Assessment

I'm defiantly not a person who finds interest in the news I find it boring and I'd much rather watching anything else in all honesty, but that's on TV. When it came to doing our summer work we had to note down what news we heard and where we heard it. In my results none of the news stories I heard were off TV, however seeing the news stories which I did hear and where from surprised me.

Most families after a long day of work or school come together at night to enjoy their dinner together and the majority of these families will have the TV playing in the back ground possibly with the news on. I know I used to. However, as my life's changed due to me being at school till six at night some days or I start work at five before my mums even gets home or my brother getting his own house so there's less of us, sitting down having a family meal just doesn't happen anymore. And until now as I've had to address how I find my news, I thought that watching the news at tea time with my family had a large role in the way I found out news. However, as I did my research over the summer it didn't! I imagine yes if I took the time to watch the news I would find out more news much quicker then I possibly do but it wasn't essential.

One of the main media outputs I used to gather my news was by the radio, this surprised me as I was expecting this to be by social media but that was my second way of finding out. I feel like if I had done my research before the summer this would have been the other way around however as I passed my driving test at the beginning of summer I've been listening to the radio in my car therefore hearing the news more. This shows how the change in lifestyle just from walking to school and work to driving has affected my media usage. Whenever listening to the radio news you can’t just listen to the headline you have to just listen to what the presenter is saying whether that’s the headline the main story line or the whole thing. News stories which I heard from the radio such as the next royal baby on the way, and another hurricane in America these stories I can’t imagine that the radio would make up stories like this, and the majority of radios tell the same news so I believe their news is trust worthy. The news stories you mainly heard on the radio are there to make people aware of what’s happening around them it’s not usually gossip or shocking news but to make people of the outer world.

The second most common way of me finding my news was through social media which was expected as I use Facebook and Snap-chat every day. Yes! Sometimes my news feed is full of rubbish or funny videos but when I began my research I started to notice a lot of news does come up on my feed. Through the summer I noticed both news off a news company such as BBC news or SKY news came up frequently or some unknown sites had news popping up in my news feed. News from SKY and BBC I find trust worthy because like BBC they are paid by tax payers meaning they have a duty to tell the world real news. Unlike SKY who could bend the truth to their will because they don’t have a legal duty to tell the truth. With the websites that aren’t well-known or just random things that pop up you can’t really trust them because it could just be gossip or a way to target reputations, such as trying to ruin a person’s reputation by starting a rumor using young, gullible minds. Through the summer I saw news stories on Facebook such as the breakup of Angelina and Brad this could have been false to draw attention to the couple however, it was then confirmed through magazines and the radio. Sometimes the news comes up on my news feed which is shared by my friends on Facebook, which means I wouldn’t have seen it without them sharing it. This is just another way that news found its way to my attention.

Since being back as school we were given the task to download the BBC News app to see if it affects the way we find our news and media usage. The result to this wasn’t surprising to me because I knew that using this app would increase my awareness of the news because as I said at the beginning of this assessment I don’t use my time to watch news. So having this app, which allowed me to select what type of news I was more interested than others. Now with this app I find news out as soon as its reveled to the public and my phone alerts me to these new stories, this makes find out the news easier and faster because it goes straight to my phone and I know its reliable facts as it’s the BBC. However, because I see the headlines I never feel the need to click on them and read into them more, which I feel indicates that even though I have better access to the news and it’s much easier it doesn’t affect the way I feel about news as it doesn’t make me any more interested than before.

Overall, the way I find my news is very modern, rather social media or radio or possibly their new BBC app however this doesn’t affect my point of view on news .However, it does show even if someone like me who finds no interest in the news still somehow is effected by it.

Exam Question - We Media

I don’t watch or read the news on a daily basis and therefore don’t keep up to date with the main news stories at the time. I would say that the main time that I would really read past the headline would be at the weekend in the newspapers that my grandparents have, usually ‘The Derbyshire Times’ or ‘The Daily Mail’, however, the stories that I usually read are not major news stories. I read the articles about crime, celebrities and the many other weird and wonderful articles that appear; this is because this appeals to me and isn’t too heavy and therefore not as depressing or upsetting as some of the other major news stories. These sources of news are, in my opinion, trusted as they’re available to the to the wider public and they don’t have algorithms like the news websites and social media do which means that the news more unbiased and I have access to everything, not just what my interests usually are. Recently I have also downloaded the BBC News app and therefore can access the news that I’m interested in quickly and easily. 

When I downloaded the BBC News app I enabled the ‘My News’ feature which allowed me to filter the news that I see and the main story that repeatedly appeared was centred on music gigs, media and health because this is what interests me; I like to keep up to date with the gigs to know who’s cancelled and what artists are planning. Many of the stories that I found daily were based around the ‘Foo Fighters’ but again, I rarely read past the headline as Foo Fighters are not a band that I am particularly interested in. This app has a feature where I can choose the things that I see through the ‘My News’ feature whereas social media platforms and other websites learn what you like to see using cookies etc. which worries me as computers start to learn what I like and the internet can adapt the search results to suit me. To me, news stories that come to my attention through social media are not always true and I am more cautious of what parts of the story that I believe and trust as fake news gets shared around the internet on a daily basis, like the death of a celebrity who hasn’t been in the spotlight as much as they used to, forcing them to come out of ‘hiding’ to prove that the story is a hoax. Each time a new news story that I may be interested in becomes available on the app, I get a notification on my phone telling me the main headline, this also happen when a breaking news story appears making me more likely to read the whole article. 

Over the summer I followed a couple of major news headlines that I came across on the internet, the headline was what made me want to read, however, they do often have “click-baiting” headlines to exaggerate the story and increase the chance of readers clicking the link, ultimately earning the corporation’s ad revenue. One of the stories that interested me in particular was the death of Sir Bruce Forsyth at the age of 89. I found this article particularly nice to read considering that it was based on a death; it was full of plans that people had to remember Bruce, including the BBC through a dance tribute during the first episode of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ as he was the show’s host for years and was also a dancer himself, and the memories that people had with him that would last forever. This news was something that people wanted to share to make sure that everyone was aware of this tragic loss, many tributes were made to him and others sent their condolences to the family that Bruce had left behind. I trusted that this story wasn’t a hoax like many others before it as it was broadcast on TV news as well as TV programmes, social media pages were making tributes of his ‘best moments’ as well as the established news social media pages, it was the main headline on many newspaper covers and everyone knew about it. 

