22/05/17 - Snapchat launches general election geofilter to get people to register to vote (75)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/39947864/snapchat-launches-general-election-geofilter-to-get-people-to-register-to-vote

This article is about how Snapchat has launched a new filter to try to get more people to vote in June's general election. The social media firm, which has around 10 million subscribers in the UK, has teamed up with the Electoral Commission to remind users to register before the deadline, which is on Monday 22 May. In addition, it describes the concept of the actual app and describes it as weird to the older audience due to the concept of the app; All you're doing is taking a photo, making it seem a little bit creative and then sending it to your friends and once they've seen it, it will disappear from both phones. The Snapchat filter asks users to find their voice next to a graphic of a ballot box and a pink voting slip. Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton released a Snapchat geofilter ahead of last November's US election, which allowed users to change into the candidate. The geofilter appears on all users' apps regardless of age, so teenagers are also reminded they can register before they turn 18. 

• Turnout among 18 to 24-year-olds in recent elections has tended to increase in the last decade, with less than half (43%) casting their vote in 2015, compared with 44% in 2010 and 37% in 2005.
• Almost one-third (30%) of adults under 34 not registered, compared with just four in 100 over-55s.
• More than half (51%) of Snapchat users are aged 18 to 34, according to digital market research firm Verto Analytics.

In my opinion, I believe that this with this specific filters, it will allow young people to feel more apart of the elections and therefore, it will attract more young people and make them feel more apart of the general election.Furthermore,the advertisement through social media can also play a huge factor and can be beneficial for Facebook as their revenue can show an increase. So, the fact that they are going to advertise the voting system on social media means that people who wouldn't usually pay attention to the news and want to vote, can potentially be persuaded by the advertisement and therefore may act upon it and start to vote.

22/05/17 - How many Snapchat clones does it take for Facebook to lose its self-respect? (74)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/10/snapchat-clones-facebook-copies

This article is about Facebook have been trying to copy ideas from Snapchat. Over the past year, Facebook has shown an almost monomaniacal dedication to taking on Snapchat by importing its defining features wholesale into the company’s own apps. Facebook Live has “masks” now (think Snapchat’s Lenses). Instagram has geostickers (like Snapchat’s location-aware stickers.) WhatsApp has “Status” (think Snapchat Stories). Instagram has “Stories” (think … Snapchat stories). The argument that has taken place is that whether or not Facebook have been legally allowed to add these effects to its applications and if not, have Snapchat tried to fine Facebook itself. However, the writer also included that 'even if Mark Zuckerberg isn’t directly commanding the creation of Snapchat clones, it’s clearly something he cares strongly about. In 2012, when Facebook built its first ever clone, Poke, it boasted that the app took only 12 days to create'. Practice makes perfect, clearly, because the app flopped. By 2014, Zuckerberg was spinning that Poke was “more of a joke” than a real app, telling Businessweek that “a few people built it in a hackathon thing … and then just kind of abandoned it.”

• The jokes continued, though. Later in 2014, Facebook released a second clone, Slingshot, which also died on its feet. In between, of course, the company tried a more direct approach, making a $3bn acquisition attempt which Snapchat rebuffed.
• The jokes continued, though. Later in 2014, Facebook released a second clone, Slingshot, which also died on its feet. In between, of course, the company tried a more direct approach, making a $3bn acquisition attempt which Snapchat rebuffed.
• I’ve not heard a more obvious attempt to rewrite corporate history since Microsoft refused to acknowledge the iPod in its attempt to branch out into podcasting (“The term podcast is a combination of pod (Portable On Demand) and broadcast,” it helpfully told Windows Vista users in 2009). The interview spends more time acknowledging AOL instant messenger, a 20-year-old chat program, than it does discussing Snapchat.

In my opinion, I believe that what Facebook have done is very wrong as they have been stealing different ideas from an up-coming rival of theirs. However, I also believe that if Snapchat haven't tried to complain to the government about Facebook stealing ideas, then no one else should be complaining about this. But, this is backsliding even for Facebook. When Instagram cloned Stories, in mid 2016, its chief executive Kevin Systrom did at least acknowledge that the format had been invented by his competitor, but argued that it was bound to become more universal.

