How Facebook Changed The World

Arab Spring Documentary:

Tunisia

First place the Arab spring accord was in Tunisia (2010)
The Arab Springs been described as the 'generation of young people corrupted'.
Tunisian people managed to take out dictation within 28 days and brought democracy into their country. Ben Ali was the dictator and he managed to role for 24 years in Tunisia.


PR campaign

Ben Ali-  Tried winning back his people by doing a speech ' I will bring democracy and plurism' and then he decided to broadcasted it on TV ( using old media) which failed due to the fact that internet over powered old media a long time ago. keeping in mind this was in 2010. Therefore internet was a fast and immediate way to pass down information.

- Ben Ali threatened the Press ( press censorship) and controls them (small group)
- however the Internet has no control hub and no one has the power to shut it down. This was the reason for Ben Ali Tragedy.


E.g. of corruption

Sidi Bozid - Friday 17th - Mohammed Buazizi set up his store to sell producers when the police randomly took everything from him and then attacked him - he then set himself on fire. surprisingly, This wasn't on TV


New/digital media

- revolution of internet being in favour Tunisian people managed to captured evidence by using their mobile phones and online live stream
- Protest videos and images went viral ( nature of New/digital media)
- This was then picked up by Al Jazeera
- People responded and reacted - copy cat demonstration.

- Using new/digital media, couple of the guys one names Slim Mahmood he managed to hack the union website - got a crowd together using Facebook and Tunisia's bloggers . Also, he used Twitter to guide and warn people about which road to take to avoid police officers. They met up in mohammed ali square to protest. Videos ( online live streaming ) within days went viral.

- Al Jazeera's new media team, which trawls the web looking for video from across the Arab world, had picked up the footage via Facebook.

- Through New/digital media and Using different techniques to connect other like minded people and stop the unwanted force.

- Their voice wouldn't be heard without New/digital media.

Facts

• 2 Million facebook users ( 1 in 5)
• 1/3 have Broadband
• 90% have mobile phones

 Would the revolution in Tunisia have happened without Facebook?

For:

Quote: ' But the reality of modern media is that Twitter and Facebook and other social-media tools can be incredibly useful for spreading the news about revolutions — because it gives everyone a voice, as founder Ev Williams has pointed out ' - http://gigaom.com/2011/01/14/was-what-happened-in-tunisia-a-twitter-revolution/

Sources: There’s no question that Twitter definitely helped to spread the information about what was happening in Tunisia, as demonstrated by the tweets and videos and other media collected by Andy Carvin at National Public Radio while the events unfolded. And at least one Tunisian revolutionary, who runs a website called Free Tunisia, told a Huffington Post blogger that social media such as Twitter — along with cellphones, text messaging and various websites — was crucial to the flow of information and helped protesters gather and plan their demonstrations

http://gigaom.com/2011/01/14/was-what-happened-in-tunisia-a-twitter-revolution/

Against :

Not Twitter, Not WikiLeaks: A Human Revolution

- This source argues that social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook wasn't the reason why Tunisia gained democracy but more on to the human revolution- debating that this happened because people lost their lives, other sacrificed and many more decided they had had enough – not because the tools of social media told them to do so but because the tools of oppression drove them to do so.

http://jilliancyork.com/2011/01/14/not-twitter-not-wikileaks-a-human-revolution/

My view on matter:
 I have no doubt that social media has helped changed Tunisia’s image in the eyes of the rest of the world; it’s the actual effect on the protests that they managed to connect together like minded people to protest against Ben Ali ( the dictator).  Although i also think that this revolution was both analog and digital as without the Internet there would be no flow of information, neither within the country nor to the outside world.

 

Egypt

The second place was Egypt, occurred in Ciaro around June 2010 and the dictator was Hosni Mubarak.

After Tunisia's revolution Eqypt had high hopes - opened opportunities out there.
People then took action and used blogs and activist started writing blogs about protesting.
In Egypt people who use blogs to protest were punished.

Example:
June 2010, 6 month after Mohammed lit himself on fire Halid Sahid was brutally killed by showing the police action online.