Another news story that took my interest was from the ‘Washington Post’, it was about the arrest of a nurse at work who refused to draw blood from an unconscious patient without a warrant; I read this article in depth and loosely followed the story as it progressed. The patient was involved in a car accident and so the police wanted to draw blood to make sure that they were investigating every aspect of the crash but the officers were told that to draw blood from someone who was unable to consent at the time, they would need a warrant or formal consent to get it, colleagues told him that they would pursue another strategy. When Nurse Alex Wubbels held her ground based on the hospital’s policy, Payne (one of the officers) dragged her screaming from the hospital in handcuffs and held her in a police car outside of the hospital. This only escalated from here as the district attorney asked the FBI to look into possible civil rights violations. This was a news story that people wanted to spread to show the police brutality in some areas of America; others stories like this have previously been shared through the means of social media and that was the only way to get the victim justice. At first I was wary of whether to trust this story or not as I came across it on Facebook in the form of a video and many fake news stories circulate around social media as people can misinterpret video footage and only get one side of the story, but as the story developed and became more popular, I began to see more and more articles on the story in both internet form and newspaper form which led me to trust both the article and the source.

What have you learned about your own media use and how you access news content?

Generally I don't look at the news very often, if at all really. the main way I'll see a headline is if it is shared on social media, or if I'm notified by the news app on my phone.

There are lots of news organisations all over social media which share information straight from there own website through links. This could lead a large audience to enter their website and would then create more income for the company. Social media, such as Facebook, is a growing source for news to be published and read. Lots of people sharing the same article will spread it around the whole of Facebook through friends and their friends. However there are also downsides to this as some pages tend to share clickbait stories which are fake and only there to create controversy. Lots of pages are sharing this type of content lately, such as UniLad or Ladbible, which is why I only ever read into headlines published by big news companies such as the BBC news or Sky news. If they are not from well known news companies then I usually suspect it to be fake or unreliable.

One story which I had seen over the past few weeks was that North Korea had tested ballistic missiles by firing them over japan. This was published by The BBC which are a trusted source for real news and not fake. In the article, it has statements from the president of America, Donald Trump, and from the North Korean ambassador, Han Tae-song, to the UN. This story was widely published along different forms of media which shows its severity and how we should all take notice of it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41078187

For me, I discover the breaking stories from the Iphone news app which notifies me every time a new article is published by the big news companies. I found out about all of the tension in North Korea through this app as it shares all the major headlines from the biggest news companies and displays them in one place. This is one of the main ways in which the younger generations will get their news as they don't watch news programs like the older generations did. More and more people each day are changing to access new news online as it has wider accessibility and can be updates as soon as a key event happens.

There are endless capabilities to how much news will be available to us at our fingertips but will always be fake articles published on forms of social media. On the BBC news app, you can filter the news to just show you the areas you want such as; Sports, Technology, The E.U, Brexit and so on. This filters all of the news that you aren't interested in and makes it more specific to you. This also cancels out all of the 'clickbait' or 'fake news' as this is all published and checked by the BBC who's aims are to 'inform, educate and entertain'. Them wishing to 'inform' us shows that they would need lots of members of the company to constantly be doing research and getting the most in-depth understanding of recent and new events.

What have you learned about your own media use and how you access news content?

Reflecting on your research from the summer and from the BBC news app: what have you learned about your own media use and how you access news content?

As somebody who very rarely reads/watches the news through means other than social media. My findings over the summer really demonstrated to me how social media platforms can target the news and viewpoints individuals are interested in and make sure that they only see these types of posts.

Most of what is considered “mainstream news” that I read is from the Daily Mail and the BBC’s Facebook pages. Although I consider both these sources reliable, they do often have “click-baiting” headlines to exaggerate the story and increase the chance of readers clicking the link, ultimately earning the corporation’s ad revenue. The rest of my news intake either comes from posts shared on Facebook or Twitter, videos posted about certain subjects on YouTube or from the android news app Flipboard that gives me a highlights notification daily, however unless I am specifically interested I very rarely read past the headline.

Over the summer holidays I followed the news loosely, my main interests being in the growing tensions between North Korea, America and Japan. I tended to read the entire article on posts about this but ignored the waffle and repetition Daily Mail put in their online articles to try and increase readership times. As the summer developed I became interested in the McGregor – Mayweather fight and began reading the daily rumours and articles on the subject, this lead to some issues of bogus articles claiming the fight was cancelled as one of the fighters had been found to be taking a supplement. However most of these articles were actually just to advertise the supplement by highlighting the “massive gains” and “minimal effort” they required.

While reading my daily news posts, for about a week the top headline I kept receiving was “Big Ben won’t sound for four years!” which suggested to me that there must not be any real news to report if that was the most important story three days running, this demonstrated to me just how much content aggregator’s and author’s algorithms are capable of working out which stories will get their sites the most viewership as after clicking on the app I could see stories that were much more meaningful and important to me, they just weren’t being selected for the apps notification as they weren’t deemed as “read worthy” or appealing to Flipboard’s consumers.

Another issue I have with online news distribution is the reliability of the sources, a lot of the posts I see on my Facebook timeline are either sponsored posts from miniscule news networks I’ve never heard of or from pages such as Lad Bible and UniLad who don’t even bother to cite their sources 90% of the time. Even big name companies such as the BBC, Daily Mail Online and The Guardian use click baiting titles and often questionable article content that often seems like a bent version of the truth. Due to this, I struggle to trust the majority of posts I read online especially with the idea that an algorithm is learning more and more about me to only display me posts I’ll be interested in. The idea of this does cause some concern in my opinion as it seems already there are less and less people with different opinions to me online.

What have you learned about your media use and how you access news content?

I have learnt that I tend to read a variety of news stories and I usually access them either online or by watching a news story on TV. I tend to read news articles on the BBC news app, watching the BBC news bulletin, articles written by The Times, The Guardian or that are on the Sky News channel. The types of news articles I read about are usually to do with entertainment, politics, world news or local news.

One news story that I saw over the summer was about North Korea and the missile tests. I saw this story on Sky News and saw it was being updated regularly which led me to believe that it was mostly accurate because they were bringing in new information as it came in rather than waiting and only giving certain information. The story spoke about how North Korea was threatening to send a missile to Guam which is linking to the US which meant Donald Trump was getting involved causing controversy. This story was widely reported on across various media platforms including the BBC channel, Channel 4 news, in online newspapers and was also discussed on various panel based satirical shows.

Another story I read over the summer was about the Barcelona terror attack. I first heard about this attack on the radio whilst I was in the car and when I got home I looked it up on the BBC News app where it was under breaking news and was being regularly updated as more information about the location of the attack, who was involved and how many people had been injured came in. I believe that the BBC is a trustworthy source of information because the BBC is funded by the taxpayer meaning it must give accurate and unbiased information. I chose to use the app to find the information on the attack because I find that the app is simple to use, is regularly updated and convenient as having an app for the news is simpler than having to search a website for a news story.