22/05/17 - In Europe political attitudes to Facebook are changing (73)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/18/in-europe-political-attitudes-are-changing-to-facebook

This article is about how Facebook had been fined by the European commission for providing misleading information about data-sharing between Facebook and WhatsApp. In addition, Facebook’s main engine is its advertising business, which generates $7.86bn each quarter worldwide, with $1.9bn specifically from Europeans. The reason Facebook is so good at attracting advertising, soaking up 16% of all global digital ad revenue (Google takes 33%) – and is in the process strangling traditional media – is the sheer amount of data it holds and employs to better target ads at users. However, this article also states that Facebook is not alone in this; it is Google’s primary business model too. But it is Facebook that has caused unease in Europe, where it is perceived to be trampling over privacy laws. But this cannot be changed to some extent as these two companies are extremely large to be controlled by someone else. 

• Facebook’s €110m fine by the European commission for providing misleading information about data-sharing between Facebook and WhatsApp is just one of a growing number of regulatory battles the US social media giant is fighting.
• Facebook counts a quarter of the world’s population – 1.94bn accounts – as monthly active users, with 354m in Europe. WhatsApp has 1.2 billion users, while Facebook-owned Instagram has 700m monthly active accounts.
• Already this month the company has been fined in France (€150,0000) and Italy (€3m) over its use of personal data, although these financial penalties are a drop in the ocean for Facebook.

In my opinion, I believe that recently, Facebook have been let off way too easily. For example, Facebook has played a huge factor in fake news and taxes and I believe that if the government and others were to take actions,it would make Facebook think twice and therefore, they would be more cautious. An example is that if Facebook were trying to encourage fake news or weren't doing something about it, everyone would believe that it is Facebook's fault as they haven't taken any action for it. So, if the information commissioner was to report and fine Facebook then it would make them more aware and therefore would like to take more action.

16/05/17 - Inquiry launched into targeting of UK voters through social media (72)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/17/inquiry-launched-into-how-uk-parties-target-voters-through-social-media

This article is about how the information commissioner, of Facebook, has launched an investigation into the way UK political parties target voters through social media with a warning which if they were to send messages based on politics to others which is linked to their own data, could be a way in which they are breaking the law. Labour and the Conservatives are understood to have set aside about £1m each to spend on advertising directly to voters through Facebook. This allows them to target specific messages to groups of voters defined by data collected from their activity on the platform. Denham Elizabeth, the information commisioner said the investigation into the use of data analytics by political campaigners was a “high priority” and was intended “to uphold the rights of individuals and ensure that political campaigners and companies providing services to political parties operate within UK law”. She has assembled a dedicated team including researchers, technologists and lawyers for the inquiry, which will take several months.

• “Digital campaigning techniques help ensure that the public are informed, and will drive up democratic participation across society.” Labour did not respond to a request for comment.
• A Cambridge Analytica spokesman said: “We are in touch with the ICO and we’re happy to help them with their investigation into the entire use of data analytics in politics. Cambridge Analytica had no involvement in last year’s EU referendum.”
• However, in a note of caution, she added: “Our investigation may reveal that some of these allegations are not true and maybe there is the capability of data analytics to micro-target people but it’s actually not happening.”

In my opinion, I believe that this is a positive for both parties (Labour and Conservative  & Facebook) as they could both potentially be able to gain more votes or more users. The advertisement can be beneficial for Facebook as their revenue can show an increase. Furthermore, the fact that they are going to advertise the voting system on social media means that people who wouldn't usually pay attention to the news and want to vote, can potentially be persuaded by the advertisement and therefore may act upon it and start to vote.

16/05/17 - iPlayer catchup service will require user login within weeks, says BBC (71)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/11/iplayer-catchup-service-will-require-user-login-within-weeks-says-bbc-tv-licence-fee-evasion

This article is about how the BBC are going to require users to log in onto BBC iPlayer very soon. Users of BBC iPlayer will need to enter a password to access the online catch-up service within the next few weeks, the broadcaster has announced. In addition, the BBC denied the move was part of a crackdown on TV licence fee evasion, but said email addresses registered to an account may allow it to identify people using the service without paying.Th plans, say the BBC, include tailoring programme suggestions to users based on previous choices and will allow people to start watching a programme on one device before picking up where they left off on their television. And the changes come after rules introduced last year made watching or downloading BBC programmes through the iPlayer illegal without a TV licence.