Facts:

• 5 million Facebook users in Egypt
• 20% of Egypt had access to the internet
• traditional Werchical - pyramid structure.  
• The internet is decentralised - there is no structure

The government under-estimated the internet- thought it wouldn't be a threat to society.
January 25th 2011 - the protest began.

Not using New/digital media- The activist sent a viral message through taxi drivers to inform those who didn't have access to the internet. and then they will pass it on to others, using techniques ( word of mouth and face to face communication ).

president Hosni Mubarak makes a speech -  On the Egyptian state TV he promised his people that there will be more democratic performs.

He then uses digital media to benefit himself - sent text to its people however, this planned also failed.

- Egyptian army was the strongest institution for the people. - US relationship with the army.

The next country was Libya and Syria

 According to this documentary, the internet has a huge part in this Arab spring revolution
e.g. to prove this is because this dictators been in power for decades.

However there were other Factors which helped this Arab spring revolution

- Economical
- Social
- Political 

Egypt had a quite educated population
Middle class youth.

NDM weekly stories

 When fiction becomes fact: can we trust the internet?

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/dec/15/fact-and-fiction-trust-and-internet

Summary of the story : This article talks about how buzzfeed been publishing fiction stories and turning them into facts. - a story written by a reality TV producer then reported as fact by an international media company  and shared frantically by those who think it's real. Because if it hadn't been real – if, unlike the alleged non-magic of the alleged non-magician, it had advertised itself as fiction – nobody would have clicked even once. It would have fallen off the bottom of the internet within a day.

BuzzFeed is a lot of things. It's a gallery of grinning dogs. It's a thousand comedy lists about the 90s. It's a scrolling advert, a comic sports site, a politics blog, a moving newspaper, and its ad revenues this year are estimated to be $40m.

key information or statistic:

• BuzzFeed’s post got almost 1.5m views
• Its advert revenues this year are estimated to be $40m

My view on the story: We don't expect every story posted by a stranger on Twitter to be true, but we do expect every story reported on by a huge media organisation to be, because that's what they're for.

Mail Online passes 10m daily browsers

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/12/mail-online-daily-users-traffic-abcs#start-of-comments

Summery of the Story: The digital juggernaut is yet to see a significant slowing in traffic growth, with more than 168 million monthly unique browsers in November after hitting 150 million for the first time in October, according to latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures for national newspaper websites published on Thursday.

Key information or statistic:

• 168 million monthly unique browsers in November
• 10 million daily average unique browsers for the first time in November.
• Daily browser numbers grew 8.29% compared to October, with monthly user numbers up 9.2%.
• The figure is more than 50% of Independent.co.uk's total monthly unique browsers in October

My view on the story: This has gone up significantly since the introduction of The Sumand the telegraph  paywall. Although a fair number of Telegraph users have migrated over to the Guardian

The virtual revolution Episode 2

The world wide web: Transformed our world as quarter of people are connected. e.g. Twitter, which developed in San Francisco in 2006. 


Facts

• Over 2 million tweets only in Iran in the time period of 2 days  
• 200,000 tweets send an hour 
• 2 Million people on-line 
• 1.2 Million documents ( secure sources) 
• 350 Million worldwide users on facebook 
• 253 million on-line just in china 
• 30 thousand policing the web in china 

Packet information: this takes a piece of information and breaks it up into little pieces and then put back together for the person receiving this info. - used as a tool for computers to talk to each other.  

Ican - no one has the power to switch the internet off.

Dates:   1957 -      Launched first space satellite

               1990's -    freely move money around the world (PayPal)

               2007 -      Russian face the riots

          May 2008 -     Earthquake in china. 70,000 people killed. 

                 2009 -     Iran face the riots 

               

Quotes from presenters  

•  ' Capture information from a crown of eye witnesses and transmit gobally in real time' Aleks 
• 'The net interpenetrates censorship as damage and wraps around it' - John Gillmore 
• '50 cent army exagerrated' - Hu Young  
• 'Internet is an open communication- Bill Gates 

Appernet : is the foundation of the internet, packet switching. 