Using the BBC news app’s ‘My News’ feature, one of the topics I chose to have filtered for me is UK politics. From reading the stories that the app suggests for me I believe there is an equal amount about both the labour party and about the conservatives showing them both in positive and negative lights though majority of the stories in the news at the moment to do with politics are negative. Personally, if the headline interests me I will go onto read the whole story because I want to know more. However, if the headline doesn’t interest me or if the headline is explanatory about what the article will be about I might scroll past.

I watch the news every morning before I go to school. I watch BBC Breakfast because there is a section on local news. I watch this with my family so the stories that appear during the broadcast I normally discuss with them. I personally do not have social media sites such as Facebook where people are sharing news stories with their friends. Because of this I don’t share the news stories I read with other people the way a lot of other people my age would. Instead I choose to discuss news stories with people in person because I believe that online, through a comments section for example, people can express their opinions and people take what they’ve said the wrong way, they can be offensive or they could completely misread what the article is saying and make a comment without even really knowing what they’re talking about.

I use the Apple News app more often than I use the BBC news app purely because it offers a range of online newspapers including the BBC. I like using the Apple News app because through Cookies it learns the kind of articles I would be interested in reading and suggests articles for me on TV shows it's learnt that I watch and on other things I may be interested in such as politics, media and technology. Through this app I then choose which online news articles I want to read based on who they are and what they’re talking about. For example, I would read an article on Brexit if it was written by the BBC but I wouldn’t really read one written by the Sun because I believe it to be less reliable and more about just getting people to read the article. Also I might avoid reading a political article written by Sky News because of the idea that it might be biased because of the political opinions of the owner Rupert Murdoch.

What I have learned about through my own media use and how I access the new content

In these past few weeks especially over the summer, I have taken much more of an interest in the news and the sources in which I gain knowledge in regards to news and current affairs/ happenings all around the world and this is due to reading ‘We Media’ and Democracy.  However, I have always taken an interest in regards to keeping up to date with the latest news.

I have a very active lifestyle and am often on the go which means I very rarely get the chance to sit down at home and watch the news via the TV which is why the development of news apps means I can get the latest news to my iPhone which allows me to stay knowledgable about the happenings within the news yet still maintain my desired lifestyle.  Many of the information I gather in regards to the news is via the BBC news app which I downloaded to my phone.  The BBC is a proffered choice in source of mine as i believe like many others it to be a very trustworthy source and provides me with impartial view points as it is a public service and is funded by license fees.  The impartial views are increasingly important to me especially in regards to politics and Brexit as it will be something which will affect me massively and I will be eligible to vote in the next election or even referendum, so its essential I know the facts from all parties before making such a colossal decision which will be sure to affect my future.  Also in regards to using the BBC news app it means that I am able to choose what type of news information I get alerted about or the relevant articles appear; for example I opted to receive news about: Sports, World, Politics, Brexit and UK current events.

However, I also use some not so trustworthy sources of which I use in order to gain my news and this is via Social Medias following/ liking pages such as The LAD Bible.  This particular page can be very informative yet in a light hearted manner which can sometimes make particular articles a much more enjoyable read and can be less daunting, as one of my main reasons for not reading some of the news is due to the content striking fear into me which can sometimes affect the way i judge/ react to certain situations, so in that respect I believe that sometimes not knowing is the better option.  However The LAD Bible makes the more serious, devastating and fearful news less scary by turning it into a bit of a joke, but, this is not the case all of the time, they still use some very reliable and informative sources in order to relay the information back to us readers.  Despite following the more reliable pages on social media due to the cookies I use and media 3.0 I receive/ see many relevant news articles to my interests or my viewpoints on a particular subject which can then provide me with false information and false articles.  For example an article that appeared on my twitter feed and one that I viewed was quite clearly fake in regards to the information is was providing me with (article: 

http://southendnewsnetwork.com/news/prince-george-sent-home-on-first-day-of-school-for-wearing-wrong-trousers/ )It was more humorous than truthful due to quotations they used to exaggerate the article. They often use provocative headlines as clickbait in order to reach their existing and new audiences. In my opinion I think this works on a lot of people, especially my very close friends who fall for these sort of things every time! Despite me knowing this article wasn't genuine it still made me share it with my friends as I found it rather humorous, showing that the clickbait does work. This makes me wary of news articles which are on social media as they aren’t trusted compared to news providers such as the BBC.

This idea that we are using more social medias to gather our news instead of what Dan Gillmor calls ‘Big Media’ supports his idea that the development in media is allowing for more perspectives to be heard which in turn makes the media more democratic and representative of the people.  Which explains why there is such a shift in the way we gather our news content through new and more accessible mediums.

As I mentioned earlier I am often out of the house so the programmes that I do want to see often means I have to record them so that I can watch them at a more convenient time where I can sit down and fully engage with the programme, however, this means that during the commercial breaks where news is often talked about I just fast forward straight past them so that I can immediately resume watching my programme, which can result in me missing very important headlines which I later discover at a later date, which isn’t always ideal especially if it is something that will have a direct affect in regards to me.

Overall, I think that its pretty evident that there are multiple ways of gathering the news via the ever expanding media links, granted, some more reliable than others; but each individual has there own proffered method and for people amongst differing generations will be more ‘stuck in there ways’ in regards to how they access the news.  I myself have my preferred methods which works well for me and ties in well with my lifestyle, which is very much so a win win situation for myself, so I intend on sticking to my methods.  Such as using the BBC news app and vaguely relying on information that circulates around social medias as the more news circulates the more people that have the opportunity to change/ twist things in various different ways which can often lead to the retention of false news.

Exam Question

'We Media' and democracy

There is a large variety of different ways people access the news, for example, newspapers, tv, radio, online articles and smart phone applications via social media. The newspaper 'The Sun' is the most popular newspaper, however through some research it is evident that the older generation are buying newspapers and the generation today are interested in technology a lot more, therefore the popular newspapers 'The Guardian' and 'The Daily Mail' can also be viewed online. I access the news mainly through my mobile phone, this is because it is easy access and there is a hypersonic way of disseminating therefore the news travels a lot faster through the technology, however social media sites such as Facebook often display news contents although its not always genuine. Personally I don't watch the news or read a newspaper, however I do look on news articles online on my phone or read articles on social media networks such as Facebook however I do look in to whether its trusted or not.

I also view the news on my phone on the BBC news app, and i have selected topics I am interested in which makes it more engaging when I read through it, for example a few of the topics I have picked are 'mobile phones, children and social network' this refreshes my news feed so I can read the news which I am interested in reading. There is a danger of reading the news online as people always get into the trap where they believe the news content its almost like Chinese whispers but online.

