to the newspaper (print). We are an active audience and have choices, many people don’t watch big brother because they may think it’s a waste of time, but m ay watch something educational like a wildlife programme or the news channels. Overall we have so much to choose from. As we have become much more media literate and educated we know if something has a message behind it, we won’t believe it. When we realise that someone’s trying to brainwash (like George bush and America) we don’t believe it. As individuals we know the difference between right and wrong. The media is just a fourth estate which is only there to inform the public like the news.

MEDIA GUARDIAN STORY

The BBC will screen live Football League matches from 2009 for the first time since the foundation of the Premier League after striking a joint deal with Sky that will bring 10 live Championship matches a year and the Carling Cup final to terrestrial television. The three-year deal worth £264m is a major boost for the Football League, which has more than doubled its TV rights revenue and will enjoy the increased exposure brought by terrestrial coverage. Sky will screen 65 exclusively live league matches every year, the play-offs including all three finals, the first five rounds of the Carling Cup and the Johnstone's Paints Trophy.
As well as the Carling Cup final the BBC will also have live coverage of one leg from each of the semi-finals, and show a weekly Football League highlights programme. The corporation has also secured broadband rights which it will promote via its regional website network. For the BBC the deal helps fill the yawning gap in its sports schedules left by the loss of England and FA Cup football to Setanta and ITV. It does however appear to go against the corporation's stated aim of focusing solely on "crown jewel" events in the sporting schedule. The Football League chairman Lord Mawhinney said: "We are delighted to be continuing our strong partnership with Sky Sports and are excited by the prospect of working closely with the BBC. I am grateful to them both for their recognition of the value that the Football League brings to the football marketplace. "Over the last few years the League's standing has been enhanced, both commercially and competitively, as we have delivered real football for real fans. This deal recognizes that fact: £88m a year coupled with unparalleled coverage on Sky and the BBC will provide a fantastic boost to Football League clubs and their supporters." Vic Wakeling, the managing director of Sky Sports, said: "We shall be covering at least 95 live matches each season from all Football League competitions - including all the play-off semis and finals - under this new agreement, and are delighted to be so deeply involved yet again in a competition which continues to attract a growing audience at every level. The fans love what they see, and so do we." Roger Mosey, director of BBC Sport, added: "We're delighted to be entering a partnership with the Football League. This adds to our football portfolio of Match of the Day, Euro 2008 and the World Cups of 2010 and 2014. The agreement is a terrific development in the way we work with Football League clubs across England and Wales - bringing fans the best action across our range of services."
Here the story is about sky and BBC buying the rights to show football live on TV. The deal was met at 264 million pounds which is agreed by sky to be paid for 3 years of football. The BBC is also in on the deal to show highlights of the matches, and this is building up on BBC’s portfolio of football programmes. However I’m not too sure if this is an educating programme, so that BBC should receive their license they are aiming more to just entertain it doesn’t have a real educational factor to it.
I think that SKY and BBC have invested a lot of money into this sports sector and it’s making money for the football leagues but is costing a lot for BBC especially as they are funded by the license which WE as viewers pay. But I don’t think its right that a large amount of that goes to buying football matches.