• The introduction of a login, which was revealed last September, is part of the BBC’s plans to make services “more personal and relevant to you”, according to Andrew Scott, launch director of MyBBC.
• “So we will now use this alongside our existing enforcement techniques to help identify people who are watching licence fee-funded content without a licence.”
• From Thursday iPlayer users will be notified with a message saying they “will soon need to sign in to watch”, encouraging them to do so before the deadline in a few weeks.

In my opinion, I believe that this idea of wanting to make the BBC iPlayer the number one on-demand industry in the world is very ambitious and hard but would be very beneficial. Hall talks about wanting to make it better than Netflix and the only way I would believe that this can only become better is if they show all of the 'blockbuster' movies that are well recognised to the public audience. However, if they were to do this, there can potentially be many downsides towards this. One of them being the cost of it; the cost can increase massively and therefore, instead of making it better it can make it worse because in September 2015 the BBC said that only TV License audiences can view the iPlayer so therefore, there would be addition payments for the iPlayer and these are some of the things which the BBC would need to keep an eye out on if they are trying to make it better and number 1 in the world. Furthermore, the idea about doing the BBC worldwide is a great idea and everyone can have the access of watching British soaps etc in any country.

Section B Essay

Does your case study suggest that new and digital media have had a positive impact by offering audiences a more diverse range of values and ideologies?

Developments within new and digital media, have seen both a negative and positive impact by offering audiences a more diverse range of values and ideologies. A lot of the times, the audience discover new and dominant ideologies from social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Nowadays, the negative effects people may debate on is that we cannot trust the internet because anyone has the freedom to write whatever they wish to and therefore brings up a more recent argument, 'Fake News'.

From a Marxists perspective, many of the users online and a considerable amount of users would say that the internet is corrupt and we would believe anything that would be said. For example, recently there is a lot of talks about Fake News and to some extent it is misleading; We have weekly news articles on how Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg would talk about how they are trying to prevent this from happening but has been going on for ages. To some extent, fake news is true as anyone has the option to write whatever they would like to and all they need is a social media account and they are good to go. Theorists such as Andrew Keen mentions that "webpages and blogs are like million monkeys typing nonsense". This also gets the users thinking on how accurate the internet really is and how it isn't all a big lie. Different bloggers have their own opinions and therefore, user's may be confused on which source they would want to believe and could potentially believe in the wrong one. This brings a negative effect as users are being fed misleading information.

On the other hand, a pluralist may think that new and digital media is offering audiences a positive impact by feeding them diverse rang of values and ideologies from the use of citizen journalists and user-generated content. A lot of the time, people would say that citizen journalists aren't reliable at all considering they have the power to right whatever they want therefore this is the ideology (citizen journalists are all misleading). However, we have a more accurate reading and now believe that actually, citizen journalists are very useful as they can help the government in many different scenarios. For example with the Ian Tomlinson case. This is where a group of police officers had beaten a normal by passer which causes severe injuries which was the lead to his death. However, the police officers said that he was one of the main people who were causing the trouble, little did they know that everything that happened on that day was recorded by another member of public. Therefore, not only does it show a strong case for having citizen journalists, considering it can help out the government etc but it can also highlight the difference between what it right and wrong. So, overall citizen journalists and user-generated content can be shown as a positive as it proves the negative minded people that they shouldn't believe what others think about citizen journalists but to try and find out by themselves. Furthermore, McLuhan's 'global village' is a great concept to understand the terms of globalisation and this concept of unity within the world. However, it can also be argued that due to the rise of globalisation, there is now a lack of local journalism, therefore cultural imperialism takes over and American news for example becomes more important and significant. Due to this lack of journalism, the local news stories published become ones of mere opinion polls and ones to generate interest rather than significance.