Recently the main headlines on the news are the hurricane in Miami and Florida, North Korea, and Brexit these news events are not the most engaging topics, however it is still important that everyone should know what is happening around the world. The North Korea news event about the bomb, indicates that the bomb could be set off at any time and there could be another war, however no one actually knows the truth on the news as no one has been in contact with North Korea therefore this implies we shouldn't rely on everything we see and read on the internet. I accessed this news from the BBC news app which is on my phone this is easy to access but also because these news events are large, i have seen them on newspaper covers,on the TV and also on social media apps.

The 3rd royal baby is shared information, therefore its found on social media a lot and a lot of people have discussed it around the world.I found this information from the news on TV and the newspaper and heard it on the radio, This makes people feel happy for them and some people decide to name their own children after the name of the royal baby therefore its a popular event.

In my opinion i think that people have started relying too much on the internet rather than newspapers, It is evident of this as I see on my Facebook news feed people sharing news which is not true for example that famous people have died and people start commenting 'RIP' even when its a hoax, is this really acceptable that everyone relies on things such as social media, Facebook,twitter, Instagram? Even the new trending application snap chat has its own cosmopolitan, this has its positives and its negatives as the app is mostly used by the younger generation,therefore it allows the young people to browse the news through the app, however how truthful exactly is the app?  Most people are trapped into believing all of the news and information on the internet is the truth. People are becoming addicted to their smart phones simply because they are easy access and everyone wants them on them all the time because they are a hypersonic way of disseminating and because they are a fashion statement people are not going into shops and buying newspapers, people are relying too much on the internet and social media.

What have you learned about your own media use and how you access new content?

Over the summer and the last few weeks, I’ve looked closely at the news after reading 'We Media' and Democracy. However, I’ve always been interested in keeping up to date with the news.

I access news easily from the News IPhone app which offers news from different news provides. I trust this app as it always seems to show official news which is accurate. For me, it mostly comes up with BBC news as that’s what I’ve favoured on the app. Receiving the news on an app is handy as you can pin it to the lock screen, meaning you can see the headlines straight away, which means I can see if I’m interested or not in that particular article.

Another way is from Facebook and Twitter. I think this way is one of the most common ways of finding out news for younger people as it’s a social media so you don’t realise that it actually gives you news. However, this comes with a danger on social media as there are always fake news articles which you must watch out for. For example, I viewed an article: http://southendnewsnetwork.com/news/prince-george-sent-home-on-first-day-of-school-for-wearing-wrong-trousers/ the other day and it was obvious it was fake. It was more humorous than truthful due to quotations they used to exaggerate the article. They often use provocative headlines as clickbait in order to reach their existing and new audiences. In my opinion I think this works on a lot of people, especially my mum who falls in this trap all the time! This article also made me share it with my friends as I found it funny, showing that the clickbait does work. This makes me wary of news articles which are on social media as they aren’t trusted compared to news providers such as the BBC.

I also receive news from the Television as in the morning, my family has it on and at night they do. This gives me a brief overview of what is happening.

The BBC is more trusted as they are publicly funded. This means the BBC tries to not be biased and show everyone’s different opinions in the news. This is shown when there is something political going on – they don’t favour a particular party. I downloaded the BBC News App and turned on my preferred news. I noticed that I'm interested in big events such as, Hurricane Irma, Brexit, Hurricane Harvey floods and North Korea. This is because, although they are quite negative subjects, which put people off of news, I think it’s still important to be informed about events like these.

For example, the natural disasters can help bring awareness to people who need help. This is also shown by people making YouTube videos about their own experiences in the recent events. This brings their usual audience (who may just watch them for entertainment) to realise what is happening. This gives normal people (Youtubers) the power to control news given to us. This means they can control the amount they share, which could make you optimistic about the information given.

Also, Brexit is something the nation voted for, so we need to be aware of the process and how it will affect us.

Furthermore, due to me doing history, I know that North Korea has an important role in today as they could start a war any moment. However, due to no one actually really having contact with North Korea, we can’t trust these sources and we should doubt the articles.  If not, we would accept a lot of what we are told by our TV stations, websites and newspapers, this is Hall’s ‘Reception Theory’ – dominant reading.  The BBC News app has a ‘Top Stories’ section which allows other news articles to be shown which I haven’t chosen. For example, the headline ‘Murray: Tennis women makes same sacrifices as men’ is shown. This headline would never catch my attention as I’m not interested in sports. In this section, it also shows things I’ve chosen, even though I’m not on ‘My News’.

As our internet learns about us through things we search and like, we begin to be surrounded by advertisements and posts which apply to us. For example, on my Facebook, promoted posts on clothing brands always come up. This is because of me look at clothing sites. This shows how your own internet can show you certain things, but maybe miss out others.

Overall, I think I always try to stick to my own way when accessing news. I prefer the BBC and my IPhone News App as it’s more reliable compared to news which is shared on Facebook. This is because news which circulates around social media networks are trying to gain views, whereas the BBC are funded to share news to inform us accurately. 

Meida Assesment - Reflecting on your research from the summer and from the BBC news app what have you learned about your own media use and how you access news content.

Reflecting on the research I did over the summer the way my generation accesses news content has been made a lot easier over the years due to advances in technology. Now you can download a app to your phone and all the content is in front of you, this links in with what Dan Gillmor predicted in 2004 when he said ‘The spreading of an item of news, or of something much larger, will occur – much more so than today- without any help from mass media as we know it. The people who’ll understand this the best are probably just being born. In the meantime, even the beginnings of this ‘shift’ are forcing all of us to adjust our assumptions and behaviour.’

Also, big media organisations have now opted for using social media as a form of spreading news around the world. As many people now use social media and the percentage of people who go out to buy a newspaper is declining. Even if people don’t have access to a social networking site the newspapers have their own websites which people can access if they want to read a breaking news story or find out more information.

Another way is that we are each other’s form of news, we are what’s called citizen journalists and by sometimes being the first at the scene of a major event we can capture videos, images or sounds that will soon be the centre of the worlds interest. An example of this would be the September 11^th twin towers disaster which shattered lives all over the world, the first footage of this was captured on peoples own personal camera phones and was the first images some people saw. A second example of this would be the London riots of 2011 but this is a different situation, at the riots there were camera crews but they had to be withdrawn due to people attacking them so then they could only really rely on camera phone footage. 

A further reason would be that as time is progressing our generation is coming into power of positions such as news producers, journalists and seems as we have grown up knowing technology constantly advancing then it is easier for us to use rather than producing papers all the time. Also, it is making things more economical as the number of newspapers being produced is reducing which means less trees have to be cut down.   

However, to contrast this it could be said that although the younger generation is now coming into power and overtaking all the important roles they are also getting mainly negative coverage in the news. Mainly if a teenager was to lose their life in mysterious circumstances then newspaper reporters and journalists would look to relate it to drug or alcohol abuse or maybe even try and make it out to be a gang related crime, they don’t often put teenagers in a positive light.