Aleks Krotosk

• "The web seems to have set information free and we've seen that as people fight for freedom and democracy"
• "...the web is shifting power"
• "accelerating globalisation" 
• "...but its also reinventing warfare" 
• "unmediated, interactive and its mobile"
• "the web is like a tool box for protesters" 
• "weapon of revolution" 
• "works against central control" 
• "the internet cannot be turned on or off"
• "Does anyone have the power to turn it on or off?"
• "in the right or wrong hands its makes a significant difference with battles against authority"
• "anonymous users can now perform the role of investigative journalists"

NDM weekly story

Smug shots and selfies: the rise of internet self-obsession

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/06/selfies-status-updates-digital-bragging-web

Summary of the story:
In this article,2013 is the year digital bragging took over the web.This is arguably the year in which internet self-obsession reached new heights.  leading audience to wonder exactly where self-absorption has to go from here. While they.re contemplating that with horror, they thought they'd take a look at the smuggest four corners of the internet currently in existence. People gaining fame and popularity through instagram.

Key statistic or information:

• Instagram announce that it had surpassed 100m active users
•  Announced that "selfie" was to be the official word of the year
• Launched in 2012

My view on the story:
In my opinion,  I think that instagram has become part of every teenagers life, they are able to show off their style 'swag' , spending money on this specific social network. Although I think that people take it too far, for example the kardashians profile is full of pictures of them in first class on planes and in expensive cars. To me its just so lame.

The Sun has digital subscribers and soccer, but the goal is hard to see

Summary of the story:
The Bun's eagerly awaited post-paywall numbers aren't quite as revelatory as Murdoch watchers were hoping. The debate about subscription paywalls around newspaper websites often seems quasi-religious. the Sun shines, because they're saying something rather than nothing. But keep scanning, narrow-eyed
Key statistic or information:

•  117,000 readers have, one way or another, bought the Sun+ digital package, 47% of them signed up on mobile, 30% of them in the precious 25-to-34 age range. So everyone – though talking long marches.
• at £2 a week, the Bun could be drawing in £12m to £13m extra revenue that wasn't there last "free" July
• Its super goals app cost more than £10m a year

Hegemony

Web 2.0: Hegemony or participation

House prices

·         The dominant or hegemonic view is that high house prices are good.

·         Lots of coverage – with high prices almost always presented as a good thing. Mostly positive stories.

·         Stories generally presented from perspective of people who already own homes rather than those hoping to buy them – a classic example of the angle favouring the wealthy or ruling class.

·         Very little reference to the fact that house prices and risky mortgages contributed to the major economic crash in 2008.

·         Little coverage of the impossibility of buying a house for young people.

·         However, columns, blogs and comments present different opinions that contradict the dominant or hegemonic view (often written by younger people) 

1) Research the Ian Tomlinson case. What would the traditional, hegemonic view of the police be in a case like this? How did new and digital media create a different story? What does the police officer's subsequent aquittal suggest about the power of new and digital media?

Within the Ian Tomlinson case, the police are portrayed within a very negative manner as this one example of a boy getting killed by a police officer has spread throughout the media, brainwashing people and making them believe that police officers such as himself are spiteful. However, as this was not within the police's intentions to kill the boy, it was made out to look like he was. The new and digital media created a different story by favouring a death of a boy who could have been doing the wrong thing leading to a reason as to why the police officer may have hit him like he did. On the other side of the story, it is said that without the web being there to help favour the victim, the story may have never gone to court.

2) Do you agree that new and digital media challenges the traditional, dominant hegemonic views? Why?

I believe that the new and digital media does in fact alter the way people think and behave as it challenges ideologies of certain things and it puts the power of dictatorship within the audiences' hands within the media as factors such as commenting upon certain articles, videos or other aspects of the media may disagree with certain media put up for everyone to see. The comments may allow on-line wars as for example, if people disagree with something that has been posted up being a video, then more people may be encouraged to put their views across upon the video and may either get their comment reported or may either get their points across into making the video been taken off of the website.

3) What does the author argue regarding whether hegemony is being challenged by Web 2.0? 