In addition to that, Snapchat is another type of institution that has a positive effect on the audience. Snapchat has just recently come to life and many may say that Snapchat is just another useless social media site which is just a way of 'dumbing down' the world. However, recently we have seen an increase of people using it everyday with 158 million people on it. Furthermore, Snapchat has been able to find a brand new way of users communicating to each other which is via images or videos. Twitter has allowed for the creation of many communities, notably “Black Twitter” in which users challenge racial discrimination and discuss social and political issues to raise awareness. Alongside this movements have formed, a prime example of this is the BlackLivesMatter movement which has had a prominent presence on Twitter. Due to the “trending” mechanism on Twitter, more people have come across the values and ideologies of social movements such as BlackLivesMatter. Twitter has enabled audiences to therefore initiate campaigns such as 'Black Lives Matter' and therefore allows audiences to collectively aid positive images of black identity. A more recent case is the 15 year old boy, who was shot by a police officer which was filmed on officers body cameras in Texas. A lot of the time, businesses may use this app as they would believe that it is less time consuming. Therefore, this then leads to the fact of which people on the internet are not to be trusted. 

However, a Marxist would also believe that the term Americanisation from new and digital media.This is shown as a negative because of the fact that the internet shows that everyone is trying to act as an American. British people want to be more American and so forth. This also leads to the fact that the internet is dumbing down its users and hasn't done anything in which it is benefiting the audience. A key example of 'dumbing down' would be the most watched YouTube video, Gangnam Style. Furthermore, another example was when an ISIS member recorded a  beheading video which included graphic torture content which is easily accessible online, which reveals the negative impact of new and digital media, enabling extremists to showcase their ideologies. Although footage is unedited, aiding audiences with 'surveillance' (Blumler + Katz, Uses and Gratifications theory), it can also be argued that it is extremely easy to manipulate footage and an image, evidently proven by 3 British males who posted a picture on Facebook saying they were in Syria. Before new and digital media came to life, people would be more keen on looking at what the latest news is or what the weather forecast may be, but nowadays, the audience are more keen on looking at a childish video with adults dancing like a five year old.

To conclude, new and digital media has had both a negative and positive impact on the audience by giving them beliefs and values. It gives the audience a positive impact as they can possibly be that one person that could tell the whole online universe between what's right and wrong. However, the negative thing is that there are too many people on the internet that prefer to give the users misleading information (Fake News) which is a key debate on how this can be stopped. The question everyone asks themselves is that if this can actually be stopped considering the amount of users there are on the internet.

08/05/17 - Google and Facebook bring in one-fifth of global ad revenue (70)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/02/google-and-facebook-bring-in-one-fifth-of-global-ad-revenue

This article is about how Google and Facebook attracted one-fifth of global advertising spending last year, nearly double the figure of five years ago, research shows. Online advertising has overtaken television to become the world’s largest ad medium, according to data and analysis agency Zenith. Internet-only media companies are grabbing the biggest slices of the online advertising market, while traditional news publishers have fallen far behind and been forced to make cutbacks. Furthermore, digital platforms funded by internet ads dominate the top 30. Aside from Alphabet and Facebook, there are five pure internet media owners in the ranking: Baidu, Microsoft, Yahoo, Verizon and Twitter. Between them, the seven digital platforms generated $132.8bn of internet ad revenues in 2016, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all internet ad spend, and nearly one-quarter of total ad spending. Many of the companies involved in the boycott discovered their advertising spend was being used to place banner ads over YouTube videos from groups such as Britain First, indirectly funding extremists.

• Google, owned by parent company Alphabet, is by far the biggest media owner in the world and attracted $79.4bn (£61.5bn) in ad revenues in 2016, three times more than the second-largest, Facebook, which pulled in $26.9bn, according to Zenith. The previous year, Alphabet took $67.4bn of ad revenues and Facebook $17.1bn.
• Together, the two companies accounted for nearly 20% of global advertising spending last year, up from 16.3% in 2015 and 10.6% in 2012.
• Between them, the seven digital platforms generated $132.8bn of internet ad revenues in 2016, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all internet ad spend, and nearly one-quarter of total ad spending.

In my opinion, I believe that online advertising is one of the very most important reasons why companies such as Facebook and Google are doing so well. Considering they are feeding off other companies allows them to see an increase within their revenue. This is another reason why new and digital media is exceeding more than the traditional print advertising because more users have joined the online platform and therefore, have been people to advertise to. This then allows to more users clicking on the different sites and therefore, this is how these big institutions are doing so well nowadays.

