New and Digital Media: End of Unit

Plan

Paragraph 1 - Benefits of the internet. 

• Many benefits such as online shopping and banking
• Helps get in contact with old friends through social networking sites
• Helps gather information regarding history 
• Easy access to the news
• Easy access to research
• Watch movies and music videos online (on-demand)
• Set up businesses (Ebay, Amazon) 
• Can help people on political sides - Arab Spring
• Could store personal information on the Cloud. 

Paragraph 2 - Problems attached to the internet

• Become liable to internet fraud
• Easy for someone to find you
• Could be difficult for someone older to use
• Not enough restrictions for children, easy access to explicit sites
• Person could become easily confused through ad's that pop up
• Internet killing culture
• Easy to make up information on the Internet
• Many may see problems with online privacy 

Paragraph 3 - Theorists regarding New & Digital media. 

• Hegemony in New & Digital Media 
• Pareto's Law - Minority of media producers always serve a majority of consumers. 
• Andrew Keen - How today's media is killing our culture
• Sherry Turkle - Alone Together 

Paragraph 4 - Own opinion

How the Internet has been a revolution, has helped many people and became the foreground to new and digital media, "The most important medium of the twentieth century" (Briggs & Burke). 

Concerns about technology have been on-going throughout the years, but there has always been concerns in terms of new technology, many people still have problems with regards to new and digital media. As people get older, they begin to disregard new technology and do not use it as much. This may be due to a fear within people in regards with new technology and they do not use it as much as young people do. New and Digital media is an idea that change is being brought into the landscape of media for example social networking sites such as Facebook & Twitter. 

Due to the revolutionary creation of the Internet, there are many benefits of the Internet. Benefits that can help on day to day experiences and could potentially help things become easier. Things such as online shopping, online shopping helps internet users buy things online and then receive them through the post, this also helps the producer as it allows people to set up their own personal businesses for example websites such as ‘EBay’ and ‘Amazon’. This is seen as very helpful to individuals as it lets them buy things cheaper online and have them delivered to their own doorstep. The internet could also be used to bring justice to an individual for example the ‘Ian Tomlinson’ case, due to the video going viral, the police officer was summoned to court and new and digital media gave a case for the defence to fight, it also shows how the internet through new and digital has power to even go to the crown court and try and get justice for one person. Furthermore, online petitions have also come into play with the introduction of the internet, over the past few years people have been using online petitions which has helped them fight against something they see unjustified. Recently in the American comedy show; ‘Family Guy’, Seth Macfarlene choose to get rid of an important character, Brian Griffin, Brian was killed off in a road accident and Seth Macfarlene received major backlash on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, thus resulting into people signing an online petition for the return of Brian Griffin, and by successfully doing so, Brian Griffin returned as a character on the hit comedy show Family Guy, thus proving that even though they may be concerns about new technology, it can be a major benefit for the majority of the public.

On the contrary though, every good thing has a bad side and this could also be in the case of the Internet, there is many problems attached to the internet, from becoming a victim for internet fraud, to becoming a victim to an internet joke. Recently, Microsoft introduced its latest instalment in the Xbox generation, the Xbox One was released and people were told that you are not able to play Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One, but some people played a prank on Twitter and put a picture up that showed a way where your Xbox One would let you play Xbox 360 games, and all you would have to do is follow the recommended steps but this would go on to destroy your console with the effects being permanent. This could be seen as one of the many problems with the internet. Another problem could be with the easy access to Pornography and the access to Child Pornography too, recently Ian Watkins was jailed for 35 years due to his access of Child Pornography and the easy access he had to this proves one of the major problems with the internet.

The hegemonic view on new and digital media, is that it is an improvement and it is a good thing, there are many benefits regarding the internet, many benefits such as helping get in contact with old friends through social networking sites to having easy access to the news, and hegemony shows that new and digital media has power, power to make a difference, as proven before it took a viral video to the crown court, and New and digital media alters the way people behave and challenges ideologies of certain things and it puts the power of dictatorship to the audiences hands. It allows people to comment on videos or articles that they agree or do not agree with. The comments allow on-line users to show their views and people can be encouraged to get their views across. However Andrew Keen who wrote ‘How today’s media is killing our culture’ spoke about how the internet has resulted into people losing social lives, and their addiction to the internet is worrying, recently many people became addicted to the game Candy Crush Saga and people becoming addicted to online games such as World of War Craft.

The Internet has been a revolution and has helped many people over the years, it is also the foreground to new and digital media, Briggs and Burke said that the internet is “The most important medium of the twentieth century” It has made a lot of difference throughout the years and even though it has many negatives in my opinion, I believe that the internet and new and digital media has become a revolutionary concept and reformed how we see things nowadays, we now have easy access to on demand news and everything is on demand for us, the internet helps us have easy access to our bank accounts and even lets us store personal information on the Cloud, so even though people have concerns about the internet, I still believe that the positives overcome the negatives. 