Due to the new and digital media being a contemporary tool, we, the audience, no longer depend on 'old school' forms of media such as newspapers or magazines as they can be made and found on-line. I believe that with this new technology, unlike the older times, the audience have just as much power as the publishers allowing certain things of the media either being glorified or taken down. 

4) Use the topic you researched (royal family, NHS, immigration etc.) to provide examples of how new and digital media is used to challenge traditional or hegemonic views.

Hegemonic vs alternative ideologies of:
The Royal Family - Wealthy, big family, UK, positive impact upon society as people may aspire to be like them, Royal Wedding, Royal baby// Good for nothing, doing nothing for the UK.
Education - Bad thing as schools are seen to be failing, exam results have only gone up as exams are now easier than before// Good schools, poor schools.
Police - Good as they look out for society, people feel safe, protect the people//Violent, tragic, abusive.
NHS - UK love them due to it regularly being free unlike other countries such as the US as a lot of people within the UK are struggling to cope with bills// Slow service, keep people in the hospital for days for no reason
Politicians - Money stealing, very negative, not trusted// Great ideas, creative.
The armed forces - Heroes, go out to war fighting for the UK// Violent, killing people, going against peace.   

Essay

News Corporation ….

‘Why and with what success are traditional media institutions adapting to the challenge posed by new/digital media?'

Introduction : As new/digital media is constantly developing, this has meant that the audience have more power in terms of creating their own view and values. New/digital media refers to content that is available for audience to access anywhere (for example, on mobile phones, tablets etc.) which increases interaction within consumers and interaction between audience and their producers. For example Facebook (owned by Rubert Murdoch), which is meant that audience can communicate with a diverse range of people. However, negative side is that bullying over these social networking has increased and have not much regulation. Murdock owns many media companies as well as varies newspapers all over the world for example News Corp- the sun which is the biggest selling paper in the UK. 

Paragraph 1: On the other hand, traditional media, in particular, newspapers and magazines must conform to its evolution by converging their products in order to function successfully in today’s developing technological society. Print institutions must now not only compete with others of their own industry, but also those of new media, ensuring audiences can access their products in a variety of way as they have the ability to with new media. Large newspaper and magazine corporations with wide mainstream audiences must be aware of the ways in which globalisation is effecting how we consume the media and must positively respond and adapt to these changes to maintain audience’s interest and engagement in the face of the more innovative new media developments they want to explore.

Paragraph 2: Secondly, UGC has also played a major role in empowerment of audiences.This makes audiences no longer passive, in fact they are more actively taking part in the creation of media. The sharing between audiences and producers has allowed UGC to take place which can be done on social networking sites like YouTube, MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. According to Sherry Turkle social networking sites have isolated us from ‘real human interactions in a cyber-reality that is poor imitation of the real world.' However, it also raises concerns over the regulations by the gatekeepers. There is less censorship over the content produced by citizen journalists which means that the information provided can be invalidated at times. This shows that the audiences are empowered by these developments but to a certain extent

Paragraph 3: Moreover,  in the past , New & digital media has allowed audiences to form protests or even organise extreme violent events such as the London riots 2011, in which the youth were interacting on services such as the BBM, Facebook or Twitter and arranged to take part in it. This could be linked to the empowerment of the audiences as they took control of the situation through the advantage of social networking sites where they were able to gather large number of people in a short amount of time. According to the users and gratification theory( Blumler and Katz)  we could argue that audiences find ways of social interaction, Entertainment and Information where they acquire information from different sources and people. This concludes that audiences are empowered by these developments to a great extent.

Paragraph 4: Furthermore,  with the development of technologies such as social networking sites, blogs, phone applications, 24 hour news channels etc. audiences are can now freely access information ‘on the go’ and in real time with such advancements having a huge impact on the role of the consumer and the active interaction they now play in the media. However, this poses a threatening challenge to the future of print publications. According to The Nielson Company, global consumers spend more than five and a half hours a day on social networking sites, a worrying statistic for traditional institutions as with the rapid speed at which information can be shared on these sites from user to user, and the lack of censorship involved (giving audiences a wider variety of news as there is no restrictions on what stories can be published), there seems less demand for newspapers and magazines as a source of information, raising the question of whether due to the freedom new media gives to audiences, traditional print newspapers and magazines will no longer be needed, used or even wanted by them at all. As a result, it can be argued that traditional media institutions have no choice but to adapt to new and digital media so as to maintain profit and not run the risk of losing their audiences to more exciting and innovative ideas and concepts of consuming the media.