08/05/17 - Facebook Live: Zuckerberg adds 3,000 moderators in wake of murders (69)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/03/facebook-live-zuckerberg-adds-3000-moderators-murders

This article is about how Facebook are going to try their best in removing broadcasting of killing and assaults by investing in people and tools to make sure it will be deleted more quickly from Facebook Live. Over the last few months, footage of shooting, murders, rapes and assaults has been streamed on Facebook, including the recent Cleveland attacks. The live broadcasts have then been viewable as recorded videos by the social network's users, often for days before being taken down. In addition, Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg, talked about "if we're going to build a safe community, we need to respond quickly (by deleting the streaming videos as soon as possible - before causing anymore damage to their users)." He also included that they're "working to make these videos easier to report so we can take the right action soon - whether that's responding quickly when someone needs help or taking a post down". Furthermore, another spokesperson from Facebook, called Sheryl Sandberg said that "keeping people sage is our top priority. We won't stop until we get it right".

• Facebook has been criticised for its lack of expediency over the removing of objectionable content. Two videos of a Thai man killing his 11-month-old daughter in April were available for 24 hours before being removed, and were viewed over 370,000 times.
• Zuckerberg said: “Over the next year, we’ll be adding 3,000 people to our community operations team around the world – on top of the 4,500 we have today – to review the millions of reports we get every week, and improve the process for doing it quickly.
• In March, a 15-year-old girl from Chicago was sexually assaulted by five or six men or boys, which was broadcast live to Facebook with at least 40 people watching. 

In my opinion, I believe that what Facebook are doing is a great thing as it would be causing their user's less harm and long term damage watching these live-streams. Whether these tools and the extra manpower will be enough to curb the rise of objectionable and extremist content on Facebook remains to be seen. Most Facebook users can simply press a button and immediately begin live broadcasting of whatever is in front of their smartphone’s camera. However, in my opinion, I believe that Facebook, itself, have left this too late as there have already been many different brutal streams which have affected many people. Therefore, my argument is that where were Facebook before all of this had started and why are they only trying to make these sorts of investments now when they already knew that they had problems.

UWL lecture notes

• Mobile witnessing
  7/7 London Bombing
  The Black Lives Matter Movement
• The death of Neda Aghal-Sultan
• Paris Attacks 2015
• Arab Uprising
  Key to symbosis between mainstream media and social media.
• Gaddafi
  Captured by a 'rebel'.
  Beaten to death, taken in a van.
• Ethical Considerations
  Invasion/Intrusion of privacy.
• 'BBC Media Action Campaign'
• Challenges for news reporters - producing content for different platforms
• Gives people a voice.
• Facebook and Buzzfeed investing in digital video content
• Breaking news on social media E.g. Hudson river crash, it was first tweeted
• Twitter hashtags make it easier to keep up with breaking news
• United Airlines, first on social media then news. Citizen journalism can lead to PR disasters
• Social media is useful for media outlets to find out what people think
• Social media has been a way to share what is going on but has led to problems with fake news + own agendas
• Terrorists - Has to have political agenda. Tube planned bombs, had no political agenda so did not refer to as terrorist

MEST3 PPE - Learner Response

1) WWW- Clearly expressed, attempting to incorporate Marxism/Pluralism.
EBI - Focus on the question and answer it. Especially Section A.

2) I did not achieve my target grade for A2 Media as I was two marks below. I my opinion, I needed at least another 10 more marks for both Section A and B to achieve a solid Grade C and almost achieving a Grade B.

3) In question one the points which I had made that were also shown on the mark scheme were the following:

• Use of narrative voice over.
• Use of interviews involving residents in New Era estate.

In question two the points which I had made that were also shown on the mark scheme were the following:

• Repetition of values, meaning that dissenting voices don't often get heard.
• Moderation of feedback by media producers.

In question three the points which I had made that were also shown on the mark scheme were the following:

• Role of the media in our everyday lives.

4) My strongest question in Section A was the first question as I had gained a mark of 5 out of 8. I believe that this was stronger than the other two as I believed that I had answered the question to the level that I was required too but the only thing which I believe that I had lacked in this question was the fact that I didn't use that many examples to back my point. If I did, I believe that I could've gained at least another 2 more marks.

5) My weakest question in Section A was the third question as I had only got a 2 within this question. The reason why I believe that I had gained this mark is because of the fact that I had misinterpreted the question and therefore my answer didn't make any sense to what the question was asking me to do. I believe that this is something which I do very commonly and just need to do more practice on similar questions in order to get it right for the real exam coming up in June.