New & Digital Media : Week 2

http://metro.co.uk/2013/12/16/brian-griffin-back-from-the-dead-on-family-guy-after-stewie-comes-to-the-rescue-4232138/

Brian Griffin returns 

A few weeks ago Seth Macfarlene choose to get rid of an important character in his hit comedy show 'Family Guy', and Brian was killed off in a road accident and was quickly replaced by a new dog called Vincent, ironically the smart baby Stewie also destroyed his time machine in that very episode so it stopped him from going back in time to save Brian, this however received major backlash on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook and resulted people into signing an online petition for the return of Brian Griffin, by doing so, Seth Macfarlene brought Brian Griffin back to life and to stop more backlash quoted that he would never kill of Brian Griffin

New and Digital Media - Week 1

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/vi

deo-games/video-game-news/10505273/Xbox-owners-tricked-into-destroying-consoles.html

Xbox owners tricked into destroying old consles 

This story talks is about the new Xbox one and link between the Xbox one and the Xbox 360, as you are able to link your xbox's together via a hdmi cable, you may play 360 games on your Xbox one but they cannot be interested into the Xbox one and must be inserted into the 360 instead. A prank was then played that said that you may make your xbox one compatible for 360 games all you would have to do was follow the recommended steps but this would go on to destroy your console with the effects being permanent.

My view on the story is that people shouldn't have believed what they saw, Microsoft on many occasions said that you cannot play games from your 360 on your Xbox one but they would find a way which would make it easier for you to switch, which they did, even though it's not the easiest thing to figure out, it's still better than destroying your new Xbox, as seen from the prank that was played on iPhone users saying that ios7 makes your phone waterproof, many shouldn't believe what they read unless it has been announced by Mircosoft and has been tested, it should also be common sense to one that if the developers have already said that it's not compatible, then there is nothing you can do to make it work. 

Hegemony in New & Digital Media

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?

The hegemonic view of the police before the video was shown would be that a police officer was just doing his job and protecting society from disorder which Ian Tomlinson was apparently creating, the police officer would have been as just doing his job, he did all he could do in his power to make the G20 summit as peaceful as possible as that was his job and no one would have said anything to him, but new and digital media showed him out to be a criminal and proved that he should be charged for his actions, Ian was just standing there and minding his own business and when although it was obvious he was not protesting, but Ian Tomlinson was drunk. This video went viral and new and digital media gave a case for the defence to fight, it also shows that new and digital media does have power, as this took a case all the way to crown court.

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

New and digital media alters the way people behave and challenges ideologies of certain things and it puts the power of dictatorship to the audiences hands. it allows people to comment on videos or articles that they agree or do not agree with. The comments allow on-line users to show there views and people can be encouraged to get their views across. 

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

Post-Colonialism

Rick Dewsbury's article on the opening ceremony of the Olympics is a biased and ridiculous argument. He slants the NHS for not doing their job correctly and puts the blame of a death on their hands. This argument is unfair on the whole institution of the NHS, the mistake of one hospital does not represent the whole NHS, the attack should only be for a minority of the NHS not the majority. Even though there is no forgiving what that hospital did, in my opinion the hospital should be slated.

Yasmin (2004)

Does it offer a positive or negative representation of British Muslims ? 

'Yasmin' gives us a different stereotype to our usual one concerning Muslims, when we hear about Muslims or see a movie about Muslims, we are usually infiltrated with a stereotype that shows a Muslim or Asian character as a terrorist or violent, which is far from what we see in the opening scenes of Yasmin. In Yasmin, we see four Muslim characters, one being Yasmin herself. The opening scenes give us an awkward but positive regarding British Muslims. The four characters we see are in no way shown as violent to us. We see abuse written on the shutters of the mosque and the character is cleaning it instead of acting violently against it. The women we see who is Yasmin is just shown as a normal British citizen who goes work and we actually see her as peaceful, her job is helping disabled children and even when she is stopped by police officers she is still very calm and collective. Their is no abuse from her and she peacefully hands her documents over and answers all the questions asked by the police officers so the overall representation of British Muslims is seen as positive, even though it may be too early in the narrative to give an answer about how they actually are, from what we have seen I can say that the British Muslims are shown as positive, they are normal working citizens who do not get into a lot of trouble, nevertheless, Yasmin herself is shown to have two different lives, her work colleague who she could potentially be in a relationship with does not know she is married as we see her getting changed in a graveyard which could portray her desire to actually be a White British citizen rather than a British Muslim.