Paragraph 5:  But traditional media is adapting to this challenge successfully. In November 1994, The Daily Telegraph claimed to be the first national online newspaper and was free for users to access, instantly creating an extra source of information that audiences could turn to, fulfilling their desire to engage in new media whilst simultaneously providing them news from a reliable institution that they trust and are loyal to. The success of this adaption can be seen through the websites growing variety of features, including articles from the print edition of the newspaper as well as exclusive web only content and immediate breaking news, picture galleries, videos and more recently the blog known as “My Telegraph,” allowing the audience an increasing sense of control within the media and giving rise to citizen journalism, acknowledging the freedom new media gives audiences. The Telegraph now even offers phone applications, fashion advice and even an online dating service showing just how much effect new media has had on these types of institutions, challenging them to keep on top of its developments by offering more than just simple news converge to absolutely ensure audience interest and satisfaction. 

Conclusion : However, despite the success in adapting to new media that this traditional institution has achieved, questions can be raised over the profit that is actually made from the changes. In this case, all online content from The Daily Telegraph is available for free so this institution must rely on advertisements to fund the website, a seemingly capable way to tackle the problem. However, for some newspaper institutions this could result in a loss, exemplified by Rupert Murdoch who would lose £57 million without charging for online content of The Times and The Sunday Times through the use of a paywall. Furthermore, to view the special “E-Paper” for The Times, a paid subscription must be made whereas for The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Daily Mail, this content is free. This then results in competition between newspaper institutions as well as with institutions such as the BBC whose content is always free, questioning the success of the changes traditional media have made and whether they will ever be able to compete with new and digital media

NDM weekly story

Universities should use Twitter to engage with students 

http://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2013/nov/22/universities-twitter-engage-with-students

Summary of the story: This article is about how universities wants to engage with their students via social media such as Twitter. They argue that twitter would help gain more knowledge, as they will be debating about issues and be able to ask questions and have conversations. Also, Twitter is a  fast way to pass information esp by using hashtags and reach students quickly. 

The article states ' Questioning and debating teaches us to think critically – a key skill no matter what you're studying – and online debate is a way to develop these skills. Hashtags create online communities where you can discuss a topic with your peers.' - 

key information/ statistics : 

•  According to recent research, 75% of students in Europe admit to using Twitter "all the time". 42% of under 20-year-olds use social media mainly to "stay up to date"

My view on the story:  Although i think this is a great idea, but not sure that I see the point of this. Universities all use online learning platforms, which can be used to share content and set up discussion boards and other mechanisms for questions, conversations and engagement.

Yes, this wouldn't just be part of students' everyday social-media use, and they'd have to make the effort of logging onto the system. 

Mr Paton, put up this paywall: a Gorbachev moment for news

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/24/paton-paywall-gorbachev-moment-news

Summary of the story: In this article, John Parton wants to introduce charging, have paywalls around almost every newspaper locale and national. This from his nation's leading apostle of "digital first", the prophet of free news access on the net has come to an end. "We believe an all-access print-digital subscription initiative is necessary to buy us that proverbial gas in the tank. With the rise of digital and the fall of print, we're at the point where we can launch".
  key information/ statistics :

•  The proportion of US papers putting a paywall into place is now above 40% and is still rising. 

• Mail Online revenue was up 48%, moving from £13m to £28m to £41m in successive years as unique visitor totals soared 

•  Mail and Mail on Sunday print revenues went down by 5% overall, another £28m gone.

My view on the story:

In my opinion, i think that news should be free for all to access due to the fact that its one of the basic human right, people need to know what is going on around them however i am aware that business wont be able to make profit and all their hard work will not be rewarded.