6) The following shows how many broad areas, suggested by AQA, I answered within my answer of Section B and did so successfully:

• Historical role of media producers.
• Changing demands of audiences.
• Different situations in different mediums and on different platforms.

7)

Q1) In my opinion, I believe that this was the most strongest question that I answered in the whole exam. This was mainly due to the fact that I was enable to talk about many different situations and had mentioned things which were also listed within the mark scheme. Furthermore, I believe that I also showed a good understanding of media concepts.

Q2) I think that I gave some really good examples about this question, for example the Michael Jordan motivational speech but overall, I didn't include that many examples and didn't answer the question properly.

Q3) Considering I had only scored 2 out of 12 within this question, this was the weakest. In my opinion, I did not answer the question well at all and didn't give any good examples with this question. Even though I did give some examples, they didn't link well with the question,

Q6) At first I believe that I had answered the question very well, for example I talked about Marxist and Pluralist but slowly I didn't talk about that many examples and didn't include many theories and therefore, this is why I believe that I had dropped the marks which I did. Therefore, the thing which I could have done differently is that I could write quicker and try to add different examples even if they didn't make a great link to the question or any other texts that I had mentioned previously. 

8) Media Product One was all about motivating others and how they can make themselves better. At the beginning, the main protagonist was shown to be very stressed as he didn't have much. However, in the end, it showed that he was happy. This is linked to Blumer and Katz, uses and gratification on how this specific text is shown as a personal identity. Some audience may see themselves within the text and this could be a good motivational tip on how that audience member can get back up onto their feet and be successful. A similar text related to this is the Michael Jordan motivational speech where he would talk about his failure speech where he would talk about his failure and success. This is another example of personal identity and how failure bought success. Therefore, these two texts are good examples to encourage the audience and make them perform better.

On the other hand, in media product two, there were scenes where the main broadcaster would film himself. This tells the audience that even though they may not be professional, they can still be able to make a video and publish it online and could spread the world across. Especially with the female gender, they may believe that their word in particular may not get across but in the video, we saw three female speakers talking about the issues and no one else. Therefore, the fact we saw female speakers would encourage the female audience as they would get a sight of confidence for their gender.

Furthermore, another example of encouragement is the Tag London campaign which was run by Ill Manors (the movie) with the use of its anti-establishment ideology. The Tag London campaign was were youths had the opportunity to tweet things on social media about how they felt about the government etc. The fact that these people from the general public were allowed to do this and had the opportunity to meet new people and get their word across, allows others to do the same and would encourage others to do the same. This is all done via social media.

Ignite Presentation

Ladan

• America presidency all use Twitter.
• Increasingly influential on news agenda.
• Arab springs was a series of revolution.
• "Black Twitter".
• Citizen Journalisn/UGC.
• Crime takes place on social media.
• Echo chambers.

Abayomi

• Majority users - 13-24 years old.
• Threatens physical performances.
• Social media use to release new products.
• Pluarilsm -> become more active.
• Pareto's Law

Amrit

• Advertising through Instagram.
• Globalisation - Encourages consumerism
• Two-Step flow model.
• Privacy issues
• Political aspects

Sunny

• Reddit - mentioned Trump a lot.
• Issues raised - fake news.
• Future of politics.
• Russian hacking scandals.
• Using analytics to target audiences.

Callum

• Audience  - consumption generally the same.
• Destiny - best selling game by Activision. 
• Controversy - MW2.
• 3rd party developers
• Consumption in general is the same

Katie

• Killing off the documentary genre.
• Marxism- accessibility.
• Netflix vs ITV/BBC
• UGC
• How to distribute content to a larger audience.

Harkiran

• Audience - don't mind spending money for cinema experience.
• Youngsters figures went downhill.
• Quality could be terrible - Internet dependent.
• Largest and most successful
• MGM Produce more

Khadijah

• technological convergence
• shows typically address issues and debates
• Globalisation - expanse in product
• 70% binge watch.
• Profile system makes it more personalised.

John

• Student discount - appealing to the youth
• Mulligan 'the superstar economy'
• 40% of views come from Latin America
• Music industry grew.
• Family Subscribers.