Hegemony

• Immigration

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10445585/Labour-made-a-spectacular-mistake-on-immigration-admits-Jack-Straw.html

Jack Straw has admitted that opening Britain's borders to Eastern European migrants was a "spectacular mistake".

The former Labour Home Secretary said his party's decision to allow migrants from Poland and Hungary to work in Britain from 2004 was a ‘"well-intentioned policy we messed up".

It comes a day after David Blunkett, Mr Straw's successor as Home secretary, warned British cities could face riots as an influx of Roma migrants creates "frictions" with local people.

The last Labour government predicted that only 13,000 would move to Britain from Poland and other eastern European countries after 2004.

However, more than one million arrived in one of the biggest waves of immigration seen in this country.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10445883/Eric-Pickles-Immigrants-must-learn-English.html

The English language is continually evolving. Just the other day I had to Google what on earth ‘twerking’ meant. This year the Oxford dictionary added the equivalent of one new word a week. If we struggle to keep up with our new lexicon, just imagine what it’s like for those who have only the most basic understanding of our language. Learning English is as enterprising as it is essential. That is why we have put £6 million into innovative programmes that will teach the joys of the English language.

Language is more than just the verbal act. It is knowing the difference between the green and red milk tops. It is knowing which bus will get you to work quickest. When English is your mother tongue, it’s easy to take it for granted what a gift it is. Have you ever tried out your rusty GCSE French in a little provincial French café? You pluck up the courage to order your croque monsieur in your best accent, only to feel scowled at by the impatient waiter, who has another six tourists to serve. If you’ve ever felt a tiny bit of that embarrassment, then you will understand what it’s like for immigrants in the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24858574

Only 1.5% of reports alleging illegal immigration result in a person being removed from the UK, MPs have said.

The Home Affairs Committee also said the now-defunct UK Border Agency had a backlog of 432,029 immigration and asylum cases when it was scrapped at the end of March.

Its chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, urged the coalition to take "effective action" to amend a "poor record".

The government responded that it was "getting tough" on illegal immigration.

The committee looked at the allegations database set up by the UKBA to follow up tip-offs by the public. It replaced a system where allegations and removals were held separately.

It revealed that about 6% of claims had led to an investigation and 1.5% had resulted in removals.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24755547

Eleven immigrants left UK after seeing 'go home' van adverts

Eleven illegal migrants left the UK as a result of seeing vans with the message "go home or face arrest", the Home Office has claimed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2506888/Immigration-talk-race-riots-ministers-claim-havent-warned-STEPHEN-GLOVER.html

Anyone who relies on the BBC for news will probably be unaware that earlier this week a well-known politician uttered some of the most extraordinary remarks about immigration that have been made by a national figure in living memory.

But the politician who warned that ‘tensions’ between local people and Roma migrants could escalate into rioting unless action is taken was not from the far-Right, Ukip or even the Tory Party. No, these comments were made by David Blunkett, a former Labour Home Secretary and a very moderate man.

Ironically, in view of the fact that the BBC in London has virtually ignored the story, Mr Blunkett had originally confided his fears to BBC Sheffield, the city where he is an MP. He called on the Roma community in the Page Hall area of Sheffield to change aspects of their ‘behaviour’, such as congregating on the streets on summer evenings and dumping litter. These activities, he said, are ‘aggravating’ local people.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2500296/Britains-attitude-immigration-grotesque-hypocritical.html

Britain’s attitude to immigration is ‘grotesque and hypocritical,’ claims Calais politician who says town is approaching Sangatte-style crisis  

• Deputy mayor of Calais Philippe Mignonet made the remarks
• An estimated 400 migrants are currently living in dilapidated buildings or camping out in Calais
• Last month mayor Natacha Bouchart appealed to citizens to report new squats to the police

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/442169/Flood-of-immigrants-make-township-ghettos-out-of-Britain-s-seasides

Tory Paul Carter, who leads Kent County Council, says the rising number of migrants in towns from Clacton in Essex, to Margate in Kent and Eastbourne in East Sussex is putting huge pressure on health and other public services.

In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express Mr Carter added: “The pressure is growing in coastal communities. I think we need government to give us help in these townships in some wards.

“We are getting a concentration of vulnerable people of variable ethnicity creating a lot of pressures on public services of all different types.”

The council is currently preparing a report which will call on David Cameron to demand a radical approach to the problem in towns such as Margate, where up to 3,000 Romas have set up homes in cheap low quality private housing or been given council flats.

Mr Carter revealed: “We will ask the government to stop the inward migration of vulnerable and troubled families out of London or abroad into these communities so we can start to lift them and reverse the trend of potentially building bigger ghettoes.”