Weekly NDM stories

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/02/infringing-websites-list-anti-piracy

This article states that taking individuals to court over piracy isn't doing much and so in 2014 there are going to be attempts to follow the revenue generated. That means focusing their efforts on piracy sites, through three main tactics: pressuring search engines to remove links to infringing files and demote piracy sites in their rankings; forcing ISPs to block their customers from accessing those sites; and trying to squeeze their flow of advertising revenues.

An Infringing Website List (IWL for short) was created to gather the URLs of piracy sites and persuade brands, media agencies and ad networks to ensure they're not advertising on them.

The IWL is the result of a three-month pilot in 2013 backed by a host of creative industry bodies – the BPI and IFPI from the music industry, FACT from software, The Publishers Association from books – as well as advertising industry bodies the IAB, ISBA and IPA.

"Disrupting the money unlawful websites make from advertising could make a real difference to the fight against copyright infringement," said creative industries minister Ed Vaizey this week. 

Not everyone agrees that it's such an excellent thing, however. The Pirate Party UK has criticised the initiative, pointing out that the IWL will not be made public, and that even if website owners find they are on it, it is unclear how they can apply to be removed.

I believe that it is a better and more effective way of dealing with piracy however, it won't prevent people trying to download things for free, they may attempt to go around these tactics and won't be prosecuted as everyones focus would mainly be on the sites as a whole and their owners who create the filesharing sites.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/01/uk-wifi-routers-internet-attacks

Millions of routers worldwide vulnerable to digital criminals, 800,000 of which are in the UK, with potential for serious disruption

As many as 24m routers across the world can be used by cybercriminals to launch massive attacks on internet infrastructure, while simultaneously disrupting home connections and costing communications companies dearly.

Research shown exclusively to the Guardian showed 800,000 of those routers are based in the UK, opening up the potential for serious disruption of the country’s data networks.

Over a single day this year, Nominum said it recorded 5bn requests for such domains. This produced 12 terabytes of traffic, which is a significant amount of data flying around the internet solely for malicious means.

Nominum said over a single day in February more than 5.3m of the routers running the feature were used to generate attack traffic in Asia. An attack in January used up 70% of an internet providers Domain Name System servers.

Essay

New and digital media offers media institutions different ways of reaching audiences.
Consider how and why media institutions are using these techniques. (48 marks)

Due to the development of technology causing an expansion in the digital media means it is easier for media institutions to reach their audiences, and are able to gain a greater understanding of what their audience want in order to reach target their audience.
There are many ways in which this has been able to happen, firstly, the internet has allowed a gateway between media institutions and their audiences, allowing them to engage on a more personal level. An example of this would be how the use of twitter allows audience feedback on certain films and television programme's, such as the X-Factor. By using the symbol '#' twitter users are able to tag a phrase with their tweet so that if a person searches this phrase their tweet, along with many others, will appear. X-Factor used this, particularly during the auditions so that users could tweet their opinions and view what other's were also thinking, by allowing their viewers to interact it means they are gaining a lot more from the programme, by giving the audience a voice it makes them feel important to the show, and what this particular show feed's off is a large amount of viewers, because a large amount of opinionated viewers means a large amount of voters.

Following on from this point is the increase in other methods of social networking and how this has had a major impact. This is down to the amount of people using social networking sites, which is mostly favored by people between classes E-B and more often than not students and young people. By being having access to social networking the media institutions can see directly who their target audience are, they have a real life profile of someone to set their aims to. This also allows a greater range of advertising, for example down the side of someone's facebook page their is a featured number of ad's, these are cleverly based around what this person researches on the internet and the pages they have previously 'liked', this is cheap and smart way of advertising in both this and the above twitter example because they are getting their audiences to advertise for them, as well as gaining all important feedback.
Fan sites are another important aspect to the digital media as it allows fans of certain films or TV shows interact with one another making them feel apart of something more than what's on a screen. A user can subscribe to individual fan sites, 'like' facebook fan pages or follow twitter pages, in some cases they can even set up their own as the internet now gives you complete easy access to do so.

Websites have become increasingly high-tech and have allowed their users to have more interaction with the film, for example I looked up the website for 'The Dark Knight' and saw good computer graphics as well as links to social networking relating back to the points on the constantly growing social networking sites.

Through the use of smart phones and 'Apps' the audience are able to completely interact with the film and have easier access to review sites in order to give or receive information on a film they may wish to watch. With websites such as BBC iPlayer and 4OD it gives the users the option to watch shows where-ever and whenever they choose with a wide selection of what the channels provide, this also gives them the ability to advertise future shows to gain more viewers, for those who don't have time to watch the television.
The audience have much more control over what they want to watch and their opinion now is highly valued by media institution, because they are the money behind the profit.

Kindle/ iTunes-why: ease of use

Online extras, e.g. Sure For Men or Scott Pilgrim vs. The World/ Prometheus- Why: Dyer: must relate to the spirit, values and ideas of the times/ increased globalisation helps the effects of viral marketing.

Furthermore, the new and digital media offer different ways of reaching audiences through synergy; it allows institutions to create online extras for its audiences. In this way they conform to the idea that they must relate to the values, ideas and spirit of the times (Dyer) and keep up with the increased globalisation helping the effects of global marketing. When the latest ‘Sure For Men’ deodorant was released, codes were placed on the bottles so that users could type this code online and play and exclusive racing game. When Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was released, an interactive trailer was produced, where the user could hover over certain parts that would give out trivial pieces of information.

New and digital media allows institutions to take part in the persistent decentralisation of the media, which is so popular it helps increase their own popularity with their audiences. In this sense, Channel 4 has created ‘estings:’ ten second idents that are designed by the channel’s audiences. This makes the channel more engaging to active audiences , and shows they are a progressive institute and not a regressive one.

Not only this, but digital media keeps institutions up-to-date with the social norms due to the rapid convergence culture that traditional media can not necessarily keep up with. This is why newspapers now have online websites without paywalls and use QR codes in their advertisements, and this use of new media helps them to compete for audiences.

This media also allows institutions to respond to audience’s need of social affiliation (Maslow) and their personal relationships (Blumler and Katz). For instance, LMFAO allowed viewer participation through a competitive format; they asked their fans to create a music video to one of their songs, as a competition. Likewise, the BBC’s Planet Earth Live’s Twitter feed and Facebook page allows viewers to express their opinions and give ideas for the names of certain animals.

E4 estings: The decentralisation of the media

Newspapers online without a paywall- keeps us with the social norms + Dyer “—“ + rapid convergence culture

Make your own video competition by LMFAO/ BBC’s Planet Earth Facebook account and Twitter feed- Social affiliation need/ personal relationship use

New and digital media offers institutions a variety of different ways to reach audience; it allows them to give audiences and ease of use for their services.

For example, the Kindle and Kindle Fire allow readers to access a variety of books without having to carry the extra weight. The same applies to iTunes, which allows thousands of tracks to be loaded onto one database. These institutions use this different way of reaching audiences to keep up with convergence of new media and therefore not appearing traditionalist and alienating its customers.