02/05/17 - Social media firms must face heavy fines over extremist content – MPs (68)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/01/social-media-firms-should-be-fined-for-extremist-content-say-mps-google-youtube-facebook

This article is about how social media companies are putting profit before safety and should face fines of tens of millions of pounds for failing to remove extremist and hate crime material promptly from their websites, MPs have said. Referring to Google’s failure to prevent paid advertising from reputable companies appearing next to YouTube videos posted by extremists, the committee’s report said: “One of the world’s largest companies has profited from hatred and has allowed itself to be a platform from which extremists have generated revenue.” In addition to this, Facebook recently had major complaints about its recent, disturbing news which had a major effect on many people. Recently, on Facebook live, a man went viral for going around in his vehicle and killing innocent people; the problem with this was that even though that this content shouldn't be allowed to be seen online, Facebook still let the account to publish this live on air without Facebook wanting to remove it. Facebook also told MPs that it is is reviewing how it handles violent videos and other objectionable material after a video of a murder in the United States remained on its service for more than two hours.

• A thorough review is required of the legal framework controlling online hate speech, abuse and extremism to ensure that the law is up to date, the MPs conclude. “What is illegal offline should be illegal – and enforced – online.”
• In Germany, the report points out, the justice ministry has proposed imposing financial penalties of up to €50m on social media companies that are slow to remove illegal content. 
• Material encouraging child abuse and sexual images of children was also not removed, despite being reported on by journalists.

In my opinion, I believe what Facebook did was very wrong and shouldn't have happened. If they are a company which want to succeed, then they have to come up with solutions which will not get them that many complaints. In addition, considering this recent news about the Facebook Live, they need to act quicker and more sensible so that it doesn't effect or scare their audience for the long term. For example, seeing someone shot dead isn't a sight which anyone would like to see and for this reason, for Facebook to allow their users to witness this is very cruel and something needs to happen with this. Serious improvements...

02/05/17 - Google and Facebook bring in one-fifth of global ad revenue (67)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/02/google-and-facebook-bring-in-one-fifth-of-global-ad-revenue

This article is about how Google and Facebook attracted one-fifth of global advertising spending last year, nearly double the figure of five years ago, research shows. Online advertising has overtaken television to become the world’s largest ad medium, according to data and analysis agency Zenith. In addition, Internet-only media companies are grabbing the biggest slices of the online advertising market, while traditional news publishers have fallen far behind and been forced to make cutbacks. This could also lead to the reason of which why some traditional news publishers have started to leave the traditional platform and start to make themselves online such as the Daily Mirror. Despite its large share of the ad market, Google faces a growing boycott from major advertisers including the UK government, Marks & Spencer and McDonald’s, and has promised an overhaul of its advertising policies. Many of the companies involved in the boycott discovered their advertising spend was being used to place banner ads over YouTube videos from groups such as Britain First, indirectly funding extremists.

• Together, the two companies accounted for nearly 20% of global advertising spending last year, up from 16.3% in 2015 and 10.6% in 2012. The largest traditional media owner is US broadcasting and cable television company Comcast, which was third with $12.9bn in ad revenues in 2016, up from $11.5bn the year before.
• Google, owned by parent company Alphabet, is by far the biggest media owner in the world and attracted $79.4bn (£61.5bn) in ad revenues in 2016, three times more than the second-largest, Facebook, which pulled in $26.9bn, according to Zenith. The previous year, Alphabet took $67.4bn of ad revenues and Facebook $17.1bn.
• Twitter is the fastest-growing media owner, increasing ad revenue by 734% between 2012 and 2016.
• Baidu, Microsoft, Yahoo, Verizon and Twitter. Between them, the seven digital platforms generated $132.8bn of internet ad revenues in 2016, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all internet ad spend, and nearly one-quarter of total ad spending.

In my opinion, I believe that this is the great advantage as to which the online platform have over the traditional media platform (newspapers vs online). Since the majority of newspaper audiences have moved towards the online world, online companies have been thriving on the online ads. This is because businessmen know that online marketing is the best way in which someone can get their word around the public. For example, since everyone uses Google as their main search engine, many businesses would use them as a way of online advertising because they would know that many people will be able to see this advert and this is a stand out fact which online advertising has over the traditional advertising.