 A 2009 study supports the, ‘Hoodies or Alter Boys’ by Women in Journalism looked at how the news represented teenage boys and after scanning over 8000 news stories they found that over half of them were revolved around crime, in fact the best chance they had of being in a positive light in the news was if they passed away un a violent or tragic end. Some information I got from researching the site ‘Women in Journalism’ showed that news headlines over the years have consisted of thing such as ‘White working-class boys are turning their backs on university even if they do well enough at school, a study revealed yesterday.’ Daily Mail, 19 June 2008, seeing this instantly creates a stereotype for all white working-class boys when in reality, it may only be a percentage but the media may have exaggerated this.  

One problem with social media and online news becoming more popular is sometimes people post hoax news stories and in some cases even the big newspapers believe them and share them onto their own pages. One recent example would be when Floyd Mayweather fought Connor McGregor and there was uproar after as many people were suggesting that it was all a fix. One man posted a news story that said it had all been let out by an insider a few days before that the fight was fixed, the story then said how the insider had been found a couple of days later dead in a bin somewhere all battered and bruised. This story was obviously a hoax and the man in question was found alive and well but it was so believable that The Sun newspaper shared it to their page. This just shows how dangerous it can get if the most important news stories fall into the wrong hands.  

Also, a recent case of hoax stories would be with the Manchester arena attack. As the morning after the world was discovering what had happened parents and families desperately pleaded on Facebook to find their children and other family members, some people decided to post photos pleading but these we fake and made up which obviously would have broken the hearts of the families who would have had family members missing. Once again showing how whatever happens no matter how devastating people still take things into their own hands to upset and disrespect others in society.

Overall, I can notice that the media we use and how we access it is becoming a lot easier to view and post ourselves. Pages such as Wikipedia make it so easy to post online and you can post whatever you like, whenever you like which sometimes can mean hoax stories get published.

We Media and Democracy - What i've learnt.

We Media and Democracy - What i've learnt -

In all honesty, I already expected what the booklet would be about. With my experience on Facebook mainly and other social media apps, all I see in the comments section of official political pages are hundreds if not thousands of people arguing and fighting with each other, within literally 3 minutes of it being published. Through reading the booklet it really made me reflect on how vicious social media can be, especially when so much conflict stirs. You’ve got the idea of democracy and that people now have much more accessibility to view their opinions over the internet, and although this is what society lets people do, I think that a lot of the time it isn’t necessary. There’s no chance that Susan from Birmingham is going to influence Parliament, because of her views about privatisation. I know that’s an offbeat example but the booklet really made me sum up my opinion on that. Frankly, I don’t agree with democracy, and this is part of the reason why. People truly uneducated in politics shouldn’t have a voice in the way a country should be run, especially when these uneducated votes are in abundance. It should be left to those who have actually spent a lot of time and learnt about politics. That’s my opinion on democracy and that’s fair. News…

In terms of ‘the news’ as a whole, I do read the news. I read it on my phone on the news app that Apple iPhones already have installed. It’s similar to the BBC news app we were told to download as it gives you the ability to choose and cater your own news, so I didn’t bother downloading it as it’s the same concept. Plus, I don’t particularly like the BBC as a news outlet. I think it dominates the TV enough as it is, so I stick to my own preferences. Regardless, some categories I chose a while back were The Daily Mail, Politics, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Music. I chose more but they’re the main ones I use the most. I think the way in which news is made more accessible is liked and so popular is because it can be easily used by my generation. Everything is convenient, and the idea of technological convergence is really prominent in our lives.

I’d say I’ve read the news now for at least 6 months, I decided to take up reading it, for one I’m a media student and I knew it may be beneficial for this year’s course, and I know that personal preferences are available for us to cater. The reason I chose the Daily Mail is because I think it’s reliable. Others may not think the same but we all have preferences, and I believe it’s the must trustworthy outlet of news for my tastes. It’s like it agrees with me, and I agree with it back.

I understand the con of narrowing your news down can feed you biased news and information, but I know that my beliefs would stay the same regardless of what I read, as I’m adamant about what I think about today’s society, and I know that by being ‘more unbiased’ it would reveal to me all the conflict that has risen recently over social media (reference to my first paragraph). It’s not like I feel obliged to narrow my news down, it’s more my personal thoughts on it. It gets irritating and it annoys me!

As for the task of noting down various news stories, I didn’t particularly enjoy doing it, as I aimed to get a very varied sum of news to talk about. Not much of it was news I was interested in, so I didn’t find that useful, but it did make me learn how a lot of news stories get unnoticed. In one case, a couple in Blackpool used to shoot their children with a BB gun if they misbehaved. Child abuse is obviously no laughing matter, but it made me laugh as I saw it, because it’s such a ludicrous headline to see. This is one reason I like Apple news. It gives you stories what wouldn’t usually be seen on TV news, or ‘big news’. It offers news which I now prefer to big news, so that’s one way it’s engaged with me. However, one thing I dislike would be how some stories direct you to news companies I don’t particularly enjoy. For example, I’ve seen The Guardian appear before, when I didn’t want to read from it.

Apple news is one of two sources of news for me. The other would be Facebook. The reason I don’t trust Facebook news is because of the concept in which people share it who are gullible enough to believe it and pass it on to me. Something I do on Facebook which is a bad habit of mine is to hide sponsors and certain pages. Like I’ve mentioned, I don’t purposefully do it to narrow my news, I do it more so because it gets irritating. Fake news is clear to see, its cheap, weak, and makes me cringe. In terms of other news outlet, I don’t listen to the radio as the music is horrendous, I don’t really watch TV anymore, and newspapers can be deemed as outdated for me now.

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Apple news application - Apple news.

What I've learned learned about my own media use and how i access the news

Personally I do not keep up to date with the news very often and mainly discover news stories unintentionally through family and friends or on the internet.

However when I do find news the majority of it is online, particularly on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, where news organisations share links to their homepages. These news organisations do this in order to get an audience to visit their websites. Often a lot of these news stories were found on my timelines because they were shared by friends or a sponsored articles, rather than because I follow the new homepages themselves. I believe many of these sources are not trustworthy however as they often use clickbait in order to catch the reader’s attention and get them to visit their websites, often the story does not have much correlation to the title. This is why I no longer click on the news stories and I only tend to read the headline as I cannot trust whether the article is real and whether the article is addressing issues I want to read about. Plus these news stories can often direct you to news organisations which are unknown of so might not be reliable as they are unheard of so don’t owe the audience facts. Despite this if I am more inclined to read into the story if it’s from successful well known organisations, such as BBC News.

Often I discover breaking news stories by my family and friends talking about them. For example I found out about the recent London terror attack on the tube within school as everyone was talking about it. However different people gave me different facts therefore I wasn’t able to trust the sources. This is why I took it among myself to go on twitter to read more, it was trending at number one so I spent time reading tweets from different people and organisations to find out as much as possible about the situation.

If there is a particular news story which is significant and important then I will watch the news on the TV to educate myself what is happening. This is because news stations have to give you the correct information and give you all the knowledge that is known.

I believe media has become extremely accessible and almost impossible to avoid as it is everywhere around us. Despite this the majority of news is overlooked as we have got used to ignoring the response articles on Facebook and click past the news stations. This is because we wanted news tailored to us, so when we do discover something that interests us we take it upon ourselves to research into further using social media or google rather than reading an entire newspaper to find out none of the stories where particularly important.

We were asked to download and trial the BBC News app, surprisingly I found it very useful as I learnt a lot about what was happening around the world in a short space of time.  The app allowed me to filter the news stories down to areas that interested me, I believe this is an extremely useful function as it meant I didn’t have to waste time scrolling to find one intriguing story out of every dozen as the stories where preselected for me. I also found the news alert function useful as it meant I kept update with what was happening in the world constantly whereas before I relied on others to tell me key news.

Exam question- What have I learnt...

What have you learned about your own media use and how you access news content?

The BBC news app and the summer work we had to research and complete in the summer holidays has enticed me to look more thoroughly into the news as it has given me a stronger interest towards it and a better insight to why I should show more passion towards it . It has induced me to realise that the media is becoming more democratic.  The easy access and simple use of social media has given audiences the opportunity to share ideas globally and connect all over. This clearly can create competition and develops conflict with the mainstream media. The media is becoming democratized over time because ideas and opinions are being vastly shared globally with no guidance of the mainstream media.

An ascertainable point of the media becoming more and more democratic is audiences being able to do things with content . For example : create Youtube videos, share tweets, edit Instagram photos and consume. People in today’s generation now tend to broadcast live on networks such as Instagram and Facebook and many different other networks . Applications and social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Youtube are all being used to  share and send all different types of content virally and globally, this can be viewed as both a positive and negative thing. The author Morozov who wrote about ‘The Net Delusion’ claims that in reality people use the internet for ‘Sex, shopping and entertainment’. Some individuals will agree with Morozov that sharing content globally can be a negative thing as ‘extremist groups find it easier to spy’ and that is why there is so much trouble in the world. However, the available technology enables individuals to broadcast their views and opinions without it being edited and misinterpreted by someone else. This can be viewed as a more positive thing.

In addition to that, over the years the rise of citizen journalists has rapidly increased. Citizen journalists are people that often won’t see themselves as journalists, however what they are doing is a broadcasting thing. These are the people that are eyewitnesses at the scene and decide to film/record video footage or take photographs. The eyewitnesses often get there much more quickly before the news crews so this is why you usually see Iphone quality video footage featured on news headlines. An example of when this happened was the London riots of 2011. The video went viral, posted and shared  on a variety of different social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. Citizen Journalism clearly shows that media is becoming more democratic, as people are able to record and provide the information themselves.

In my opinion, my media use has drastically changed overtime and is continuing to do so. For example in today’s society, I only watch the 10pm news occasionally when I’m sat with my parents  before we go to bed on the TV, but this is usually around once a month, sometimes not even that . I usually keep up to date with the news via Snapchat which is a social networking app that is used to keep you up to date with the news off websites and newspaper companies such as the ‘Daily Mail’, the ‘Sun’, ‘Cosmopolitan’, The ‘Economist’, Sky News ‘ and the ‘Telegraph’. I also usually get access to the news by seeing threads of millions of tweets about the latest shocking and eye-opening news that has happened within the past 24 hours . Videos are usually uploaded onto all of the social networks by Citizen Journalists, the BBC news and SKY news twitter page. Sometimes when I’m travelling to school by car in a morning, the radio can sometimes be on in the background and that’s where I usually find out the latest, up to date news globally. However, when I was younger, I always used to find out about the latest news of celebrities and the new fashion tips via magazines like ‘OK’, ‘HI!’, ‘Girl talk’ and many more. I always read the ‘Daily mail’ and the ‘SUN’ which kept me up to date with important news around me . I never watch the news in the morning anymore , however when I was younger, it became a daily routine to sit and have my breakfast watching the news such as ‘GMTV’ on ITV. It is evident that the world has immensely and strikingly changed in such a short space of time . The globe has gone from a world revolving and relying on newspapers to now relying on the world wide web!

My Media Use

What have you learnt about your own media use and how you access news content?

Over the course of a six week period, I studied my media use by recording popular news articles I'd heard about, and what I did with the information. I also downloaded the 'BBC News' app, and used the 'My News' feature to select which news I wanted to see, as part of a homework task set upon the class.

Unlike how I believe most people my age tend to source their news, I tend to stay away from social media sites such as 'Facebook' and 'Twitter'- although I do frequently use Facebook's 'Messenger' service- and if I do happen to rarely log onto Facebook and see a news article, I wouldn't exactly be inclined to believe what I read. Instead, I source the majority of my news from television. Every evening, at 5:15pm, my favourite show is on BBC One (which is 'Pointless'), and after watching this, I will watch the 6pm news on BBC too. In fact, a lot of my news habits come from my mother, who for as long as I can remember has always insisted on watching the news on BBC, which now I understand is because they are the only popular news service who can claim to offer unbiased news. Whilst watching this, my mother and I will often discuss news articles as they're broadcasted. Furthermore, I also often get my news through listening to news programmes on the radio, on the way to school or work. The two radio stations I listen to the most happen to be BBC Radio One, and our local station, Peak FM. I generally trust Peak FM's news to be accurate, due to the fact that any news I hear through the broadcast I will generally hear again later on a BBC News program, and by the fact that I'm fairly certain there would be a scandal in North East Derbyshire if any news broadcasted by them was deemed to be inaccurate. 

The four news articles I wrote about over the summer were: Kate Middleton's third pregnancy, Hurricane Harvey and Irma, North Korea's missile tests, and the Barcelona terrorist attack. Over the summer, admittedly I tend to get a little lazy with my news watching and studying, therefore I often didn't watch news programmes, and sometimes it took me weeks to hear news other people already knew. Therefore, these four were probably the most prominent news stories I remembered actually hearing about. I trust all four of the news articles to be accurate because I heard them in BBC News broadcasts, and discussed them with a member of my family later that evening. Furthermore, I studied all of these articles in depth, by listening to the entire article, with the exception of Kate Middleton's third pregnancy, in which the headline is rather self-explanatory. 

Kate Middleton's third pregnancy, I feel, is an article barely worthy of news. However, as a nation we are particularly invested in the royal family, and so this quickly became one of the most prominent news stories for that week. In fact, I remember hearing the story frequently throughout the day, to the point where I was becoming increasingly bored of hearing about it. She already has two children, and I although I personally believe that two children is already an excessive number to have, I supposed my immediate response to the news article is that I felt happy for the royal family. As such, I belief the news article was supposed to invoke feelings of happiness in those who heard it.

Secondly, one of the most prominent news stories was of Hurricane Harvey and Irma, and their effects on all the countries affected. My mother and I kept close watch on the destruction and the support for the victims, and I believe the dominant meaning the producer intended was to encourage sympathy for those affected, in the hope that support would be given to the victims by the public. 

Thirdly, one of the scariest news articles of the summer was about North Korea's missile tests. My mother and I watched, horrified, at the news articles that detailed arguments between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, and the constant testing of missiles that seemed to be occurring from the North Korea. We also watched the Channel 4 talk show- 'The Last Leg'- which discussed how terrifying this really was, despite the fact that 'The Last Leg' is definitely not an impartial news service. However, the BBC's report on this news article certainly discouraged the fear mongering that 'The Last Leg' seemed to almost promote.

The last news article I studied was the Barcelona Terrorist Attack. My mother and I saw the article on the 6pm news on BBC One, which we then proceeded to discuss, since we have both been in the exact location the attack took place at, and the sympathy we felt for the victims. Like with the Hurricane Harvey and Irma article, I think that the dominant meaning that the producer of this article intended was to encourage sympathy for those affect, and to publicise the need for help and support from the public.

Furthermore, as class homework we had to download the 'BBC News' app and frequently check the 'My News' function; a system designed to filter news to your interests. Immediately in using it, I ran into a problem: I could only pick a limited number of news categories. For some people, I can understand why they would only want to see a very limited number of categories; news can often be depressing or things may not appeal to their interests. However, I wanted to see news all over the world, specific stories relevant to each country, as well as news which concerned my interests. I immediately found that I was unable to, and had to filter my interests in those which I deemed absolutely necessary to see. From this arose questions; do other people not receive the 'too many categories selected' warning? Why is there even an option to remove important news relevant to the world around us from the news we consume? Are my interests too broad, and instead encourage me to read more news than encouraged?
In short, my experience with the 'BBC News' app was enjoyable. I liked the news alerts, which delivered important news I otherwise might have missed due to my general ignorance of the society around us, but I'm still mildly concerned about the 'My News' function and how the public tend to use it. However, it was nice to see a severe lack of sports news.

What i've lerned learned about my own media use and how i access the news.

What I've learned about my own media usage is that there are always a way for media companies to reach a target audience on the web. This is normally worked out through website companies selling advert spaces to media companies perhaps advertising an article and using click bait in order for people to click on and read more. Typically, i find my news on here. Whether it be scrolling through Facebook or any other social media app, i always find pop ups to other websites to view their article. whether it be Unilad or Buzzfeed, Many of these titles consist of "10 weird Facts about Jennifer Lawrence (You won't believe number 10!)" The title captures the reader's attention and they get curious and so therefore scan through aimless information about Jennifer Lawrence in order to find if the 10th fact was really as important as the article said it is. By this time, they've read through the whole article and have therefore given the publisher the satisfaction of the click and also the views. It is common normally at the end of these articles that there will be a large sentence, normally a little larger than the article text that says "Share this with your friends to see what they think!"

Media typically find their target audience through cookies on the internet. With the increasing verge of Media 3.0 becoming more popular, it means that the internet is getting smarter in the sense that it is now learning about you. Although some people could argue this is an invasion of privacy, The web recommends interesting articles based on your taste

Normally when a publisher publishes an article truly absurd, they get a wide audience due to how a reader may feel towards a sensitive subject, that then urges them to share the article to their friends stating how "terrible" a situation is and so starts a chain of outraged people.


Occasionally, i search for news articles on Google when i have heard about a foreign situation by another person verbally and so i therefore search the subject in order to learn more information about a subject. An example of this would be when the tube bombings went off in London a week or so ago. Normally topics that cause hysteric and panic and directly can effect me are the stories i willingly search up and read about.

Most often, the publishers that inform the public about information and are the most prestigious are the BBC, The Daily Mirror and The Guardian. The Guardian and The Daily Mirror being two of the most read publishers online. These media companies can almost be seen to have a duty to report factual news. It has been told that it is important for the BBC to report 2 sides of a story in order to not be bias as they are funded by UK tax payers

'we media' and Democracy - Assesment 1 Spencer Graham

People can access news content through a variety of ways some of which are, Newspapers, Radio, Applications and online news websites such as the ‘Guardian online’. My news consumption is mainly done through applications on my phone, online Websites and televised news programs such as ‘sky news’ and the ‘BBC News’. The reason I get my news through a variety of sources is because with Applications (Apps) and online news websites there are cookies in place – A cookie learns what you like to view and the next time you search something it will show you links and websites it thinks that you will be interested in – which then restrict the types of news you get to view.

When I viewed politics on an online website the ‘Featured’ news that popped up the next time I viewed that website was politics based. For example, last week when I viewed an article about the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) launching a 'intermediate-range ballistic missile' over northern Japan the next day when I logged on I was shown articles of the DPRK threatening Guam which is a United States Overseas Territory this then lead to me being suggested articles about UN (United Nations) sanctions being placed upon the DPRK and the USA threatening the DPRK with “Fire and Fury” if it continued to try to aggravate allies of the US.

The news companies I get my news from are the BBC, SKY, The Guardian, Breitbart, The Independent and some Law journal news sites. As far as being impartial and un-bias, the BBC is regarded as being one of the most ‘neutral’ news outlets. This is because the BBC is funded for by the Tax payers of the UK and is expected to remain impartial to the stories it covers (not be left wing or right wing in its views). However, the government Is constantly changing from conservative to labour/other parties and this brings some problems of credibility for the BBC when reporting news. For example, if the BBC gives out a bad view on the current leader of the Labour party –  Jeremy Corbyn - then they could face backlash from the public as they will say they are being impartial whereas if they don’t give a good view on Theresa May – Current Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party – they face their funding being cut by the government.

The Guardian and the independent have a slight to moderate liberal bias.  They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. However, they are generally trustworthy in the stories they report. Their factuality is very high and most news reports that come from them can be taken seriously as you are getting the correct facts.

Breitbart are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words and publish misleading reports that omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some stories by this newspaper may be untrustworthy as a side note as of 8/17/16 Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, became Donald Trump’s campaign’s chief executive.  This move ensures that Breitbart will become the official media outlet and propaganda wing for Donald Trump’s Presidential bid and after the election 2016 Stephen Bannon was named Adviser to President-Elect Donald Trump.

The reason I have deliberately chosen to use News corporations that are either Liberal or Conservative is because it gives me a wider scope of the political views in the world and doesn’t shut me off from the opinions of the opposite political party from mine unlike what cookies do. This gives me a better picture of the world from both sides of the political line up.

The way I access these news outlets mostly is on the BBC news app on my phone but I also use the already downloaded News app that’s on all IPhones. On the BBC news app, I had to select topics that I was interested in as part of the ‘My news’ section of the app. This instantly limits the types of news that I get to see. For example, since I had selected the topic areas of: The world, UK Politics, Brexit, Scotland, Counter-Terrorism, Election 2017, and the European Union then I know I won’t be shown any sports news or news to do with the music industry. However, there is the ‘Top stories’ part of the app which shows all the top headlines at the time disregarding the topic areas I have chosen. Some of the headlines that I wouldn’t have been shown in the ‘my news’ section but have been shown in the ‘top stories’ section is; “Was a monkey really hanged in Heartlepool”, “The German school boy that was jailed for writing to the BBC” and “Schools ‘break law’ on religious education”.

Exam Question - Chloe Barlow

Reflecting on your research from the summer and from the BBC news app: What have you learned about your own media use and how you access news content?

Reflecting on my research from the summer and from the BBC news app. I have learnt that the media is becoming more democratic. This is because Big media organisations are now adapting to use social media apps. This, allows me to access news from different countries from around the world through my handheld telephone device. However, before this transformation, the headlines were only visible in only newspaper’s such as the ‘Sun’ or the ‘Daily mail.’ Although, the Sun is still the most popular print newspaper with over a million copies sold per day, it lost over 3 million purchases in 2010 and now it is over £60 million. Therefore this is evidence to support the view that most people nowadays are conducting their research on the news through apps on social media, such as the BBC news apps or even through news updates on snapchat. For instant, after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the slow decline of local newspapers was seen as perhaps one of the reasons why residents concerns have never really received the hearing that they should have. Most predict that the newspaper in its printed format will disappear over the next 30 years. Gilmore predicted ‘The spreading of an item of news, or of something much larger, will occur - much more so than today — without any help from mass media as we know it. The people who’ll understand this best are probably just being born. In the meantime, the beginnings of this ‘shift’ are forcing all of us to adjust our assumptions and behaviour.’ This indicates that, media will gradually adapt over time into something ‘much larger’ and is further evidence to the fact that eventually all newspapers will go completely online due to a lack of paper sales. 

In addition, people can now create their own media or Youtube channel’s or broadcast live on Facebook and various other platforms. This evidently means that the media is becoming more democratic, as we can now conduct our own forms of media rather than just being told the news by organisations who may have their own bias, agenda and interest in what they are showing us. The popularity of vlog’s and youtube demonstrates the changing nature of media use. Morozov, the author of ‘The Net Delusion’ argues that in reality most people use the internet for ‘sex, shopping and entertainment’ and is more sceptical of the internets ability to change the world. However, the available technology does mean that somebody can broadcast their views and ideas without them being edited or misrepresented by someone else. Therefore, we can indicate that humans use the internet for several different reasons one being entertainment and the other being for news. This suggests that people can now access news content online, which causes platforms such as Facebook and Youtube to become huge multinational companies. 

Furthermore, the rise of citizen journalists has increased. These are the people who perhaps do not even see themselves as journalists, but instead start a campaign about an issue they believe in or become an eyewitness. For example, many pictures or video footage that now get used on the news channels, are from main footage which has been filmed by people on their smartphones, who often get there before the news crews or may be a victim when something dramatic occurs. For example, the first terrifying footage from the 2001 September 11th attacks were captured by people on their personal cameras. This therefore is evidence that, as time is progressing our generation has adapted to different regimes of media, for example an increase in citizen journalism allows for us to see the footage with our own eyes, from people just like us, which gives us an accurate representation of what has gone off.

In my opinion, my media use has differed overtime, in a society which is constantly changing. For example, throughout the duration of my childhood I had access to the news through the TV. For as long as I can remember, I used to sit in-front of the TV and watch the ten o’clock news, there I used to take in what the news had to offer, in order to gain a correct representation of our society at that time. However, now I get my news through social media apps, either on my phone or through using the world wide web. For example, I have recently found out through updates on the BBC sport act that the snap general election cost approximately £140 million. Therefore, it is evident that the transformation of media has massively changed overtime, this is because we have gone from a world consisting of papers to a world consisting of internet. 

Reflecting on your research from the summer and from the BBC news app, what have you learned about your own media use and how you access the news content?

Reflecting on my summer work and acknowledging what is developing in the world today, we can see masses of progress in how we access media content in todays society. This is due to big media organisations adapting and using social media, apps and news aggregators so that news from all around the world can be accessed on our mobile phones and smart devices just through the click of a button. For example, when smart phones were not invented newspapers were the most common source of reading the news. Now there has now been a notice of a huge decline of the use of newspapers as technology has advanced. The news can now be accessed through the ‘BBC News’ app available for smart phones, so people do not need to buy or read newspapers anymore if they have it to hand whenever they want free of charge. This was a massive step for technology, as it eliminated such a traditional way of getting news to a much simpler one. 

I have the BBC news app yet I don't use it that often as I have another source of the news I find myself using Snapchat to find out the news content. This is because it is one of the apps I find myself on most, and as it only recently brought out news headlines on it you can access I use it very much now. I find it very easy to use and it informs me with the news it knows I am interested in. However, these types of social media sights used so commonly now can have their downsides. Not all of the information they provide is true. Some of it, like magazines and certain newspapers, are exaggerated or made up stories that get portrayed as the truth. Social media also now allows us to upload our own content through social media, blogger, youtube and websites. This also means that a lot of false information can be interpreted, so you have to be careful with what you read through technology and in the media. 

Another way we can see each others news is through citizen journalists. They allows us to capture our own footage of videos, pictures and sounds that can then be spread around the world. One example of this would be the 9/11 twin towers disaster which destroyed so many lives. Footage of this awful event was captured straight from peoples phones or personal cameras but was straight on the news which was then spread around the world. This does show that the media is evolving greatly to inform the whole world about events.

In conclusion, I notice that the media we use and how we can access it has become so much easier and will continue too. It had made it so easy to be able to access and view important parts of the media, and create our own sources to inform others. 

*Just to reassure you, posting here was not a mistake. I have posted here as I have been told to by Mr Pateman. * This is my answer to the following question: 

Reflecting on your research from the summer and from the BBC news app: what have you learned about your own media use and how you access news content? 

Post moved to https://russstudios.com/JoesA2Blog/2017/09/18/we-media-and-democracy on behalf of Mr Pateman.